Scottville Leaders Avoid Parking Fee Controversy, For Now

Ludington has tried to charge a fee for beach parking twice in the last decade and have ran into difficulties getting the measure passed by their city council with almost universal disapproval by the people.  Back in early 2017, most city officials were livid with Councilor Brandy Henderson for letting the public know that city leaders were thinking about putting parking kiosks at Stearns Beach, preventing them from positively marketing the idea and pushing it through.  This last month, they decided they would educate the public on the possibilities first, presenting beach parking fees as necessary revenue for the city painlessly inflicted, and then get the public to accept the plan for salvation.  

Problem was that the citizens and businesses of Ludington were not conducive to such crazy talk-- realizing that this wasn't the one-dimensional blueprint it was made out to be.  No member of the public (70 strong were attending) would be in favor of this maneuver at the council's coming-out committee of the whole meeting, while nearly twenty spoke against it, including city officials.  It seems that citizens (and our visitors) are not happy with parking fees at our parks that would negatively impact the park's enjoyment by citizens and tourists alike.

Scottville city leaders had a better idea to circumvent all those negative nannies in the public trying to foil their best laid plans for securing more money through threat of government force.  They avoided any kind of public controversy prior to requiring parking fees at Riverside Park (Scottville's version of Stearns Park, resting on a river rather than a great lake) by just putting up a bunch of signs claiming they had the authority to impose $5 fees on anybody parking in the park west of Scottville Road.  

This portion of the park is commonly used for boat launching, fishing, and accessing some of the park's wetlands, featuring a dock and a restroom as facilities, with ample parking available on sides of the loop connecting them.  There are at least three signs like the one above, the other two are around the loop, and screwed onto a rough-hewn post, but one doesn't yet see any envelopes or a fee box that the sign indicates are around somewhere.  

This reporter took the picture above on Thursday (June 1st) then proceeded to Scottville City Hall to get some answers as to why there doesn't appear to be any supporting 'resolution' for these fees in the public record.  One looks at the agendas and corresponding minutes over the last two years of the Scottville Commission and this has never passed, with the Jan. 9, 2023 minutes showing Commissioner Seiter saying a goal for the year was to finalize a boat launch fee.  It hasn't come up as a business item in any meeting since, but I did see what appears to be the $125 invoice billing for making a boat launch sign in May by Urban Vinyl in the last packet, midway between two other questionable invoices from Oak Grove Funeral Home and the SFD:

I was curious as to why the City of Scottville would order up signs and spend money on them, before the city commission even considered a 'resolution' to adopt a policy of instituting parking fees or set the rate.  Clerk Kelse Lester fielded my initial query about the signs and when the policy for parking was established-- fielded it by going to the backroom and consulting with City Manager Jimmy Newkirk, then coming back in a while to let me know that he was looking it up.

While waiting, I asked whether I would be able to go into the commissioner meeting room to take a picture of the map presented to the city by their engineer (Prein & Newhof) at the last meeting showing the water system of Scottville.  As I did this, I looked into the room and saw Newkirk at the tables with a computer and some papers in front of him.  Newkirk would offer me a hard copy of the engineer's report complete with several maps of the water system and proposed work while looking through his records to supply me with an answer to the question about the parking fee origin.  

After a few minutes of leafing through the report, Newkirk would admit not finding it just yet and asked whether I would mind him continuing that search and getting back with me about it through an email either later that afternoon, or on Friday.  I would thank him for the engineer's report and let him know that I would be sitting by my e-mail box for his answer.  

An answer wasn't forthcoming that day, nor did it appear on Friday.  I guess he never found something that doesn't exist.

These new park signs, already paid for, is wasted money since they can never be used even should the city commission pass a resolution at future meetings exacting a parking fee.  No less authority than the Scottville City Charter, liberally trampled on by Scottville's current regime, commands that resolutions should not be used for such purposes in section 7.11, but rather an ordinance needs to be passed, as "all acts carrying a penalty for the violation thereof" is what you need to establish an enforceable law for parking:

We have chided both Ludington and Scottville in the past for trying to use motions and resolutions to do the heavy lifting that an ordinance requires.  If any resolution is passed in Scottville to establish a parking fee in a section of Riverside Park, the City will have no power or authority to enforce violations thereof.  The money for the signs will be wasted, the money for the envelopes and boxes will be wasted, the big money for the legal fights will be wasted by the City of Scottville due to their inability to abide by their own city charter and create an ordinance.

Let our leaders in Ludington learn from what is about to happen in Scottville, led by administrators and hapless attorneys who would bypass the commission to try and squeeze more from the people unlawfully, but in a way that they don't have to deal with an unruly mob of citizens and visitors who might object to such arbitrary and illegal fees forced on them by unelected rubes supposedly acting on behalf of the people's elected officers.  At least until their deceit and secrecy catch up with them.

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    Willy

    X. Very good editorial on the crazy World of the kiosk situation in west Mason County.

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