Strategic Planning Fail

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This reporter had really wanted to go to the June 12th special meeting of the Ludington City Council held at the Ward Room in the clubhouse of the city-leased, state-owned entity called Harbor View Marina (HVM), but there were a couple concerns. 

The first was that it was going to be a daylong event where I would have to witness city officials and department heads herded into one 'mental corral' over one of the latest 'progressive' concepts for Ludington's future.  The second, and most important, is that if I stepped foot into the clubhouse that I would be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor just for being there.

As far as I know, I have done nothing wrong to deserve such treatment, but I haven't heard anybody else being threatened with arrest for stepping foot in a public facility like this.  Back in 2020, I read the contract between the City of Ludington (COL) and the State of Michigan when the former became the lessee of HVM.  It clearly stated that the general public was not to be denied access to the facilities, so I went for a swim in the public pool at HVM on July 3rd after changing into my swimsuit inside the clubhouse changing room.  After an hour or so, I went home and wrote about the experience.  I indicated that I would be back for another dip sometime during the following week, and I went on great detail to explain why this was a public pool.  

I quickly found out that the COL Marina Manager Jim Christiansen did not wish to honor the contract, nor the Fourteenth Amendment rights of the public, and the COL was backing him up.   I was effectively thrown out of the HVM clubhouse on July 6th after making a call to get the keycode for the dressing room inside the clubhouse.  When the two marina managers wanted to create a scene in front of other paying slip holders, I called the LPD over.  Captain Wietrzykowski wrote up a police report that indicated a few things other than my constitutional concerns.  

It noted that it was lawful for the marina manager to make rules that applied to the marina, and to allow or prohibit people from access to marina facilities.  Christensen went further and said that I, as a member of the general public, was free to walk on the sidewalks around the marina and sit on outside benches.  The police captain warned me that I could be arrested if I went into the fenced in area of the pool or the clubhouse and put that on the report. 

Both proclamations are outside the lease agreement and constitutional law, but I have done my best to abide by them in the four years since.  I think the COL took this into account by scheduling this special meeting at this facility that has the standing policy that all citizens without boat slips are forbidden entrance into the clubhouse.  It keeps them from having to put up signs that say their obvious intent of "Do not come to this meeting".  Especially me, who has been threatened with unlawful imprisonment for entering a public facility.

But they did have other signs around to scare away interlopers who want to be involved with the city's strategic planning.  At both entrances to their large parking lot they had signs warning that vehicles without a HVM parking permit would be towed and the expense would be theirs.  What a welcome sign to a public meeting!  Some officials had already showed up when I took the picture below at 8:09 AM, with the 8:30 AM meeting approaching.  

They may have noted me doing that or read my weekend article, for shortly thereafter a couple of young marina employees were dispatched on their golf cart with some blank sheets of paper and scotch tape.  They covered up the sign for both entrances (seen below for the north entrance).  Covering the signs does not make the towing policy go away, and the notice for the meeting did not say otherwise.  

After taking the picture, I took down the papers, as if there is one thing that I just can't forgive, is a couple of hooligans covering up traffic control signs when they serve the purpose of warning people that their cars could be towed.  I kept about as low a profile as could be done in the circumstances, and watched all councilors go to this meeting with zero concerns, confident that they wouldn't be charged with a crime or have their vehicles towed.  

Clockwise from upper left, Councilors Jack Bulger, Cheri Stibitz, Kathy Winczewski and Ted May

At least one brave soul from the public came to the meeting, Daniel Jensen and he was not thrown out nor was his vehicle towed.  He recorded some of it, took some pictures, but he couldn't stomach the esoterica for more than 90 minutes before he had to leave.  

As for me, I kept outside for a while, and shortly after creepily sneaking these pictures of city officials going to their exclusive retreat for their pablum, and after the meeting convened at 8:30, I counted all the vehicles that were missing the HVM permit sticker and arrived at 23.  I called central dispatch and asked for LPD to come over to investigate the widespread lawlessness on city property and to hopefully tow the offenders, as their signs say they will.  I had an appointment with the sheriff for an unrelated affair at 9:00, so I had to leave after waiting 20 minutes for LPD (like usual it seems, when you need them).  

Officer Sanders eventually showed up and investigated the situation at some point.  Around 10 AM I dropped by LPD to see how many vehicles were towed already, but Sanders was unavailable.  He would reach me that afternoon and we would have an interesting chat over the Fourteenth Amendment, how everyone should be treated equally under the law, how signs serving a regulatory public purpose should not be covered up, the Open Meetings Act and his responsibility under his sworn oath to make sure that stuff like what was happening that day at the marina wasn't happening. 

Section 3(1) of the OMA states plainly:  "All meetings of a public body must be open to the public and must be held in a place available to the general public".  This wasn't; the city used its authority, backed by its firepower, to keep the general public out of this meeting, and they didn't even care they were breaking the law.  That was their strategic plan all along, but what it was was an epic failure of a faulty plan.

Our city leaders took this venue for a purpose, a smaller purpose might have been for Mitch Foster to show off to his girl-friend, Allyson Brunette, who was hired over two lower bid companies to offer their strategic plan to city officials, employees, and any of the public that was brave (or foolish) enough to cross into the harbor master's building even with the fear of arrest or having their car towed.   Because those latter threats was the main purpose; they knew they could keep their harshest critic outside of their domain, knowing that he wouldn't break his word given in 2020 back when he was thrown out of that very clubhouse just for wanting to take a shower in the public bathhouse before using the public pool.