The Hidden Costs of an Illegitimate Revision

[XLFD]

When the people of Ludington voted to do a charter revision on May 3rd, few, if any, knew how much it would cost and what the plans were about other than forming a commission to review the charter and offer changes that would either be accepted or rejected at a later election.  

A look at the history shows a resolution being passed at the Nov. 8, 2021 city council meeting authorizing putting the revision question on the ballot and offering the election of nine Ludington citizens to the charter revision commission in the same election who would be seated if the revision was approved.  The 2022 budget was offered and discussed at the next meeting on November 22, then passed on the December 6th meeting.  At both budget meetings, nothing was discussed about money being put aside as a contingency if the revision question was passed in early 2022.

At the May 9th meeting, I made a public comment which stated that the costs of the revision process was never fixed nor was the compensation for commissioners, as required by law (MCL 117.19).  I stated I have read through all motions, resolutions and ordinances passed by council since November 8th, and looked painstakingly through the 2022 budget to find anything budgeted for the revision, should it be approved.  I had sent a letter to City Attorney Ross Hammersley, copied to all city officials present at the May 9th meeting (other than the police chief and those in the audience), explaining the problem and saying much of what I said for my May 9th comment.

Nearly two hours later, City Manager Foster had the city attorney address the issue:

Hammersley (1:55:15):  "Mr. Rotta during his public comment mentioned the particular section of the Home Rule City Act, Section 19, and he is correct in what it says.  The resolution that authorized... the resolution to propose a revision to the city charter set the location of those meetings at city hall.  So that is one of those requirements in section 19.  The other two for budget compensation of its members and money for the expense thereof, those are items that need to be fixed by council.

There are several elements of the budget that I believe you approved in either November or December of last year that had line items for the charter resolution for wages for charter resolution (sic) members, fringe benefits, office supplies, contracted labor, printing & publishing, and election costs.  So having reviewed these, my understanding is that because the City approved that budget and approved these budget items, they have fixed those items as required under law for the statute and so we have made or taken those required steps rather to fulfill that portion of the statute to the extent that it's required... those elements were fulfilled."

The two other attorneys present as councilors (Jack Bulger and John Terzano) had no issue with this line of reasoning, neither did any other official.  The premise is that when the council passed the 2022 budget (which did not have any line items corresponding to the revision process in the copies available to the councilors and the public) they effectively fixed the rate of compensation and costs of prospective commission members by doing so.  One naturally wonders what budget he looked at that had such numbers.  He apparently was given two additional forms that are not normally disclosed to anybody other than budget officials, even city councilors.  But first was page six of the budget corresponding to the costs of the city clerk, which was available:

I had actually noticed this line item when I looked through the budget and wondered where this gigantic rise in 'professional services' was occurring for two years.  So apparently did Councilor Kathy Winczewski who asked about this exact line item on November 22 when the budget was first introduced to her at council, as noted in transcription:

Councilor Winczewski:  "I have one clarification question.  On page 6, under the clerk general accounting, it's just a definition.  It's got professional services, and I was wondering what, to me that sounds like a lawyer thing, but I don't think it is...

City Manager Foster:  "It is.  So think of a professional services as things that you would hire for professional services:  engineers, architects, attorneys... auditors, those sorts of things would come out of professional services.  It's the personnel kind of expenditures associated with either projects or operations and maintenance."

Winczewski is on the Finance Committee, Foster should be intimately associated with the budget, but neither they nor anybody else present (Clerk Luskin and Asst. City Manager Steckel) who helped craft the budget indicated Foster's answer was incomplete, or that the large amount of money in this account in 2022 and 2023 was for folks who were not engineers, architects or attorneys.  On May 9th, the following breakdown of that line item was supplied to Hammersley it looked like this:

By far, the largest cost went to charter revision, this was explored in another breakdown chart of revision costs supplied to the attorney, and also not readily available to the public or the councilors at the time they passed the budget:

This indicates a couple of things that were relevant in the statute, that the expected cost of the revision process would be about $81,500 and that the compensation for commissioners was expected to be at $25 per meeting per commissioner, if they held two meetings a week.  But there is nothing to suggest that the city council had any idea of either amount, the public certainly didn't when the Daily News' reporter Justin Cooper and I, people who attended each meeting and read through the packets diligently, had no idea.  This includes councilors other than Winczewski who asked the question about the line item on the only budget she was given on November 22.  

