Scottville City Clowncil Meeting, May 3rd, 2021: Too Big for their Breaches

[XLFD]

In ten years of regularly attending Ludington city council meetings and raising a rhetorical ruckus, with a better attendance record than any official during this period, I had suffered many indignities foisted on me by officials.  Yet, never had I been thrown out of a meeting.  At the May 3rd meeting of the Scottville City Commission (SCC), I was officially removed between the period after the gavel came down starting the meeting and before they conducted their first order of business (the roll call).  

What had I done to earn such an honor?  It's hard to explain, I can relate that I arrived at the meeting held at the Scottville Optimist Building about ten minutes early, I took a seat in the front and I didn't move about or say one word before that gavel sounded.  I have done the same at other SCC meetings and haven't been thrown out.   The only thing I could think of that was different with this meeting was that I had a small 12" X 18" sign that I was holding level with my forehead gently reminding city officials about the city charter and what it says about the order of business at a SCC meeting:

Gavel noise was still reverberating when Mayor Marcie Spencer directed her first words at me.  She asked me firmly yet with measured politeness to put my sign down.  I was on an end chair in the socially distanced hall, so I wasn't inconveniencing anybody behind me from seeing the action.  Observing the rules of silence at this point, I kept quiet and continued holding the sign, giving her command the proper respect it deserved:  none. 

When she persisted, I broke my silence to remind her that the sign was a reminder to council about what the city charter says.  Acting City Manager Matt Murphy, acting more in his police chief capacity and seated a mere 5 yards away from me, reiterated the command.  I just looked at him dumbly, I'm good at that.

Chief Murphy then went into a blather about how he could throw me out of the meeting for creating a disturbance.  More dumb looks directed at the chief.  As he escalated the situation some more, I reminded him that the only people creating a disturbance at the meeting was the mayor and him.  As he gave me an ultimatum of either putting the sign down or being forcefully thrown out, I chose to put the sign down.  

Unfortunately, I couldn't read his mind.  I put the sign down against the back of my chair so that the rest of the audience, and there was about a dozen people looking on, could take a look at it and see what all the fuss was about.  I can only speculate on what went through Chief Murphy's mind at that point: 

"Horrors of horrors, it has numbers and words from the city charter describing the proper order of business of SCC meetings; what would happen if other people saw this and figured out the City under my management has broken the law over the last four meetings?  This can't stand."

Whatever crossed his synapses in the critical thinking portion of his brain, he decided that I didn't put the sign down properly in his estimation.  He launched his portly self off his chair, adjusted his gun belt, and approached me in the process of taking me out of the hall.  I complied fully, except that I had to once again hoist my sign up off the floor to take it with me.  Fortunately, he didn't look at that action, in defiance to his previous unlawful command to put it down, as a reason to take me down.  

At this point you may be asking what the city attorney was doing while all this was going on; he was absent from the meeting.  If he had been there, I suspect that even he would have cautioned the other officials about what they were doing being incredibly in violation of both the Open Meetings Act and the First Amendment.  

I think anybody with a lick of common sense recognizes the First Amendment issue, where courts have regularly ruled that such public meetings are at least a limited public forum during which free speech rights receive heightened protection.  Having a 1.5 square foot sign on your forehead that shows a portion of the city's charter properly presented, is no different than attending a meeting wearing a t-shirt with your favorite Constitutional amendment printed thereon.  It's actually even more warranted when the local public body is violating the charter law being passively presented.  It's a classic 42 USC 1983 violation that could be 'easily' proved in a federal court

The Michigan Open Meetings Act is more precise about when a public body can throw out a person from a public meeting.  MCL 15.263(6) explains:  "A person must not be excluded from a meeting otherwise open to the public except for a breach of the peace actually committed at the meeting.".  A case that took place in the Appeals Court of Michigan just last year, Cusumano v. Dunn, looked at 136 years of Michigan superior courts defining the term 'breach of the peace' before concluding:

Quietly seated holding a small inoffensive sign that shows a relevant, partial section of the city charter does not come close to qualifying as a 'breach of the peace' to any reasonable person's mind.  When you read this conclusion, however, one cannot deny that Chief Murphy's escalation and threats of forcefully removing me from a public meeting defines a 'breach of the peace' on his part towards innocent little me.

Fortunately for Chief Murphy, they had plenty of other law officers that night to babysit me outside of the Optimist Building, tonight was the coming out party for Scottville's latest graduate from police academy, Steve Case.  Deputy Matthew Warmuskerken, a part-time officer for Scottville PD, took the first shift.  I had a pleasant talk with him about the Scottville charter and how things were going in Scottville.  

A female MSP trooper (Case's wife) came by shortly thereafter, I showed her my sign and told about how the city commission wasn't following their charter and how I was ejected from the meeting.  She walked by, noting she wasn't there for that but for Case's ceremony.  That made three police jurisdictional levels at the meeting, all made aware that the commissioners were breaking charter law, all made aware that my ejection wasn't following any kind of law or rule, in fact, against all laws or rules applicable.  They were all okay with it and ready to enforce the non-laws further should I have reentered the meeting I was unlawfully thrown out of.  If police protect their lawless peers rather than enforce our republic's laws, they become counterproductive and make the defunding argument against them  a lot stronger.

