Safetygate: How One Weird Blog Post Changed Ludington History

[XLFD]

An offbeat post by one of our former members made in the middle of the night a month ago led to some drastic measures and decision making by a variety of local officials and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.  The end result was a move designed to make our kids safe, but was even more offbeat than the original post.  Here is the story of those events with documentation and analysis.

Background

On May 5th, 2014 the Ludington City Council had their regular meeting and noted that the next meeting was to accommodate the Foster 3rd Graders who have traditionally been coming into the city hall to learn about city politics in May of the last few years.  The meeting schedule at the beginning of the year had the meeting to commence at 1:00 PM on May 19 and all of that was noted on this website in my usual recap of city council meetings:  May 5 Meeting: Proud to Serve

Then, for some unspecified reason, the city clerk notified the news outlets on or about Wednesday May 14 that the meeting had been moved to the usual time, 6:30 PM, without any mention of why it was occurring.   Nothing was released regarding whether the kids would be able to attend a meeting.  The meeting went ahead as scheduled and I began my public comment with a statement about the issue: 

"I have to admit some disappointment that the matinee session of the city council originally planned for 1:00 today was cancelled, because I had five minutes prepared for the Foster student’s civic enrichment on principles not taught often enough in schools.  I don't know why it was pushed back and the children were left behind, but I hope the two educators that have been elected to public office, one retired, can continue that tradition of inviting the youngsters in future years to foster the spirit of civil engagement in our youth."

I then proceeded to comment on public policy and the officials that run them, as seen and written in the May 19 Meeting thread.  Nothing was said about the move for the rest of the meeting, nor was it ever commented on at all, speculatively or not, in the local media.  This aroused my suspicions, so I made a FOIA request to Andrea Large, the superintendent of the Ludington Area School District (LASD), a public institution required to respond.  I requested correspondence between the school and Ludington officials (and between school personnel) as to why the school was not able to appear at the originally scheduled date.  The results were most interesting, they revolved around a post made by John Streeter early on May 8.

The Post

Streeter had been on the Ludington Torch for awhile, but had only started posting regularly since some of the hubbub with the MSP shooting of William Marble transpired.  His own 'activism' was inspired by an incident that he related on the Torch regarding the use of a Mason County Sheriff's Office SERT team in his neck of the woods late last year, where they allegedly took several liberties while denying other people their own.  Streeter had a knack of posting several small replies at a time, sometimes confusing in nature.  But at about 3 AM on May 8 he began (as seen here:  RottasBlogonChildrenAttendingCouncilMeeting-2%20%281%29.pdf) :

"After being thoroughly frisked and ran through metal detectors...

Over the next couple days, the posting had received pans from the Torch regulars as being obtuse and over-the-top, even by Streeter's usual standards, and the fallout was that Streeter left the Ludington Torch on his own volition on May 11.  I took it as mostly metaphorical in context, perhaps inspired by tiredness or the pain-medication Streeter admitted to using.   It reminded me of how Robin Williams used to come across when he was on talk shows:

But my assessment was mostly muted by the fact that I seen nothing entirely objectionable in the writing (beyond the hypothetical question about the mayor shooting kids), because I assigned no ill-motive to the writer.  The comment about the mayor (first highlight) was more of an indictment that he was effectively a police officer while serving as a mayor and an educator, and reflected the author's bias against the unreasonable uses of force by local police agencies.  These incidences are well documented here at the Torch (search under Warmuskerken, Davila, Wilson, Sailor, and Luttrull). 

Mayor Cox can legally carry a concealed weapon wherever a regular police officer can, and has no legal restriction publicly documented for its use, since Ludington Reserve Officers are not legally defined in any way, except by the current chief.  Conceivably, Cox could draw his Glock on a speaker when they go over the five minutes at a meeting and show the real power of being a reserve to his boss.  In a county that allows police reserve officers to exist without any legislative definitions or rules, and allows a MSP officer to shoot an innocent man in his own home without repercussions, almost anything is imaginable. 

