Scottville Manager Admits Open Meetings Act Was Not Followed

[XLFD]

Oddly enough, the first Scottville City Commissioner meeting of the year is being held later today with the only topic coming up (according to the local media) is that they may make it more difficult for people to park in downtown Scottville for extended times (at least where it may affect city hall officials):  Commission to discuss parking limitations for North Main Street

But in reviewing some of Commissioner Hahn's videos of commission meetings I noticed an October 26, 2015 commission workshop meeting that I recalled seeing a public notice about in the local paper on that same day, where I wondered at the time why they would post such a notice. 

After all, the meeting which took place at 5:00 PM would be already in progress or over with by the time Scottville folks got home from their jobs and cracked open their COLDNews and seen the notice. 

The only thing that appeared in the Mason County Press (written by  Scottville Planning Commissioner Chairman Rob Alway) in the one week period was an article reporting on the defeat of moving the regular meetings back an hour in the day at the earlier regular meeting, but nothing was ever mentioned about a work session in the meeting recap: Scottville to survey residents about meeting time change

Thankfully, Commissioner Hahn's video allowed those who missed the meeting to view it vicariously afterwards, but seeing it had me wonder whether the City of Scottville had violated the Open Meetings Act (OMA) for not properly posting for this special meeting so as to alert the residents that this meeting was taking place.  After all, you may remember back in July that some misguided officials thought that Commissioner Hahn's mere presence at a city subcommittee meeting would have somehow automatically violated the OMA (Scottville public safety meeting canceled; commissioner’s attendanc...). 

As we pointed out here, Hahn's presence would only have violated the OMA if he had gotten involved in the deliberations taking place at the meeting.  In a follow-up call I made to the commissioner, his only desire at the meeting was to videotape it, and provide it to the public.  He is fully aware of what the OMA entails.  Yet, in the case of this October meeting, City Manager Williams of Scottville and Planning Commissioner/City Watchdog Alway missed their violation of that same law. 

Let's start with fulfilling some definitions found in the OMA.  The October 26 meeting was a 'meeting' under terms of the OMA, as a quorum of the Scottville Commission (a 'public body') was present (only Commissioner Maki was absent) and deliberations of public policy (water rates) took place.  All  deliberations of policy by a public body must be held at a meeting open to the public, where the public is duly informed of that fact by public notices, per the OMA.

In section MCL 15.265 (4) the law provides what that notice for a special meeting of the body is supposed to consist of:

"... for a rescheduled regular or a special meeting of a public body, a public notice stating the date, time, and place of the meeting shall be posted at least 18 hours before the meeting in a prominent and conspicuous place at both the public body's principal office and, if the public body directly or indirectly maintains an official internet presence that includes monthly or more frequent updates of public meeting agendas or minutes, on a portion of the website that is fully accessible to the public. The public notice on the website shall be included on either the homepage or on a separate webpage dedicated to public notices for nonregularly scheduled public meetings and accessible via a prominent and conspicuous link on the website's homepage that clearly describes its purpose for public notification of those nonregularly scheduled public meetings." 

In looking at the City of Scottville Home Page, one finds that there is no link or portal directing you to special meeting notifications; they do, however, provide the minutes and some agendas for meetings on more than a monthly basis on their  Get Involved page.  Ironically, they have only recently since September been actively maintaining this page, which means that during October they were liable to keep the public informed about special meetings-- a fact which the senior officials may have been unaware of. 

I therefore sent a FOIA request to the senior Scottville official to see whether the public was properly notified by public notices at the Scottville City Hall and on their website for this work session.  I received the following explanation, along with an agenda and minutes of that meeting

Here is the foiaworksession.pdf response in full.  You will note two things in reviewing the response.  First, the public notice she has given for this work session is not a notice at all but an agenda.  This does not fulfill the requirements of a public notice, as per the OMA MCL 15.264(a) "A public notice shall always contain the name of the public body to which the notice applies, its telephone number if one exists, and its address."

The agenda provided does not mention it is for the Scottville City Commissioners, the city hall's phone number, or the address.  An agenda like this cannot pull double duty as a public notice for a special meeting. 

Second, City Manager Williams declares that no posting on the city website exists, because it was never posted there.  But as noted by state law earlier, notice needed to be either put on the City website's homepage or linked to there.  If City Manager Williams read enough of the OMA to presume that Commissioner Hahn was violating it by recording a subcommittee meeting, she really should have devoted more time to seeing what her duties were by that same act when it comes to making sure the people of Scottville knows when their meetings take place. 

I am presuming that ignorance of the law by Scottville officials would prevail in our local courts in this case and that the judges would find that Scottville was "substantially compliant" with their violations of the OMA in this instance.  Would they care whether there was no legit public notice put out?  Would they care that the City violated the internet protocols the law mandates? 

Probably not, but after this Monday, if you park in front of Scottville City Hall for more than a couple of hours (and are not a city official or SPD member), the courts will definitely care about that. 

[Willy]

I'm sure Scottville hasn't sunk into the bureaucratic abyss that Ludington has occupied for so long, at least I hope not. I wonder how many meetings in the past have been in violation of the OMA? I would have hoped that Alway's presence would have kept any potential corruption at bay because of his connection to his news agency but of course seeing how he covers Ludington's troubled bureaucracy I don't think that he would have been a factor. X, your plate may be over flowing if your going to be covering both cities.

[XLFD]

Alway's outburst at the pre-Christmas meeting, the extent of his coverage, and the bend of his editorials, has me believing that he has little concern about whether our officials are behaving properly, and more on how he can become more like the COLDNews, complete with the usual defense of the status quo even when the official's conduct is inexcusable and their policies are not in character of our community.  It's one reason why you'll never see a favorable (or at least neutral) article on me, Commissioner Hahn, or anyone else who dares call to accountability his buddies in government.

I cannot fully cover both cities with my meager mental resources, but I will continue to monitor what goes on in the neighborhood of Ludington, especially my 'hometown' of Scottville.  Like Manistee, they are in a transitional period of their local government, which often makes them as interesting as Ludington, with its odd agenda.

[AQUAMAN]

On the positive side: let's give Amy the City Mgr. credit for at least answering the FOIA request with tact and professionalism. She sent you a written response, granted your request, and did not defer to an expensive hired attorney to do it, plus she did this at no cost. I think that in itself speaks loads of good about her intentions and desires to cooperate with the public when they FOIA her. You DON'T get that same respect and cooperation anytime with John Shyster Shay in Ludington.

[XLFD]

The violations the city manager made are minor and presumably unintended to deter community turnout, so they are not a big deal, unless they continue to happen now that the foul is pointed out.  Namely, she and the city clerk need to make sure that the notices for special meetings/workshops have the state mandated info on them (name of public body, address, phone number, the fact that it is a special session), and that they put notifications on the city website in timely fashion. 

CM Williams has a much greater degree of respecting her duties to the general public (and the general public itself)than John Shay has had since I've been covering Ludington politics, which is why she deserves much more respect and some leeway in matters like these.  She also deserves respect for knowing when to cancel the services of our Community Development Director and Police Chief when they showed their true colors (greedy green and deficit red) when working for Scottville.

[AQUAMAN]

Well said X. I just wanted to point out that The Torch membership doesn't always find extreme fault and anger in our civil servants, which you obviously agree with. Although, some like Real Talk and many others would have viewers here believe otherwise, to glorify their own fixed and warped agendas, and promote their self-serving attitudes of: "government can never do any wrong".