Shortly after Officer Case's benediction, I became his first assignment, as Deputy Warmuskerken had to leave.  Officer Steve suffered through some Socratic questioning about local politics and what happened with me that night, he was wise enough to not commit to anything that might put him at odds with his peers.  To his credit, when I noticed that public comment was occurring and asked him whether he could ask Chief Murphy whether I could come in a make a public comment if I left the sign outside, he did go inside and ask him.  The answer, as you might imagine, was 'no'. 

I cannot comment on what happened at this meeting I was excluded from, but I did hang around until the end.  After noticing the cockroach members of the city clowncil sneaking out the side door, I moved over to that location in time to see Clowncilor Rob Alway skittering out.  I asked him about following the charter, he eloquently replied with a "F--k you." and asked why I hated on everybody. 

This kind of surprised me, I didn't know holding a sign with four lines from the city charter was hate-speech, nor was reporting on bad-acting officials breaking the law a matter of hate.  Rob, your news agency not reporting on your city officials embezzling taxpayer money is more hateful, you sitting quietly by as a person is unlawfully ushered out of a meeting by your embezzling police chief is hateful, in my opinion.  I offered him a tasty treat in my reply when I reflexively said "eat me."  He approached before holding himself back and dropped another F-bomb.  Classy guy. 

[Willy]

Great job X. It's a sorry state of affairs Scottville has degraded into. So sorry about how citizens are treated by this bunch of radical strong armed politicians. Out of all the people involved, Alway has got to be the most contemptuous. For God sake he operates the news agency that is supposed to keep tabs on political maleficence but instead he is sitting at the head of the table directing it. Alway is doing serious damage to his reputation. As far as the police chief is concerned:

[XLFD]

Alway may serve as Scottville's mayor pro tem, but the city manager search showed he was the point man for that endeavor and has emerged as the titular leader of the city clowncil. he also is the chairman of the Planning Commission and effectively the marketing and propaganda miller for the City of Scottville.  History has shown he has no qualm about mixing journalism with his politics, and one should definitely give him much of the credit if Scottville succeeds over the coming years.  He should also be the main scapegoat if it fails.

Nobody should be surprised if the City of Scottville is sued by their former city manager and if Rob Alway is added onto that lawsuit for his slanderous attacks on her after her removal.  Nobody should be surprised if he is also included (in his official capacity) as a defendant in an OMA and/or a 42 USC 1983 federal lawsuit for last night's debacle. 

At last night's meeting OJ Newkirk was officially contracted with the COS, he will have quite a mess to clean up when he arrives and he will still be overlooking a bunch of babies with full plates on their high chairs, not to mention myself with a full dump truck.

[Willy]

 X has raised an extremely important fact that most people may not be aware of and that is that their cities
are being run by outsiders. Hired guns might be a better word for it. This has always been a pet peeve
of mine. In another life, I worked for a large city. That city did not require employees to be residents
of the City. Most of the police and staff including the chief lived in other communities. The building
department did not have a single employee that lived in town. The Zoning department including
code enforcement had no resident employees. This was the case for almost every City department.
That meant that all of the non elected top leaders were outsiders. These were the people who
enforce and interpreted the ordinances and laws that govern the citizens of the City but which
the employees themselves were not subject to following. Most Michigan cities are ruled by people who do not
want to live in the town that provides them with a paycheck. This is not the fault of the Cities. This came
about when the State Legislature passed the RESIDENCY OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES Act 212 of 1999.
Cities have gone down hill since then because most of the employees have no stake in the city they
work in.

15.602 Residency requirements of public employees.

Sec. 2.

  (1) Except as provided in subsection (2), a public employer shall not require, by collective bargaining agreement or otherwise, that a person reside within a specified geographic area or within a specified distance or travel time from his or her place of employment as a condition of employment or promotion by the public employer.

  (2) Subsection (1) does not prohibit a public employer from requiring, by collective bargaining agreement or otherwise, that a person reside within a specified distance from the nearest boundary of the public employer. However, the specified distance shall be 20 miles or another specified distance greater than 20 miles.

  (3) A requirement described in subsection (2) does not apply to a person if the person is married and both of the following conditions are met:

  (a) The person's spouse is employed by another public employer.

  (b) The person's spouse is subject to a condition of employment or promotion that, if not for this section, would require him or her to reside a distance of less than 20 miles from the nearest boundary of the public employer.

  (4) Subsection (1) does not apply if the person is a volunteer or paid on-call firefighter, an elected official, or an unpaid appointed official.

[stump]

 This read is better than the National Enquier except it's the truth.

[XLFD]

Such a great compliment, I think I must have been channeling some of the late Big George Wilson when recounting Scottville's current woes.  His column in the local paper and his commentary on the radio was often entertaining even when he was covering the mundane.

[Freedom Seeker]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---

[XLFD]

Very inspirational poem, thanks for introducing it to me.  I greatly appreciate Kipling's works; on Memorial Day about 9 years ago, I offered up his short story The Gardener on these pages, a remarkable tale.

[David Gibbs]

Nice job. This is completely dysfunctional. What would they do with a real protest?   It's clear they have violated your rights and their oaths.  Talk about looking guilty.  A lawsuit would trigger depositions.   That would be very interesting.   

[XLFD]

I'm consulting with an attorney now, a good one that keeps public bodies in order.  Problem is they may have too full of a docket at this point.