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Shay Sashays Ludington Into Illegal Contract with LIAA
One More Blatant Violation of Open Meetings Act by Ludington Government to Enter Into Master Plan Agreement with Land Information Access Association
Ludington City Manager John Shay and former Mayor John Henderson has plenty of experience with leading the City Council into violating the Open Meetings Act (OMA) over the last few years.
Back in 2008, the City settled a lawsuit by a former Building Inspector for $250,000 alleging violations of the Open Meetings Act and the Whistleblower Protections Act.
Back in 2011, the City was found guilty of violating the Open Meetings Act in a stipulated judgment by our local circuit court for entering into a $93,000 contract for work on Brother Street without making that decision in an open meeting, but instead by an E-mail scheme.
Back in 2011, the City Council passed a 'Workplace Safety Policy' which was then used on this Ludington citizen without any due process, which banned him from the City Hall and Ludington Police Department, effectively denying him access to open meetings and voting. Afterwards, a lawsuit was settled by the City for $15,000 and the policy was rewritten to avoid conflict with the OMA.
Back in 2013, the City Council was informed that their meeting was publicly noticed in violation of the OMA and that if there were to be decisions and deliberations made in that meeting they would be in violation of that law. They went ahead with the normal business of that meeting,in violation of the OMA. This case is pending with a court date on April 25.
Other perceived OMA gaffes that have not been prosecuted have been the City's reluctance to use their discretion when affording their public officers legal protection, which permits lawsuits against the City of Ludington to proceed without being noticed for awhile.
The latest violation seems rather evident, and is related to the City of Ludington entering into an agreement with the Land Information Access Association (LIAA) operating out of Traverse City. The LIAA made an outreach to Ludington City, Mason County, Hamlin and Pere Marquette Townships to create comprehensive master plans in compliance with state law requirements. There is a workshop this Wednesday, February 19, to coordinate the leaders and planners of each community-- who have all agreed to be participating and have signed contracts with the LIAA. But one has done so illegally. Here's why:
1) On November 13, 2013, Ludington (first three officials), Mason County (Supervisor Fabian Knizacky), and PM Township (Supervisor Keson) were contacted by LIAA representative Joe Vander Meulen after meeting with them the prior day:
Here is the document sent to Ludington (followed by the document sent to Mason County for comparison):
20131113_City_Agreement_Letter.pdf
20131113a_Mason_Co_Agreement_Letter.pdf
2) The front part of the November 13 agreement has the following at the bottom of p. 1:
Indicates that to sign this agreement, it must be acceptable to John Shay (whom the letter is directed to) and the Ludington City Council. At the end of the agreement we have this:
The agreement is binding to the City of Ludington, and commits it to this Planning for Resilient Communities project (which is another interesting story in itself). If signed, both the City Manager and City Clerk state the terms are agreeable to the City of Ludington. The totality of the agreement is a contract, as it is an agreement having a lawful object entered into voluntarily by two parties, each of whom intends to create one or more legal obligations between them.
3) Our Ludington City Charter Section 13.1 says: "The power to authorize the making of purchases, contracts, and leases on behalf of the City is vested in the Council and shall be exercised in accordance with the provisions of the laws of the State." This follows appropriate sections of state law. For City Manager Shay and City Clerk Luskin to sign this contract they must have authorization to do so by the Ludington City Council, authorization which can only be bestowed by the council in an open meeting. Failing that, the contract is invalid as they have not the 'legal capacity' to sign for the City.
4) On December 3, 2013, John Shay sent the contract back to LIAA signed by him and Clerk Luskin just under three weeks of receiving the agreement/contract. This is shown by his E-mail back to Joe:
5) In this three week period, John Shay and Deb Luskin needed to get authorization from the Ludington City Council to enter into this agreement, a look at the only two open meetings scheduled between reception of the agreement (Nov. 13) and the signed agreement going out (Dec. 3) show that the Ludington City Council did not grant this authorization in any manner, as the minutes drew up by Clerk Luskin show:
6) Therefore, there are two possibilities here, either of which bode ill for those who still believe that Ludington Government is still not so corrupt that they violate laws at their leisure:
a) Shay and Luskin received the okay from the Ludington City Council outside of an open meeting to enter into this contract, in clear violation of the OMA (MCL 15.263 (2) AND (3)), or
b) Shay and Luskin willfully signed a contract knowing full well that they had no authority to enter into that contract without the approval of the City Council in an open meeting, subjecting them both to possible criminal and civil penalties.
