Ludington City Council Meeting, February 27, 2023: Checkin' and Chicken

[XLFD]

Despite the wintry mix throughout the day, the agenda packet for the February 27, 2023 meeting of the Ludington City Council was rather ambitious:  two major ordinances were primed for a vote, a half dozen proposals for contracted work were to be considered, four annual reports for 2022 were to be presented, along with the scheduling of two public hearings.  

The meeting was opened with an invocation by Rev. Wheeler followed by a surprisingly small period for public comment.  Brooke Felger led off by offering her support for the chicken ordinance, which would formally allow up to four chickens be raised at single family residential properties.  I would follow with a Constitutional concern, but not before I had a slight brush up with the new mayor over meeting rules.  

I stated my name and the street I live on, like I have regularly done over the last dozen years in going to these council meetings without an issue.  Starting this year, Mayor Mark Barnett has decided to interject his own rule that one must give out their full address before speaking.  In the middle of 2021, City Clerk Deb Luskin went the opposite direction, instead of listing the street or ward speakers used to identify themselves, she would just use City of Ludington or whatevcer jurisdiction they gave outside of Ludington.  She maintains that practice through this year so far.

Under Michigan's Open Meetings Act law, one does not have to register or otherwise divulge even their name just to attend a public meeting.  The public body can 'establish reasonable rules and regulations in order to minimize the possibility of disrupting the meeting', including rules for the public comment period.  The city has never advanced any rule before this year mandating one gives out their full address, and some citizens would regard giving such information out publicly as a violation of their personal privacy-- which is one reason why the FOIA allows for home addresses to be exempt from disclosure in responses.  

Mayor Barnett insisted I give out my house number, I refused, and he declared me out of order.  Other than point to a rule that bolstered his assertion, he retreated a tad and said that he would reset the timer if I would just follow his (apparently arbitrary) rule.  I complied since I had something to say that required the three minutes.  I have asked for the existing rule on the topic through FOIA, we'll see what develops from that; I do have an alternate plan if I get nothing before the next meeting.

XLFD: (3:23 in) "Each of you have sworn an oath to support the Michigan Constitution.  In Article 4, section 10 it says:  "No member of the state legislature shall be interested directly or indirectly in any contract with any political subdivision thereof which shall cause a substantial conflict of interest."

Curt Vanderwall is a member of the state legislature, he presides over and owns the controlling interest in Turf Care/Mole Man who is, and is likely to be, contracting at a substantial price with Ludington, a city in his district.  He can either use his power to help or hinder the City of Ludington as a state representative, and that has to figure into any of your votes for or against his company and this contract, which raises most costs by over 35% from his last contract.

If he unethically and unlawfully tries to gain a contract from a political subdivision in his district he is going against his oath of office which swears fealty to the Michigan Constitution.  This council's intentional acceptance has each of you serving as accomplice, effectively breaking your solemn oaths of office as you fail to defend the MIchigan Constitution.

Three years ago, Senator VanderWall's company was granted the contract by the city council when they were underbid in all work categories by Tru-Green in a move that was corrupt AF.  Since then, we've seen city leaders go against the terms of the contract in order to get Corrupt Curt his money as early as possible.  Case in point, is among your bills this pay period.  The current contract states clearly that Mole Man charges the City the month after his services are performed. 

Page 16 In your packets has Mole Man charging over $5000 for Lawn Care, Bug Shield, and Grub Out at the city's  Marinas which would only be possible if Mole Man did these actions in January and/or February.   That didn't happen.  Oh look, our state representative not only violates the Constitution, he commits fraud too.   This fertilizer has to stop. [END comment].

City leaders would actually shock me when they decided later on in the meeting to do a pause on this contract in order to determine whether they should actually be contracting with the local state legislator.  It's pretty sad that they have already pre-paid the Mole Man before he was even approved for this contract, but that's another layer of corruption.  

After conferring with City Attorney Ross Hammersley, the council decided to look at the legal and ethical issues concerned with agreeing to such a contract and come back to the council at the next meeting with his findings.  I appreciate city leaders being able to take an extra look at the legal and ethical issues over these last two meetings with this and the OPRA for the Foster School property, too often, local governments do not have enough checks and balances in their actions.  

My legal research and comprehensive review of what the city is doing has made the city more apt to listen to the cautions I throw before them at these meetings, and I would appreciate other citizens doing the same when they think their city leaders are doing the wrong thing; it empowers all of us when we can all make sure that things are done correctly and lawfully.  

In the regular order of business, the city set two public hearings for the next regular city council meeting at 6 PM on March 13th.  They need one hearing for closing out the 'Lofts on Rowe' project at the Wolverine/Haskill Building.  The outside of this building looks sharp and people are living there now.  They will also hold a hearing to create an Industrial Development District for Victoria FC USA LLC, a small expansion of Floracraft's footprint that little details were divulged at this point.

There doesn't appear to be a lot of effort towards competitively bidding out contracts and comparing their apples to apples when it's done.  The other bidder for the Fertilizer/weed control contract offered a package that was a bit more in detail than Mole Man's and they were taken down for doing so.  It's hard to say whether Rockwood Services offer the better deal in those aspects, but they offer lime treatments over 60% less, and nearly 70% less for grub treatment, so one would think their comparable service to Mole Man for fertilizing and weed control would again be lower-- but that would be too much work when you can hire the state representatives' company for it and maybe get some quid pro quo.  

