Ludington City Council 2-4-2013: Truth or Dare

[XLFD]

Including a Challenge to the City Manager to Clarify His Position

The February 4th meeting of the Ludington City Council featured the annual reports of the City's Fire and Police Departments, and the first reading of an ordinance revision of park rules, that effectively make it more easier to vend alcoholic beverages in the City's park, particularly in City Park, the North James Plaza, and Stearn's Park.  I find it somehow ironic that the same City that passed a very restrictive Medical Marijuana Ordinance less than a year ago (which was totally meaningless, anyhow) making about 99% of Ludington off limits to dispensaries, is now trying to open up more of the City to alcohol sales.  Both substances are illegal for segments of our population, both can be abused to the detriment of society, and both have some medical applications.

 

 

The reports were fairly standard, Police Chief Barnett commenting about the department's solid finding of suicide as the cause of the marina death of Lingyan Zou (at the 36:40 mark), and the continued investigation into Baby Kate's disappearance and it's transition.  The Mayor, of course giving his commendations to the LPD, and the LFD he is part of, at the end.  The LPD is doing such a good job that our crime rate is worse than over 80% of other municipalities per capita.  I would hate to see what accolades he would get it Ludington actually improved during his tenure.  At 2:40 into the meeting, I tried to set the record straight in five minutes, but didn't pull it all off.

 

 

Before I begin to correct the record, let me extend my sympathy and condolences to Councilor Castonia and his family for the recent loss of his brother Donald. Last week, the City Council voted unanimously to accept the terms of a stipulated judgment worked out by the City's risk management attorneys, and my attorney. In rather plain language, the judgment said that the decision to enter into a contract that should have been deliberated and decided by the Ludington City Council in a meeting open to the public, was not, and thereby in violation of two sections of the Open Meetings Act. The City agreed to pay my attorney for his time, and reimburse me the money for court costs.

Various officials, at the end of last meeting, claimed it to be a technical violation of the Open Meetings Act, which clearly states quote "All decisions of a public body shall be made at a meeting open to the public." and quote "All deliberations of a public body constituting a quorum of its members shall take place at a meeting open to the public". Neither the judgment or the clearly stated rule of law states the City's actions "technically" violated the act. Those who took part, clearly violated the act.

Another facet of this the City keyed in on to justify their actions, was that the City responded to an emergency in this instance, and took what steps they thought best was necessary to avert the immediate crumbling of a street and sewer backups in people's homes, mentioned the last six times. The issue was noted as a problem on July 13, 2011. The actual work didn't begin until early September. A seven week response, during which time no sewer backups or road collapses were imminent, was not an emergency response. In fact, there were three scheduled open meetings between the problem being noticed and the work being begun, and this $95,000 project, done without an engineering study or any competitive bids, was never mentioned once.

If the City of Ludington wishes to cut down on the additional expenses that comes from lawsuits implemented by citizens who have been wronged by them and their agents there is one very quick way to do this.

Quit breaking the law, stop acting unethically, and for goodness sake, show a little bit of contrition or remorse when you get legally sanctioned.

Right before this council unanimously approved this judgment whereby you admitted to breaking the law twice, you showed no remorse to the Ludington public whose rights you violated. Councilor Holman said: "we have now spent $4650 of the City's money, of the City's money, to take care of this and I just think that that's ridiculous."

I agree, Councilor Holman, it is ridiculous that the public servants who broke the law twice are not paying the cost of litigation and foisting it on the taxpayers who they kept in the dark by violating the Open Meeting Act. You people broke the laws, you should be paying the bills with your own money, and not only for my attorney's fees and my court costs, but for all the attorneys you employed to try and get the best result out of this malfeasance on your part. Anything else from someone who claims to be a dedicated public officer would be ridiculous.

 

Equally ridiculous is the City's current tact in our ongoing FOIA lawsuit. Two citizens of Ludington who are the plaintiffs in this suit, have an action in the Michigan Appeals Court to redress some of the legal oversights that the trial court neglected. We fully expect that the monetary judgment of that court will be nullified as the debts were never legally established, and that all our court fees will be eventually awarded due to the fact that we prevailed fully in the original court in our claim and yet were never awarded them by the experienced, replacement judge. We expect that they will not ignore the fact that the City, via its City Manager, perjured itself in this case, and committed other unprofessional acts. A circuit court and law firm that blatantly covers up a major appearance of impropriety for over four months, and then is able to replace that judge with another from the same Circuit Court that broke this ethical standard over 4 months, is not one dedicated to fairness and justice.