7) One look at the three other government entities December meeting minutes involved show that they did what they needed to do, according to the rules to enter into this agreement with LIAA-- which they all have. On December 10, 2013 both PM Township and Mason County had their boards enter into these agreements legitimately:
Followed by Hamlin on December 12, 2013 at their township board meeting:
Showing that of these four local government units, only the City of Ludington, the main facilitator of this mutual venture (as seen by the initial E-mail involved being sent to three Ludington officials) and the earliest signatory entity (though unlawful), violated the Open Meetings Act (MCL 15.263 (2) AND (3)) or worse by deliberating and making decisions outside of an open meeting.
And what a decision! The potential damage to our area's citizens and their civil and property rights by these outside planners drawing up our county's, city's and townships' comprehensive master plan could be enormous, and there was exactly zero public discussion by either public entity before they moved in that direction. But that's another sad commentary to be developed.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Willy on
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I would be interested as to who made the initial contact with the LIAA. Why would any Governmental agency want to combine their master plans with anyone else. And you are absolutely correct when you say this can affect citizens in a very negative way. I see no reason to open a can of worms by redoing a master plan at this time especially with the adjoining jurisdictions. The people of Mason county had better take notice of what's going on because there could be major changes to the entire county. Even the regulations regarding wind development could be changed to make it easier to install the turbines without the citizens input. That defeated Historic District Plan will, I'm sure, be resurrected. This is an extremely important undertaking and the City is trying to keep everyone in the dark as to what they are up to. Excellent work X.
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Permalink Reply by XLFD on
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I am betting that perennial grant-seeking Heather Venzke Tykoski would be the brains behind who sought out this service, being that she is among the first contacted, is an outsider to the area, believes in the mindless tenets of Progressivism, and is always interested in grants and the resulting administrative fees.
Some future FOIA responses should get me closer to the truth. I would advise you to think about what part you, your like-minded friends, and other citizens of the county can do to throw a wrench in this master plan before it starts. What happens here can seriously affect our future.
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I can only see an indirect link, but you have the current survey, you can perhaps extrapolate some questions in that survey that may deal with opinions on this. The LIAA's goal seems to be directly linked to the implementation of Agenda 21 land use policies in a much more socialistic form of government than our Constitution allows.
Before Wednesday's meeting at 6:00 PM in the Ludington Community Room, I will present more of what is likely happening here in Mason County with LIAA and hope that others can help in squelching it while I primarily go after the Ludington component's part in it. Ludington's involvement in it so far has been mostly illegal.
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It's a philosophical choice, but should be an easy one to figure out depending on your viewpoint. If you like to have the UN be your sovereign authority, if you believe more in public property over private property, if you feel that people should live in urban areas while rural areas should be tightly controlled by our government, if you like troubling terms like sustainability, resilience, and climate change, over more traditional terms like liberty, free markets, and Constitutional protections, you may like Agenda 21.
But in a quick recap, Agenda 21 is a system passed in the early 1990s and as I understand it, is made to deal proactively with global warming and transition economies into a post fossil fuel world with a growing population. But it requires a lot of central planning (social Utopianism) which is not desirable to me, because it just doesn't work in the real world as planned-- and never will.
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To the buzzwords of 'sustainable development' and 'social justice' add 'resiliency' and 'environmental justice'. I'm finding these words peppered in the resources I am going through concerning this. Beck is absolutely right that these groups are using their money at the local level through zoning/master plans to push their agenda, which happens to be Agenda 21 mainly.
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Good videos, the new movement in 'resiliency' effectively is management based on the crises of man-made global warming being realized (even though they won't without ANY action) and the world having to adapt to them. Weather-based Marxism.
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Opposition to Agenda 21 efforts cuts across party lines. If you are more of a left-winger than Willy or I, you may be interested in looking and listening in on this group to form your ideas, and make a sustainable argument against it, resilient to any attempt at refutation: http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/
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Permalink Reply by Jefferson F. Henry on
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The OMA violation could be a cause of action to file a Petition for injunction against CPC. too close to the old Soviet Union CCCP for those 21's. However, these master plans have been toothless ideas which included projects that had been completed and placed in the plan to give a false sense that portions of the plans came to fruition. This concept could be an engine for municipal takings under the guise of the master plan representing takings is in the public interest.
Investigations into the law on stopping these actions and attention on the national front as Greta on Fox news had a County takings of a 10 acres plot with a cabin as one of the feature stories.
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This is what is social media is for. It's apparent the public is asleep on what is happening and it will be too late when they wake up to a bill from their insurance for the need for floodplain insurance and their land getting taken through imminent domain.
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For those who are interested, below is a link to the entire Agenda 21 file. It's a lot of reading but at least it's a lot shorter than the Obama care law. I'm always suspicious of people or groups who wander into town and say "we're here to help you and it won't cost you a thing" as LIAA has proclaimed.
http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf
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