The second highlighted area reflects a common conception of local governments that continually ask for more and more and give back less and less (robbed), the expansion of crimes and enforcement actions (arrested), sanction the killing of a citizen by an official without repercussions (murdered, as in the Marble fiasco), and to seize and carry off by force, plunder and pillage which define the raped, which can describe what they have systematically done to the taxpayers over the years, and to Joe McAdam on a July 2009 night.  Streeter's words are just flowery rhetoric telling us how tyrannical government is becoming.

But perhaps I am too jaded and permissive, because others in the halls of power looked at Streeter's words and saw more to them than I did.  And they did a classical overreaction, much like what the City of Ludington did when I put the labels of 'corruption' and 'unethical behavior' on the actions of current Councilor Nick Tykoski and his wife Heather when his company got the money for signage without a competitive bidding process taking place, with cronyism and nepotism obviously taking place.  But they decided this time not to punish the adult involved, just punish the kids of Foster's third grade.

The Written Record

About six hours later, the posting got the attention of the commander of the Michigan State Police (Hart post) Kevin Leavitt.  He assigned it to a level of emergency status by saying the third grade kids were scheduled that day to visit the city hall (when in fact it was still 11 days away), and that the kids could be potentially shot (by the mayor?!) and raped (by the council?!). 

Larry Dyksterhouse is a MSP member of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force; Leavitt apparently thought the post was threatening and may have amounted to a terrorism threat.   "The Detroit Joint Terrorism Task Force brings together representatives of 40 local, state, and federal agencies to run down any and all terrorism leads, develop and investigate cases, provide support for special events, and proactively identify threats that may impact the area and the nation."

Fortunately, the result didn't lead to a no-knock raid with shooting, raping, murdering, robbing, or arresting on my behalf or Streeter's behalf:

  

A lot of stuff is disquieting about this response, however, even though it's admitted as free speech and does not warrant further action.  Even though it is filled with hyperbole, I see nothing slanderous in the ranting.  I do not see how the three videos in the thread and its responses show any connection to the chief:  one was a video of the meeting, one was about public servants received better pay than private ones, and one showed the corrupted city of Bell California. 

Furthermore, I don't see how this post could be 'probable cause' for any illicit activity; Streeter is not advocating anything, he is more antithetical to what the government has allowed to persist here.  Our mayor is also a policeman in contrary to law; our government is allowing itself to take undue liberties at our expense.  That's why he assigns those actions to the officials and  government that has already committed them in one form or another, Larry.  That LOL is nervous laughing out loud over what our officials are allowed, because of the lack of accountability to their office and their oath.  MSP's F/Lt. Leavitt then sends the response, the thread, and his original query to Chief Barnett 

Chief Barnett checks it out and sends everything to his LPD Captain Harrie and Ludington City Manager John Shay:

It doesn't get acted on until the next day's lunch hour, with Shay sending the materials to Andrea Large, the new superintendent of LASD, with copies sent to the chief, Asst. CM Steckel, Mayor Ryan Cox, and Councilor Castonia (the current Public Safety Committee chairman for Ludington):

Superintendent Large sends it to Foster School Principal Mike Ritter, he thanks her for the data the following Monday: 

According to the records of the Ludington Torch, Streeter left the site voluntarily on May 11, though it is unclear as to whether there was any actions made by any of the local agencies to persuade him to do this.  More likely, he was getting more flak from me for being verbally combative to other Torch members, and did so by his own volition.  Nevertheless, the next day CM Shay sent all members an update indicating there was to be no change of the regularly scheduled meeting, but there was to be a change in the meetings security: 

The extra officers concession did not alleviate enough of the fears of this one odd website posting that indicated violence and lawless activity by city officials, and had come up with an alternative plan for the kid's safety:

And over two weeks after the rescheduled meeting that was held the night of May 19, the kids looked at an edited recording of that May 19th meeting on June 4, hosted by John Shay with serial tickler Chief Barnett, the City Clerk and other high paid officials showing they are not such bad ogres as John Streeter and that guy from Dowland Street portray them to be. 

According to my source nested in the Foster Third Grade audience, they had me introduce myself and then bypassed the five minutes I had talked at the original meeting to get to the real matters of public policy-- unanimously passing ordinances, resolutions and contracts without much explanation to the public.  The third graders learned the valuable lesson that watching the city council meeting on TV, appropriately edited, is much safer than having them attend a real open meeting. 

