Ludington City Council April 11, 2022: Cannabis-free Comments

[XLFD]

The city council's long April 11, 2022 meeting found the topic of recreational marijuana facilities in Ludington the topic du jour, a summary of that meeting and other actions taken are presented here.  Two items were left off of that article involving a FOIA appeal and the council's passing an authorizing resolution in support of a grant for a $1.2 million project that effectively repaves and landscapes the alley behind the southern 100 west block of Ludington Avenue. 

The seven members of council voted unanimously to deny the appeal and to approve the resolution, which wasn't bad considering that they had a serious lack of information on both courtesy of their administration staff and were further misled during the meeting.  My first public comment touched on the FOIA appeal which was left off the meeting's agenda when they published it last Thursday.

XLFD:  "A cannabis-free comment.  On March 16th, I requested a variety of public records through FOIA dealing with the City's composting contract which was adopted by this council on the 28th.  Your FOIA coordinator sent me an extension notice one day late, the extension allowed the City to respond by last Thursday the 7th, at the latest.  I still haven't received any records as I write this.  Before that last meeting, I had appealed another FOIA request, but it was never put on the agenda or came up during the meeting.  

I reminded the city manager after the meeting that I expected the council to address that appeal at this meeting, but once again it has remained off the agenda.  The basic argument was that neither this council, nor any other official, claimed attorney-client privilege for a written opinion that was used as the basis for going into closed session on February 28th.  This body could have easily claimed privilege with a simple vote to declare it before going into closed session, but they never did.  Our city attorney has shared written legal opinions publicly in the past, most recently at the December meeting of the parks committee, and last year when discussing anchorage at Waterfront Park.  Despite potential lawsuits in both cases, nobody claimed these were privileged communications then, nobody is on record claiming the privilege on February 28th.  

The city attorney gave his oral opinion on the siren in March 2021 when he advised the parks committee, that a judge might look at the need to relocate the siren due to demolition to not likely be looked at as a significant reason to reinstall it as it no longer serves a municipal purpose, among other cautionary advice that may have helped support the current lawsuit the city is facing.  The public is rightly curious as to whether the city attorney's advice has changed since then, but over two hours of closed sessions in the last couple months, and likely another hour tonight will be used for considering his opinion dealing with public policy out of sight of the public.  

I asked a simple question to City Manager Foster on how the city attorney's' written opinion on the siren in December differed from the written opinion offered in February and was brushed off and told that such an explanation or comparison would not be made.  That reply arrived with another late FOIA response.  This city council needs to affirm that they are committed to FOIA and Open Meetings Act laws, because their recent record is showing they have grown lax in transparency and accountability. [END Comment]

This was the last comment of the initial period; immediately, thereafter Mayor Steve Miller acknowledged that the FOIA appeal would be added to the action items under him.  Normally, agenda additions are added before public comment.

When the city council finally got to this FOIA issue almost two hours later in the meeting, it was rather maddening that in the course of their brief discussions that they had no records claiming privilege for this legal opinion, nor that there was any other invocation of that privilege, which is not automatic.  It was certainly as maddening that they then tried to suggest that they were not late.  

At the (-26:41) point in the video, they discuss the appeal.  City Attorney Ross Hammersley diligently covers the memo that was drafted earlier that day by the FOIA Coordinator.  Councilor John Terzano then asks whether the city was late in their response to this request.  Hammersley says that it wasn't in this case but he doesn't know about others as he was out of his normal bailiwick.  He further explains that it was originally sent on March 1st, resent on March 3rd after I had got back an out-of-office reply, and then was timely fulfilled explaining the statute. 

The statute says an email FOIA request is received the next business day by the public body, they then have 5 business days to respond, but can issue an extension for ten business days and be timely.  Thus if you sent a request on a Tuesday, the body gets it officially on Wednesday, they must respond in five business days, or by the following Wednesday.  If they ask for an extension they have two more Wednesdays-- presuming no holidays are in that stretch.  Here's my e-mails: 

The statute doesn't allow for delayed out-of-office responses to push back that timeline, only if there is mis-delivery to a spam file, so this was sent on March 1st and received on March 2, a Wednesday.  The extension request nine-days later on Friday the 11th (not shown in the e-mail chain) could only be called timely if you consider the re-submission.  However, contrary to the city attorney's claim, the eventual response on Saturday the 26th would have been one day late even had my original request been made on Thursday the 3rd.

All of my other FOIA requests recently made to the City have also been responded to late, as I noted.  Another string shows me sending of a March 15 request, received on Wed. the 16th, extended timely on Wed. the 23rd, then arriving one day late on April 7th.  