 

The City has decided to try to collect on this judgment, before the appeal has even been considered by that court, likely in some retributive effort to make up for the fact that they had to admit their culpability in breaking the Open Meetings Act. [Here's where I was stopped, I had another point on Lingyan Zou, but never got to it, here' the end of this point]  Why subject the Ludington taxpayers to any further robbing of their tax dollars by unnecessary court process, as you have already, when we will put up money in a trust account and be more than compliant if we lose on our avenue of appeal? Which we do not expect to.

 

At the 45:30 mark one-of-seven City Attorney Richard Wilson made a statement about the citizen's referral to perjury by the City Manager in several previous public comments by a citizen over the course of the last year.  I believe I have addressed this charge seven times in toto, with no reply except for a defense of John Shay's ethics the first time I brought this up. 

 

 

CA WILSON:  The council here for the last few sessions has heard a member of the audience accuse the City Manager of perjury in a lawsuit that was started against the City [for the people] and which is currently on appeal in the Michigan Court of Appeals. Perjury is a crime in the state of Michigan and is in fact a felony, and our City Manager has not been arrested for the crime of perjury for the very simple reason that he is not guilty of that crime. [more for the fact that it has not been investigated by the police force he runs, or prosecuted by the City Attorneys who actively defend his behaviors, nor pursued by the judge who was disqualified for having the impropriety of having his son on the legal team of the perjuror, neither have we pursued the charge, yet]

Michigan law says that perjury is the willfully swearing falsely. That is a lot of adverbs put together, but in order to willfully swear falsely, one must know that he is speaking an untruth under oath [Shay did], being wrong or being mistaken in one's testimony is not perjury [agreed, unless you knowingly do so]. Being mistaken is not a crime, the classic example is three people observing a traffic accident that happens at a corner and report different events. That doesn't mean that one is telling the truth, they could all honestly be telling the truth of what they saw, what they recalled and so on [ subjective perception, which wasn't the case here]. The claim here, of course, is that our City Manager must have, or should have, an encyclopedic knowledge of the contents of every piece of

paper in the possesion of the City of Ludington [he should have knowledge of what he has signed, and what he has willingly blocked production of for nearly a half of a year]. That of course, is outlandish and even to assume that Mr. Shay has a lot of knowledge about a lot of things, about a lot of pieces of paper that the City possesses, but he is certainly not expected as a part of his job to have knowledge of every piece of paper that the city possesses or that a department of the city possess [true, but his knowledge should be good for multiple specific records he has signed with a sitting City Council member's business.  It's that simple].
Accusing a person of a crime such as perjury is what lawyers define as "defamation" per se, to accuse a person in writing means it's "libel" per se, to accuse a person verbally of a crime is "slander" per se, just because Mr. Shay is a public official, the accuser in this case is protected by the Supreme Court decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, but because he can make those accusations with impunity against a public official, does not make them correct, does not make them accurate, and certainly does not make our City Manager guilty of perjury so I just hope you've got some understanding and verification as to what "perjury" consists of [thanks for the clarification; I still insist with extreme understanding and clarity, that John Shay, City Manager of Ludington, is guilty of perjury, period.]

And why it is, despite repeated accusations that your City Manager is not currently sitting behind bars for having committed the crime of perjury. [Followed by the usual accolades by Councilor Holman]

 

The better question to ask is why hasn't any City Councilor or journalist decided to ask me for proof of my assertion, and why John Shay has been allowed not to answer the charge over these many months.  My Challenge to John Shay, answer these charges yourself instead of letting your public-paid City Attorney defend your honor.  Get up at the next meeting and defend your honor by telling the public that my charges are baseless, or quit allowing these people to fall on your sword while protecting you.  Tell us your 'mistake' wasn't intentional, and I'll lay out my public case saying you are incorrect. 