The Conclusion

A post by John Streeter made to symbolize the unaccountable authority present in the Ludington City Hall, including references to factual instances of impropriety by officials, and what they could do with that unrefined power in the future, showed the foolishness of several officials.

The MSP Hart Post Lieutenant Kevin Leavitt who thought the post amounted to a terrorist threat and wasted the resources of...

D. Sgt. Lawrence Dyksterhouse and an IA who interpreted the post and related videos as some sort of probable cause to convict Streeter of some kind of crime by displacing the actions he purported to officials illogically back to him.  His reasoning seemed rational to...

Ludington Police Chief Mark Barnett who thought it worth sharing to his right hand man and the only person in Ludington with more power by charter than him...

City Manager John Shay who repeatedly contacted the schools and made this oblique post an issue of public safety, and agreed to a separate, safer meeting so as to 'Tom block' (using Streeter lingo) the kids away from dangerous notions, so that...

LASD Superintendent Andrea Large and Foster Principal Michael Ritter could say they provided a civics lesson on attending a city council meeting by watching one on TV with incontrovertible narration of what's happening by the friendly City Manager, and less trouble by dissenting citizens, which likely by their reckoning should stay away from such meetings so the kind and caring public officials can pass their laws to make this a greater place for all.

 

Unfortunately, this is not what happens in practice.  Come tomorrow, the city officials will be once again abusing their authority and avoiding ethical behavior, in contrast to their duties to the public, and I will once again be pointing it out.  They can make a video and edit out all the public comments they want, and show it to whoever they want, it doesn't change the fact that these people are not acting in the public interest in many of their decisions. 

And a silly post by a person using a fictitious name who does not even live in Ludington, which takes several hours of several $100K+ a year public officials to look at and decide what to do about it (including multiple members of a terrorism task force) which leads to an unnecessary, anti-civics lesson to our Foster Third Graders hosted by more $100K+ a year public officials hosting edited videos shows that we have an even sillier bunch of clowns supposedly in charge of everything.  Ready to waste your money, suppress your First Amendment rights, and threaten your other freedoms.  Streeter's weird posting doesn't really seem all that odd now with these revelations.

[AQUAMAN]

Unbelievable and incredible waste of taxpayers monies. It was hard to connect the dots of the hysterical posts of Streeter, and as such, also hard to ignore. I hope the big wigs now are aware that some newbies here, from time to time, come off pretty creepy and weird, to say the least. Most steady members though are just trying to find truth and good governing around this port city, and are respectfully critiquing the errors and omissions that seem to be all too often repeated. I just wonder how many hours a week these clowns are wasting watching our every move now? Valuable time they could be using to really do their job, and quit using every nutcase to spy on citizens in general!

[XLFD]

Back when Community Development Director Heather Venzke-Tykoski was trying to get me in trouble for "insighting a mob mentality" by showing public records that unequivocally proved her honey Nick Tykoski received special considerations for the $150K gold-plated signage contract, and unbid work for over $15K before any bid was even considered, she used a post by you, Aquaman, saying that personally giving John Shay swimming lessons was a threat, and because of that and my assertions of her unethical, corrupted behavior I deserved a PPO against me. 

All the government agencies involved with Mason County seem to be growing immensely in their unaccountability to the public, their inability to follow the law, and to faithfully perform their duties.  This is why we are spending millions on painting water towers and making West End of Ludington Avenue improvements, both of which are totally unnecessary, while other basic things are ignored.

[AQUAMAN]

I wonder if anyone in Ludington volumes know this? When the Dowland St. project ensued for repaving 2 summers ago in 2012, they also replaced the well worn sewer systems and water lines below the street. So what you say? Well, if you were in that area regularly like I and many others working and living around there, and also frequenting for other reasons, you would have been appalled at all the logs, yes logs, on the ground being exhumed. Those logs were burrowed out from center outwards about 1/2 way, and being used as sewer and also water lines for residents and businesses alike. Can you just imagine this? They had to have been upwards of 80-100 years old. Is that the kind of infrastructure that Ludington citizens deserve for their hard earned tax dollars? Those many blocks of logs disappeared quite quickly too once I called DPW to confirm that fact, and to ask how this could possibly be in this day and age!!! It's simply incredible how we, Ludingtonians, are being screwed from front to back daily by this regime. 

