The First Draft Choices of the Charter Revision

[XLFD]

Late last year, the Ludington City Council made the decision to attempt a revision of their city charter, which had last been revised thirty years ago in 1992.  In late November, they published a brief synopsis of the process that urged people to run for the elected position of a charter revision committee member. 

Nine people would make up the committee which would have the duty to look at potential revisions, deletions and additions to the existing charter, and make their recommendations for change to be voted on by city electors.  A city's charter is functionally the same as a state's constitution, as it forms the bedrock of underlying laws that require enactment by the people through the voting process.  Amending such a charter is a lot like amending the constitution, it cannot be done simply by having the city council or the state legislature/governor enact legislation as representatives of the people.  

The May 3rd election will not only choose these nine members, but the city's electors will also vote as to whether to go through the process itself.  If they vote not to, the charter commission will not form, but if this up or down vote passes, the top nine eligible vote getters will be seated as the commission.

Eligible has additional significance, for January 18th was the last day to file a petition to get on the ballot, and only four people submitted petitions that had the forty signatures needed to be placed on the ballot.  The five additional spots would need to be filled by 'write-in' candidates, and even if you find yourself with enough votes to make the commission, you cannot qualify unless you have submitted a special form to the city clerk by April 22nd.  No petition is needed, you just have to finish among the top nine qualified candidates. 

The Ludington Torch recently inquired about those official candidates and saw some familiar names, some with strong connections to city politics over the last few years:

             Pictured (left to right):   Mark Barnett, Nick Krieger, Jack Stibitz, and Mike Winczewski

Mark Barnett was the chief of police in Ludington for about twenty years until his recent retirement.  Nick Krieger was appointed, then elected to one of the city's two county commissioner seats.  Before that he had served some years on the Ludington Planning Commission after a failed attempt to be the probate court judge.  Jack Stibitz was a career teacher in the MCC school district, passing on his instructional genes to his daughter Cheri who serves as the current Fourth Ward Councilor when she's not also teaching at MCC.  Lastly, Mike Winczewski, who has a history of being the middle school principal in Ludington, followed by some time with Western Land Services out at the Conrad Industrial Park.  He's also married to 2nd Ward Councilor Kathy Winczewski.

An interesting bit of trivia is that the concept of revising the charter was considered back in January 2019 by the full council at a committee of the whole.  At that time each of the four official candidates were either working directly for the city (Barnett, Krieger) or a close family member of a sitting city councilor.   It is almost a guaranteed certainty that these four candidates will finish in the top nine against 'write-in' candidates since voters will be instructed to choose no more than nine candidates with only four on the ballot by name.   

This nucleus of four candidates may just be too close to local political influencers than one would like in a committee to revise a charter, and each has made a career almost strictly in government service of one form or another.  Charters are supposed to reflect the will of the people; like a constitution, it is supposed to restrict a government's power and assign definite powers and duties that are suited for a government of a basically self-governing people.  Having career local government officials in charge of revisions is likely to disenfranchise all of the folks outside of the public sector that predominantly finance the city government.  

Should we not be inclined to vote against forming a charter revision committee if it is likely to pursue changes that will benefit the already growing power of city hall and take away more rights and properties of the general public?   When the City introduced seven proposals to change the city charter back in 2016, every single one did nothing to improve the accountability or transparency of the city or the rights of the general public. 

City leaders have shown their hand already, they want a less restrictive city charter and they are well on their way to it if you vote yes to form this committee.  If you doubt this, just look at the meetings of the city council where citizens have brought up how the council was ignoring or breaking the charter and see how they reacted.  

[Willy]

The lack of response by the general public regarding this Charter situation sends a loud and clear message to those in charge and that message is, "If it ain't broke, don't' fix it". The average citizen sees no reason to open this can of worms and that's why the only candidates are well connected to the local establishment. These are the same people who are always wanting to rearranged the furniture, even when there is no reason for it. There must be reasons why they want to kick this sleeping dog now and wake it up. I'm very suspicious about their motives and frankly after how things have been run over the last decade + I'm positive they are thinking that they will somehow  be the main beneficiaries if the charter is opened and tampered with.

[XLFD]

You are both correct about the lack of overall response, but I also think there was a lack of community outreach.  Yes, the city put how to apply for it on their webpage, but it was effectively hidden off the main page and could only be found if you were searching for it (even then it's disguised as a FAQ page).  And yes, they put it on the COL Facebook page-- less than two weeks before the petitions were due and two months after it was voted on.  It was not announced on either the COLDNews (although they did say formation of the committee would be on the May ballot), or the MCP, nor (to my knowledge) did one hear of it on WMOM or other local radio stations.  

The City DDA hires a marketing specialist but she didn't hype it at all during her Thursday podcasts, so the City seems to have deliberately kept it on the down-low, which indicates they wanted safe insiders only on this committee.  The only way the good citizens can prevent this from happening is to either get five good accountability-first write-in candidates to run, market them, and hope for them to run the table or vote no on the charter revision committee.  This committee will likely cost the City's taxpayers $100,000 or more over the course of the next three years, so the latter is the better course, IMHO.

[Freedom Seeker]

One of the problems, imo, and in my observation of Ludington's administration is the snowball-effect of pensions and benefits, and, imo, X has nailed this correctly year after year ... the Golden parachute of relatively high wages and great benefits and pensions. And as the city's administration and workforce grows, the more people with that conflict will vote yes to continue the way the administration is, and they will fight to increase their power.

Until we have an administration with an attitude to really "serve the public" I'm afraid we will see greater administrative costs and fight for control to take power away from the people. It nearly sickens me to see that "shame-on-you" Mark Barnett will probably be on the committee for Charter revision. Maybe he will masquerade with a christian attitude, but anyone who quashes a citizen's voice with his authority, imo, is not a true Christian and will have to answer to the True God at the Lake of Fire if he continues to use his power to ramrod citizens whom he should serve--there is where real shame should be directed.

It's the fox fixing the henhouse, and what a conflict of interest--it should be written in the State rules that the fox cannot rewrite a city's rules. Vote the Charter revision down People, until there is a fair committee of people concerned for the People and not for their pensions, benefits, power, and backslapping for their administrative buddies.

Please let me add one more thought about truly serving others and being a true public servant:  if we do not have a humble mind, we cannot truly serve others.  If we think we are superior than others, we cannot truly serve them.  In my observation, there are some in Ludington's administration who think that by their position, relatively high wages and the unheard of golden parachute of pensions an benefits, it goes to their heads that somehow they are better than those that pay their salaries.  We do not need people with that higher-than-thou attitude increasing their power through rewriting the City Charter.  Those who do not listen to the people and get caught up in the "marina club" of being higher than the lowly citizes.

[XLFD]

All I can say after that is:  Amen.