The Mystery of the Pigweed Predicament

[XLFD]

I had originally prepped my camera for a brief photo essay on the City of Ludington being a bit neglectful of minding their lawn on the property of 428 E Dowland, a property they acquired in November of 2007 with the intention of making this four lot property the next Ludington Fire Station.  As I went there with my camera and my ruler, I started taking pictures with my 12 inch ruler showing that the pigweeds, that had somehow inundated themselves on Dowland following the streetwork done there this summer, were quite a bit taller than weeds are supposed to be until the City of Ludington considers a nuisance, whuch happens to be 10".  The city may serve written notice that the condition shall be abate...

As the City of Ludington's code enforcement team love to serve these on the people of Ludington (amazingly, I have been spared this indignity) I figured they could use a dose of their own medicine.  These lazy deadbeats let their pigweeds grow over two feet (that's over 24" for those who work at City Hall).  Here's some of the stuff in the right-of-way:

Tall Weed    Tall Weeds    One Really Big Weed

But then I noticed that the lot had a lot more bigger weeds in its interior, partially blocked by some sumac bushes, earth mounds, and vines.  Right near the "For Sale" sign the goldenrod is as big as the pigweed, and other weeds surpass the four feet mark (48"+  for those who work at 400 S. Harrison)

More Gigantic Internal Weeds     Even more Megaweeds

But it was when I took this picture of an oversized pigweed field further in this lot that something dawned on me.

Almost the whole lot in back of the sumacs and mounds was completely denuded of vegetation, as if someone had come and took out the topsoil of this lot and took it somewhere recently.  And it was rather recent, because the pictures of the lot in the realtors guide shows a regular lawn just earlier this year:

Which then turned into this:

And the sleuth in me said, 1) missing topsoil at 428 E Dowland  2) pigweed is prevalent on that lot  3)  a bit of topsoil was used in front of many E Dowland properties (like where I live) that lost sections of sidewalk or had some soil removed.  4)  pigweed is growing in front of all those properties.

I could be wrong without further proof either way, but I have to presume that the new topsoil in front of our houses/businesses on Dowland has been transplanted from this property, 428 E Dowland.  Usually, that shouldn't be a problem, but the history of this property was that it used to belong to Padnos and Brody and used as a place where scrap metal was salvaged (metal with various chemicals/paints on them), was considered as a Brownfield property in 2005, had an underground 500 gallon diesel tank until recent, and went directly from these private hands to public hands.   DEED 428 E Dowland.pdf    428 E Dowland (Future Fire Station) description

Were the environmental factors mitigated?  Is the possibly tainted soil from that lot replacing the topsoil of several Dowland properties going to present a hazard to the people who live at those properties?   If any of the people who worked at City Hall lived on Dowland Street, would they be happy with getting a bunch of soil definitely filled with pigweed seeds and possibly contaminated with metal residue, hydrocarbon residues, lead paints, and various other hazardous materials dumped in their front yard?

[Jane]

Where in Shay's reply does he say what it will cost to have supervised inspection? Nowhere. It skips any mention of what to do or how to go about getting that and leads one to believe that since supervised inspection is neccessary that copies must be made.

[XLFD]

The two hours he says it will take to make scanned copies, will be a bit more time than it would take me to scan all the copies.  I've got a cheap scanner and can do it in under an hour.  I bet there will be hundreds of records that are not significant enough to copy, cut that time in half again. 

Shay's insistence that I have supervised inspection of the records illustrates that the pattern of intimidation and threatening behavior continues by the Shaygazer, as he once again tries to make even minor FOIA requests too expensive to pursue, bending the law illegally to do so.

But, as stated, the Cadillac DEQ looks to have about 500 records themselves on this address, and they are not charging me anything for inspecting them, I just have to get there.  And I hate to make a trip just to do one thing...

[Eye On Ludington]

Jane, I can see that you just don't get it either. The City has the legal right to prevent unsupervised viewing of the original records. How difficult is that to figure out?

The FOIA law requires that the person who submitted the FOIA must contact the FOIAC after acknowledgement that the FOIA has been granted in order to arrange an appointment for viewing. What is XLFD waiting for? A personal invitation?

Stop wasting the taxpayer money by playing a semantics game with the approved FOIA request. Pay the justifiable and legally established $26 fee, contact the FOIAC to arrange an appointment, and move forward.

[Willy]

Eye

I can't believe this situation is going right over your head Eye. X, who lives on the street where the weeds are poking thru, is asking the City where the dirt that contains the weeds came from. That's a pretty simple question don't you think? But instead of telling him "the dirt came from xyz" the City decides to make this a legal issue and has thrown in 500 pages of information that X did not request and which he is required to pay for just to find out where the damn dirt on his street originated from and instead of being forthcoming with information they are involving an attorney which the taxpayers are paying for. I find it to be an absurd comedy put on display by a corrupt Government. Why would anyone have to file a FOIA for this kind of information. The problem is folks like you don't see a problem with City officials forcing  taxpaying citizens to lick their boots then forcing them to pay for the privilege. The City's response borders on being in the realm of psychotic behavior.