[XLFD]

Almost all of Dowland has been semi-industrial throughout its history, and contaminated soil is more the norm rather than the exception, even in the residential areas of it.  I do not know how much contamination testing was done before or throughout the process of the 2012 renovations, but I do know the contractor's had no idea the city lot they placed all of their equipment on was very contaminated soil, that cross-contaminated other areas when it was scraped and moved around, and they gave no idea from their overview that there was any environmental concern. 

I saw some of the historical record of piping, but I have to admit we never really had much problems with our water system before the action so those logs must have been doing something right. 

 

[AQUAMAN]

These logs were a lot of cedar and other type lumber that does not necessarily rot very quickly. Plus they got a thick coat of tar/creosote that made them last for years. The problem I have is that the safety/ordinance/code nuts would never approve this for residents, not ever! Yet here we have the very inspector city types looking the other way when it comes to themselves! That clearly shows what a one way street the politicians/officials have in advantage to regular tax paying citizens. Just my observation, not trying to be negative, but, wth? 

[XLFD]

I made that clear to the city council last night, that the comment only talked about public officials committing violence and crimes.  And that, if you notice, Superintendent Large only had a change of heart after when John Shay relayed to her that there would be increased police presence at the meeting. 

Extra police equal extra guns at the meeting and increased chances for more violence committed by public officers on people and kids.  The responses by the city and police officials as you can see, are plainly irrational on their face.  On some level, Andrea Large understood that. 

In the three times prior I have appeared at one of these city hall matinees, I have tempered my speeches away from the usual listing of recent infractions by our leaders into grander concepts of liberty and freedom not often taught in today's school lesson plans.  This is what scares people nowadays, especially if you're a gutless, mindless, and heartless government official. 

[XLFD]

That's the right guy, LOL.  Streeter freely expressed his opinion on how aggressive and abusive our public agencies are, but he never expressed aggression himself.  He was constantly appalled-- which if you're paying attention to what's happening around here, is the right thing-- and expressing an interest to catch police and officials behaving badly through live-streaming. 

That's what scares the crap out of the police administrators around here, some actual public accountability.

[AQUAMAN]

Eastwick, X, and Jamie, I believe you are all right on one slant or another. Perhaps this is even more interesting. Just maybe they are so enthralled and threatened since the inception of this site, that it has and continues to embarrass them, and worry the guilty ones. The ones pushing the buttons, in positions of power that has and is being abused for any fixed agenda. The final agenda is to shut this whole site down, with any means and methods available, whether legal or perceived legal. Find any small perceived defect/perceived threat, whether real or imagined, and hope the thing flies. It's no secret that CM John Shay has the biggest axes to grind against X, and the most power behind his office to achieve this means to an end. Just tell us it aint so Shyster Shay, and we'll take your sworn word for it, eh? 

[XLFD]

If Shay grinds his axe against me, I'll spank it. 

To Lt. Leavitt and the FBI/MSP Joint Terrorism Task Force,

That reference to me spanking a public official was in jest and used figuratively, not literally. 

[XLFD]

City Criminal Attorney Susan Sniegowski has been better at the job of FOIA Coordinator (though she hasn't been rigorously tested) than John Shay ever did, but many times I have found it to be simpler to do a go-around the usual run-around from the City of Ludington when other government agencies are involved.  The LASD, at least with Ms. Large and Mr. De Kuiper, have been very good with providing information when asked through FOIA. 

[Willy]

I guess I'll be seeing you at the camp then. I hope they have swimming, fishing and crafts at the "camp".

[AQUAMAN]

I guess you guys haven't seen the show, "Jessie Ventura Conspiracy Theory"?  The USA already has these camps and prisoners too, all secret, and all Federal. The detainees are all red blooded Americans just like us, catch up people! Last I heard they were building a new one in a secluded part of the UP for Michiganders.