As you can see from the committee meeting the prior week, four contracts had zero competitive bids, so if I was a councilor I would be wondering why the heck Joe Stickney and Mitch Foster are not engaging contractors for competitive bids as their outreach is definitely not working and the citizens are likely paying a lot more than they should be for these contracts due to the absence of competition.  

The 2022 annual reports for the Wastewater Plant and the DPW was given by the aforementioned Joe Stickney, who's the superintendent of both, and he was followed by Heather Tykoski, who is not only the community development director but the planning director with some oversight on code enforcement giving a report in her specialties.  Most of this was dry stats and listed tasks, but Stickney indicated there would be some action on cross-connection inspections at residences and it seems that this may be an issue for some who don't want local officials looking around their homes.

The two ordinances considered this evening would hinge on whether the council wanted to allow chickens in the city and whether they wanted to crack down on residents who want to feed deer and other wildlife.  The latter was passed unanimously with little discussion, unfortunately, because, as written, it explicitly bans food attractive to wildlife from being placed less than 5 feet off the ground, and then offers 9 exemptions, several of which are based on the intentions of the placer.

The law can be made simpler and easier to enforce for those intentionally feeding deer and the like; however as written, even with the exemptions, the currently permissible actions will be deemed unlawful:  outdoor dining in the downtown including all those ice cream cones you see outside of the House of Flavors, or picnicking in any of the city parks, or in your backyard for that matter, or having your kids eat watermelon outside who would get a second ticket if they spat the seeds on the ground. 

As deer eat grains and hops, social districts will need to be reconsidered also as will all of those outdoor social drinking activities the city sponsors.  The point:  can't we be a friend to the citizens and code enforcers and craft better laws.

The chicken ordinance had some controversy.  Councilor Cheri Stibitz raised some fair points about how the ordinance may create friction between neighbors if one wants chickens and the neighbor says no.  She also raised the point that this and other recently passed rules are creating a lot of extra duties for city staff.  Both are good points, but she was not able to thwart Councilor Cain's full buy-in to the chicken proposition, and the ordinance passed 6-1 with most councilors weighing in favorably to the concept.  They would then pass a companion resolution wherein a license for keeping chickens will be available at city hall for $25 and will last until the law sunsets on March 1, 2025, where it will likely be continued unless some problems develop.

Annette Quillan would finish off the second public comment with an anecdote about how chickens in Belgium were used in a city to cut down on household garbage and give everyone a regular supply of eggs.  While Councilor Cain would suggest that a recent column in the COLDNews by Byron York reminded him of what happened in last May's election.  Unfortunately, he's still in denial about his dereliction of duty to the public by not letting them know how much a charter revision would cost or how much money the commission doing so would be paid.  Look within to see who failed the voter, Wallace.  He's apparently for the chicken but not the checkin'.

[Freedom Seeker]

I hope you can prevail over Barnett starting new rules to give your exact street address to be able to speak.  I feel it is a violation of privacy.  Barnett probably hopes it to be another hurdle to people not to speak.  It is hard enough to get up and speak in a 2-3 minute time slot, against a bunch of sour puss faces who don't want to hear anything but their own secret squirrel agendas.

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[XLFD]

It is my belief that the city council has not published any rules mandating citizens to state their name and full address at the top of their comment, nor should it ever.  The OMA allows for the public body to create rules for their meeting:  "a public body may establish reasonable rules and regulations in order to minimize the possibility of disrupting the meeting."

How can any city council justify a rule making a speaker relate his house number on the basis that it minimizes the possibility of disrupting the meeting?  I guess all those many years I have approached the podium and just stated my street name was disruptive to the overall meeting.  Who knew?  

The mayor did call me out of order for this and I'm sure that if I had continued my comment without being forced to say my full address, that I would have been forcefully thrown out of this meeting.  

[Willy]

Thanks for the City Council meeting report X. Barnett's the bully who has to prove, anyway he can, that he's running the show. He certainly hasn't changed.  One would think that VanderWall would actually conduct his business in a manner that would be considered ethical. He's another one who hasn't changed. As far as the chicken ordinance is concerned, wouldn't chickens be considered food for wildlife. I'm sure that coyotes and foxes think so. According to law those walking Mcnuggets must not be in contact with the ground. I understand that those serving on the Council consider themselves as a necessary and serious part of the community but they don't realize that every time they meet it's like a new comic book being put on display. Hard to take them seriously when they act like they just popped out of a comic strip.

[XLFD]

Thanks for your comprehensive feedback on the recap of this meeting, Willy.  

It is somewhat ironic that the council passes two ordinances that seem in conflict since the addition of chickens will put chickens themselves, their eggs, and any chicken feed used out in your backyard in seeming defiance of the wildlife-feeding law.  And while I favor chickens in the city, I would have liked to see an ordinance passed that would address Councilor Stibitz concerns better, because simplicity is better than complicity.

Speaking of complicity, it's good to see the city attorney at least look at whether VanderWall and/or the City is not acting properly by getting in contracts with each other.  I haven't got an answer back yet on his opinion but hope it's forthcoming before the next meeting. 

One hopes that Mayor Barnett will abide by the rules at the next meeting.  A good public official recognizes that every citizen has a right to privacy that needs to be protected at an extent equal to the duty they have towards promoting governmental transparency.