A conversation which happened at the prior meeting regarding the revision resolution shows that even Clerk Luskin didn't know, but she knew enough to know the process required the council to make the decision to set the numbers:

Councilor Cain:  "There's a per diem, or what, what's the salary structure for members?"

Clerk Luskin:  "Well that would need to be set, we had budgeted a salary amount for each meeting, but it was just a budget based on kind of an arbitrary amount.  The salary would have to be set."

Councilor Cain:  "It would have to be set by the council?"

Attorney Hammersley:  "That's a good question.  I'll look into that on how the salary is established, but I don't know."

And nothing more was said by Hammersley regarding this until May 9th.  Clerk Luskin was consistent throughout in realizing that the compensation and costs would need to be set (fixed) by the council.  In a FAQ posted on November 24th by the city clerk about the revision and commission, the cost of the process is never fielded and the compensation issue is dodged once again, but the responsibility is properly given to the city council, parroting the statute:

She was aware that the simple act of putting arbitrary numbers on a budget that gets passed by councilors unaware of those arbitrary numbers hidden in a line-item twice removed from their perusal means nothing, contrary to what the city attorney proposed on May 9th.  When I picked up the paperwork for becoming an 'official' write-in candidate for the commission from Clerk Luskin in February the subject came up about compensation.  I can only say that she was not sure at that point what it would be, so she believed that the rate still had not been fixed. 

Nevertheless, if you still believe that the city attorney may have a point in saying that passing the budget blindly satisfied the council's duty to fix the costs and compensation of the revision process, you may want to check out section 5.5 of the city charter before this bogus illegitimate commission tries to change it.   

Since commissioners will be paid for their services by the city and receive fringe benefits, they are employees and need their compensation fixed by resolution.  By statute, this resolution needed to be passed before the election.  It never was.  The vote was not legitimate by the laws of our state and our city.  QED.

[Willy]

Well done X. You made your point very well and I agree with you. While looking at the chart below, my conspiracy theorist mode was awakened. It appears that there were 5 changes to this document all pertaining to the charter monies. The 5 typed areas I marked with a circled arrow do not appear to match the rest of the chart in darkness and clarity and possibly the type of fonts. Just an observation. Left click on image to see then left click again to enlarge.

[XLFD]

You are correct about the document, but it's not what you think.  The page I was given had these five different entries highlighted in yellow, so in the translation to a non-colored scanned copy, it shows as a bit of a distortion.

Please, do not abandon your conspiracy theory radar, however, it has helped me get through some of the hundreds of FOIAs I've received over the years, it is essential for survival in a world that sometimes has conspiracy theories that aren't outrageous enough to explain what's actually going on. 

[XLFD]

If you do go into conspiracy theory mode, you should wonder more about the second document in which they schedule the election on the charter revision in 2023, indicating that the charter commission will likely meet between late May 2022 to April 2023 (based on number of meeting dates) to do their business.  The issue thus could be put on the August 2023 ballot, where a turnout of 20% would be exceptional.  

The idea is that with a small number of people voting, they can more easily push a city charter with unpopular notions and get it passed by just having their wide base of city employees, including their allies at the school (you know the entity which always schedules its ballot issues for February, May or August, hopefully of an odd year) be the winning margin for an apathetic public either enjoying their summer, or too busy to care about mundane city affairs.

Mark my words, this is a push in order to change the city charter (our local constitution) into something not designed for the people, but for the people that work in government who feel the charter currently restricts them from doing things that is not in the best interests of the citizens, but in the best interests of government employees/officials.  If you use your conspiracy theory radar, this is pretty obvious from what they've already broadcast.

[XLFD]

Here's that video and a link to a summary of it, if you'd rather read than watch:

You are on the right track, Lake Lady, this was not an 'organic' movement by locals to try and improve the city charter.  The liberal wing of the city council trotted this out when they were still wearing masks to city council meetings and pondering whether to go back to remote meetings.  Their idea of improving the charter is to relax the bidding process further to more easily get away with cronyism, abolish the people electing the clerk and treasurer, and making the budget available to the people for less time.  Seriously, just look at what they said in defense of this process, and what they tried back in 2016.  Then look at the roster of who was on the ballot, it almost reads as a who's who of the County's Democratic Party (except for the two write-in candidates that came up short).

These aren't the same people who were going to Ludington school board meetings last year concerned about their kids being masked or being taught harmful progressive dogma.  These are the people who would force you to wear masks and blindly accept ridiculous dogma who are drafting the city's constitution-- and that's very scary when you treasure the rights of the people over the dicta of the government elites.