[AQUAMAN]

Quit hitting the EyE (Nail) on the head Willy, you might get her majesty mad....ooo....lol. If you are trying to get her into the realm of rationale thinking, you are just wasting time. X probably needs about 3 pages out of the 500 exaggerated files to begin with, so he wants to inspect first, is that a crime? If he indeed asks for copies of 3 pages of info., don't you think it would be fair, and afterall, isn't that what Shyster Shay wants to cover-up, time after time, to promote their wall of defense and absurd actions? And paint a taxpayer asking for simple info. into a demon wasting taxpayer monies? This is spin-doctoring professionalism at it's best, and pathetic to those that keep falling for this type of deceptive and illegal behavior, esp if the Lud. Daily Nuisance backs it in their rag in the public venue. Psychotic is understated imho. But, people need to believe the worst about their fellow man, not the best, because it might just rock the boat of deceit and cover-up that continues to fester, and gain momentum, under Shay and Henderson's regime. They even have all their own City Councilman brainwashed, so how can anyone gain legitimacy?

[Eye On Ludington]

Willy, where did you obtain your presumption that all X asked for is to know where the dirt came from? Because I read X's post where he requested the entire property file. It is entirely possible that the accumulated property file for that piece of property contains 500 pages.

[Eye On Ludington]

If X's FOIA request specifically asked for the entire property file, then the FOIA Coordinator (Shay) is bound by law to provide the entire file.

[XLFD]

EyE,

I would like to know where the dirt came from, as Willy says, but the full file was requested primarily to see how bad the environmental concerns at Padnos' old lot was, since I am fairly certain that the dirt was gotten from that lot, and that  our City of Ludington would either play dumb or deny the fact. 

Plus just pulling one file for me to inspect can be a lot simpler task for the City than going through the whole files and cherry pick which ones apply to a request.  I always try to make it as convenient and economical as possible for the public body, and I mean that.  I wish John Shay would extend the same courtesy to those who ask to see public information. 

I'm awaiting a callback from Hallack Contracting, the people who did the work on that street this summer.  EyE, if you have access to any of the public officials in the know about this, have them send me an E-mail or letter telling me where they say the soil came from.  Thanks.

[Eye On Ludington]

XlfD, I do not have any more access to any public official than you do. Sorry.

[Willy]

Eye

X's words "I intend to inspect these non-exempt records as per allowed by state law". He wants to "inspect" the records. He did not request copies of the records.

Shay's words "The City’s FOIA Policy will not permit me to allow you to inspect original records unsupervised. It is estimated that it will take two hours to scan the approximately 500 pages of documents responsive to your request". It's quite simple to understand that X wants only to inspect the records but Shay took an entirely different approach to X,s request and added that he will be charging X for 500 copies of records that were not requested. Nowhere does Shay grant X access to inspect the records with or without security measures. So again, the only option given X is to purchase copies of the documents, not the inspection of documents that he requested. If X is denied the right to inspect the records as allowed by law then how can the FOIA request be granted. It would be like a customer going to a car dealer and asking to look at a vehicle but the dealer instead says that the customer must  purchase the vehicle before he can see it. 

[Eye On Ludington]

Willy, I get the impression that you did not read all of the replies and links in this discussion. Because if you did then you would have realized that the FOIAC needs to make copies anyway because he cannot allow the citizen to view 500 original documents without supervision. That is reasonable and legal. In other words, the FOIAC has to make copies anyway irregardless whether the citizen merely wants to inspect them or actually purchase them.

I believe the cost is reasonable and legal, and I also believe you are misleading the public by deliberately overlooking the legal aspect about not being able to view the original documents without supervision. 

Why doesn't X just pay the legally established $26 fee and move forward? Instead he will drive to Cadillac (70 miles), review the records there, and then drive back home (70 miles). I don't know about you but an average cost per mile on a vehicle of $0.50 per mile is very low w/all things considered including mileage, wear & tear, fuel, and time. It seems to me that it would be a whole lot cheaper for him AND for the Ludington taxpayers if X would just pay the legally established $26 fee.

[XLFD]

EyE,

I still expect on looking at the City of Ludington records for the statutory rate, which is free.  You did not read all the replies that are not your own, EyE.  John Shay is wanting to cost the taxpayers money by making a public employee work two hours making copies that were not asked for in a FOIA request.  That's whats going on here.