 

This solid, pertinent accusation has been allowed to slide through the other times by the City Council, the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews), and the public at large.  Amazingly, the COLDNews, didn't address the issue any of these times, nor did it report about the clarification I gave regarding the emergency status and technicality of the Open Meetings Act violations in the newspaper.  Rather odd that the local paper would look the other way regarding such things.  Or is it? 

 

City Manager Shay lied about the emergency nature of the OMA violation, knowingly violated that act (technically or not) when he should have known better-- what's the big stretch in wondering whether he did actually willfully tell falsehoods while being sworn under penalty of perjury in an affidavit submitted to Judge Richard Cooper while Cooper's son was part of his legal team for over four months?  Prove to me you're innocent, Mr. John Shay, or don't waste the public's time with other people getting up to defend your crime.

[Willy]

Excellent job X. People like Ray Hacket only encourage the Council to continue to perform misdeeds. Ray should be paying attention to what's going on. The City's attorney is as they say "full of it". Accusing a person of a crime is not "defamation, libelous or slanderous". It is in fact the right of each citizen to point out when anyone, especially City officials have behaved in such a manner as to have violated the law. What the attorney should have said is that "falsely" accusing someone could be grounds for "defamation, slander or libel", but only if the accusations were knowingly false. If this is the kind of legal advice the City is receiving then the citizens should be requesting a refund for that attorneys services. And for the attorney to take it upon himself to speak up without direction from the Council is, in my opinion, overstepping his authority.

[XLFD]

As to your last point, you are exceedingly correct, as the City Attorney position has been effectively abandoned in the City of Ludington for six independent contractors of law from Manistee, who have sworn no oath of office, whose duties as defined by state law amount to:  "The attorney, in addition to the other duties prescribed in this act [note: no other duties are mentioned in the act], shall be the legal adviser of the council and of all officers of the city, shall act as the attorney and solicitor for the corporation in all legal proceedings in which the corporation is interested, and, except as otherwise provided by law, shall prosecute violations of the ordinances of the city."

Emboldened by the quasi-judicial powers given to him by Ludington's illegal Workplace Safety Policy and other incredible power grabs he has engineered, Richard Merlin Wilson must think he is Ludington's answer to Chief Justice John Roberts.  Also, your other comments are equally true and insightful. 

[AQUAMAN]

I see CA Wilson's comments as no real surprise. In fact, we can easily assume this was planned out in advance, perhaps recently, or for some time now. If you look at the reactions and head nodding by Shay, Holman, and lastly, the big pat on the back by Henderson, it definitely was NOT a statement made at the drop of a hat at all. Watch closely as Wilson gulps down a healthy half 20 oz. glass of water as he calmly and with malice prepares to verbalize an attack on an audience member, the ONLY audience member with the guts to tell the TRUTH! Shay's deliberate lieing and deceit is slowly catching up with him, and he knows it, as does more courts of opinion than he thinks. The COL machine is very well lubricated in this type of behavior, as condescension and spin-doctor moves become an accepted science and art form. De Nile, (Denial), to the very end, is not just a river in Egypt, as this council steadily and repeatedly proves in bi-weekly tradition.

[XLFD]

Yes, you can tell that his remarks were not impromptu, and as Willy noted, that his definitions of slander, defamation and libel, are also very dependent on whether I am knowingly making a false mark on John Shay's character.  I am not; I don't throw out baseless accusations of someone who commits crimes, unless the threshold is fairly undeniable.  What the Mayor thinks about his character is meaningless.  What the attorney said at the meeting is little more than spin for damage control.  It may play well to the council meeting crowd, earn him a pat and a whispered atta-boy from Hizzoner Henderson, but in the end, is just pablum for City Hall's amen corner.

John Shay has been accused of perjury seven times, his defense amounts to having a bizarro City Attorney spin definitions in a prepared statement that in the end, do not address the issue.  Why can't Shay defend his own honor with a statement to all those citizens who seem to be having their doubts as to his character?  Is he a City MAN-ager or a City MOUSE-ager?  My guess is the latter.

[AQUAMAN]

Simply put, ignoring the issue with the usual condescension and aloof appearances, makes him seem more teflon-like, and makes the accusations/accuser look like he has no merit in his statements. Old trick: wait, ignore, be silent, and he'll fade away.