The FOIA below was sent out March 29th, received on Wed. the 30th, and granted one day late on Thursday the 7th

Lastly, this was sent out over the weekend, received on Monday, March 28th, and extended on Thursday April 7th, three days late.

Additionally, the composting contract information just came in today, check out the dates:

The extension was received one day late, the materials have finally been received one week late.  My last five FOIA requests with the City have been received late, and their lackeys are trying to cover their incompetence and laziness up by portraying me as mistaken at their public meetings. 

Being consistently late with FOIA responses isn't a good trend, but being late with claiming attorney-client privilege will likely get the councilors another lawsuit for holding a closed meeting without any legitimate reason.  Another bad trend for the City of Ludington has been the lack of rigor from their administrator when they go out for freebies and grants.  Annette Quillan pointed out during the first comment that the public notice on the website was dated 2020, and had the enigmatic amount of "$179,00.00".  These were mistakes that came from nobody proofreading the material, the mistakes I pointed out at this meeting indicated a deeper issue.  

XLFD:  "Another cannabis-free comment and thanks for not putting my FOIA appeal on the agenda until I reminded you about it tonight.

Tonight, city councilors approved the authorizing resolution for the MEDC Grant before any public hearing was held and without the public at large having any access to the grant application which appears to be far from complete. In doing this they effectively certified that the City has published a public notice in such manner to afford affected citizens an opportunity to examine and submit comments on the proposed application and that citizens have been provided reasonable access to the proposed application and related information.  Those are rules established by the MEDC.

Yet, the notice posted on April 8th for a public hearing on this application does not allow the public, nor the councilors for that matter, to review the application as required by the MEDC's rules.  The city's notice is insufficient on many grounds, beyond that.  The existing notice only allows us to look at conceptual plans on the website and gives no contact information for those with questions.  I asked for a copy of the application earlier today and found much of it was not available, including required attachments showing detailed project budgets and third party cost estimates; MEDC rules say such applications must be made available for examination by the public in the five days between the posting of the notice and when the actual hearing is held.  

The officials of this City should not need to be constantly reminded that laws and rules are meant for them too, whether it be for when they look for 'free' money from the state, when they look to hold discussions of public policy in closed session, when they fail to timely respond to FOIA requests, when they fail to timely take up FOIA appeals-- or even when they decide to hire career felons to serve as trusted firefighters or allow their school resource officer to commit perjury on legal documents without repercussions.  This representation is of lawlessness, not of the good people of Ludington [END comment].

I will be reporting on this further, but I did attend the public hearing held at city hall yesterday at 4 PM and all that was made available, once again, was conceptual plans.  Regardless, the hearing lasted over an hour as Ryan Reed and several others with a stake in the $1.2 million alley beautification plan had no interest in the detailed project budgets and third-party cost estimates, took the oxygen away from much meaningful discussion.  

Noticing that the grant writer was allowing herself to run the hearing and take minutes at the hearing, I just sat and watched the carnival proceedings with a carefully muzzled amusement.

[Willy]

Thanks for the information X. It just amazes every-time I hear about City officials lifting up that toilet seat and flushing down taxpayers hard earned money. Good Lord, another $1.2 million dollars to alter an alley after re-altering an already altered empty lot for $2.1 million dollars, referred to as Legacy Plaza. Where do these people come from and what are they thinking. "Let's think about this. We have over $3,000,000. How can we waste that on useless projects instead of putting the money into necessary maintenance required to keep the taxpayers safe and the City running smoothly. Maybe we shouldn't waste the money at all and act like grown ups."

The City has managed to turn 1 vacant piece of land into a 2.1 million dollar money pit and are now going to do it again by spending 1.2 million on another wasteful and foolish project. Ludington citizens deserve better.

footnote: A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. In my original post I mixed up north with south when I posted a photo of the newly proposed project. It was supposed to be of the south 100 block of Ludington ave. but I mistakenly posted the north 100 block. Sorry for the confusion. You know what they say about blocks, "they all look alike, especially from a satellite".

[XLFD]

Sounds like one of those photo refresh buttons needed to be used.  

Grant projects are notoriously wasteful and useless.  These businesses balked at the cost of a couple hundred thousand to repave and redo their alley back in 2018, so let's throw an additional million in public dollars at the issue and watch them populate the strange public hearing I witnessed and state why they still can't bury the utility lines or block Ryan Reed's private garage.  This was the idea all along and the unadvertised idea is that because of the overspending of congressmen in Washington DC over the last couple of years, you won't see this excessive amount of money in the future at the MEDC once the 2022 election cycle is through (presuming sensible people rather than money-printing and money-spending socialists win elections).