Ludington City Council Meeting, April 22, 2024: Prayers for the Discorruptor

[XLFD]

The agenda packet for the 4-22-24 meeting of the Ludington City Council had very little action to take place, and none of it seemed all that controversial.  A couple reports, some approvals of regular events and purchases, followed by a FOIA Fee appeal by the Ludington Torch.  When you look at the packet, you find that documents about the last action was the majority of the packet, indicating that the city attorney was busy trying to suppress the release of public records by his usual obfuscatory methods.  

The meeting would be called to order with only Fourth Ward's Cheri Stibitz being absent among the council.  After the invocation and pledge, they would lead off with two annual department reports from 2023.  Deep into the second quarter of 2024, the council is still hearing about 2023, if this sounds weird, it is.  Back before the annual reports delivered to council were dropped during Mayor Miller's term, annual reports of the prior year in April never happened.

Heather Tykoski (Community Development/Building) and Andy Larr (DPW, Parks & Maintenance) provided interesting enough reports in their departments, as did the police chief in his monthly report, without any surprises.  The council would approve the Suds on the Shore Festival on August 17th, and a resolution authorizing fire service outside the city limits for those better served by the LFD due to proximity or fire service rating.  They approved the $1 purchase of one of their old fire trucks from Paul Kik, Sr., who refurbished one reportedly used in the Fourth ward way back when.  

 

This will be on display at their fire station, visible from the outside and will likely be seen on the back of a trailer in upcoming city parades.  They then approved a Memo of Understanding with the Emmanuel Lutheran Church for providing more basketball courts, without much additional info (nothing is in the packet) other than the city has seen a reduction of outdoor 'publicly available' basketball courts from twelve to two following the LASD's $101 million bond proposal which also reduced indoor courts by the net loss of three gyms.  

In public comment this latter was supported by Warren Stowe who lives in the neighborhood and recognized the dearth of outdoor activities for teens.  After he sat down, I approached the podium with my computer set to play a 2:46 minute video of an improper arrest, my comment was synched with that arrest to explain it in detail and illustrate why the fees imposed on the officer's body cam footage were unfounded.  If you ask why I didn't ask the council and mayor whether I could show this to them and the audience on the big screen they have and use for their own presentations, I did, and my request was refused.  

XLFD:  "62 pages, over half the packet, is dedicated to defending the city attorney's FOIA fee fantasies, I will address the last fee appeal, a simple request asking for the police report and bodycam footage associated with the arrest of Joe Oquist.  While I am doing that I am also playing Joe's security cam footage of that night, a two-and-a-half-minute clip with sound starting before Officer Versluis gets out of his car and ends with Joe being put in the back of the police car.

Captain Haveman was part of this brutal arrest of a compliant 63-year-old man so he should know that there was nothing to lawfully edit out in the sound or video of the two bodycams used that night during the arrest.  Your wordy city attorney offers no explanation either, so one can only assume that Haveman wants to edit out some of LPD's gratuitous violence caught here.  Joe was assaulted even before being apprised of anything, the aggressive Versluis dragging Joe from behind down the icy steps of his back porch at 8 PM on Leap Day.  

Quickly and without any sign of resistance by Joe, he is brutally thrown onto the snow face-first for some still unknown crime.  Almost immediately from stage left, Captain Haveman enters the scene and plants a knee firmly down on Joe pressing him into the snow.  A few screams of agony follow from Joe as they bend his arms into uncomfortable positions for handcuffing him, with the security cam still showing no sign of resistance.   

Haveman would say Joe was guilty of disturbing the peace with his loud music, Versluis would tack on the felony of resisting arrest, I'm not seeing it, the judge didn't see it, Joe pled to a charge that wasn't applicable regarding disturbing a public meeting.  I did see two assaults by Versluis and Haveman, and the captain stealing Joe's speaker, not returning it until Prosecutor Hand allowed it.  

Joe was guilty of no crime, city law allows for the playing of music in your backyard, he was not disturbing the quiet and comfort of neighboring inhabitants, because the sole complainant in this debacle was a certain Mitch Foster on behalf of his beloved cronies at Ludington Bay Beverage, whose amplified outdoor music I can often hear from two blocks away on Dowland Street. 

I never hear Joe's music.  Joe reminds officers that he has his oven on when they take him and his stereo away, they ignore him and put Joe and his speaker into their car. the lead up to the arrest and the arrest itself taking less than 3 minutes.  Mitch and crew is lucky Joe's house didn't burn down. 

It takes Haveman two hours to edit nothing out of a video.  Malarkey.  The other FOIA responses are just as unbelievable.  City leaders corruptly are starting a war on transparency and the recent actions are retaliation by city leaders not only on me, but also on everyone else.  [END comment]

From the 2-29-2924 incident report showing the chain of action and the FOIA Coordinator's belief that a business' address is exempt because it is information of a personal nature that public disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual's privacy.

The incident report and video will be released at a later date in an article to show the LPD's improprieties in this arrest of a businessman who had committed no crime.  The point here was that the video in my possession, shows that there was nothing to edit out of this video:  it was an outdoor arrest, there was no interview of Joe so nothing personal needed to be edited out, and even better, the person that was to be the one editing out exempt information knew that there was nothing to edit out during the less-than-three-minute-incident.  

When we reported on an earlier LPD harassment of Joe Oquist we noted that there were two missing videos of the encounter: the body cam footage of Officer Gilmurray and that of Haveman.  The city attorney must have thought such a tactic as not providing videos this time around would look suspicious, so they attached this inapplicable fee.  

City Attorney Hammersley spends over 45 minutes defending the city's fees applied to 3 FOIA requests beginning at the 47 minute mark in the video, but never does he attempt to explain why the actual cost of redaction of the fully non-exempt Oquist arrest video covering nearly three minutes, would require two hours of a police administrator's time.  Nor does he even try to justify the other FOIA's costs, but effectively just say that they followed the city's allowable fee policy.  

In his presentation, he states a few things worth noting that works against him.  At the 49-minute mark of the video, he says plainly that he freely supplied the incident report of one of the requests, ten minutes later he says he did the same for another request.  Neither of the responses mentioned had an incident report given to me, so much for his veracity.  

At 54:15 he states that the police's own FOIA policy originally justified the $25 per video charged in the first appeal, that policy existing without direct council approval (which I got through a FOIA request as it was not publicly available) had no such per-video fee.  

In the last two FOIAs I was specific in my request about having body cam footage only of the arrests of the individuals, the lead up and arrest of the one was likely under ten minutes, the Oquist arrest was maybe three.  According to the shyster, there was one 5-hour video for the former (and a smaller length one), and three videos totaling 56-minutes for the latter.  Recall, body cams for the arrest of Oquist, per his security videos, had two officers involved, no exemptions, and was under 3 minutes.  

The one five-hour video is also an anomaly, according to the information I have, the arrest was done via a warrant, another person in the house was arrested for asserting their rights.  There was not a standoff, so why is there one 5-hour video that implies there was, and why would it take two days to edit out such a video?  No explanation is ever given other than the blanket statement that it complies with policy.

Other than a couple of queries by former city attorney, Councilor Jack Bulger, as to whether following the fee policies of the city was enough when there are more things to follow in statute, the council did what they have been trained to do:  listen to their city attorney's advice, ignore laws and rules that run counter to that advice, and supported the unreasonable fees enacted.  They voted unanimously to uphold the fees.  

One of the more interesting things to come out was the usual city-think expounded by Councilor Kathy Winczewski, who noted that it seemed awfully wasteful to tie up a police captain with FOIA request duties and that's why the city has started charging large fees as of late.  That's why a smart police chief would have his clerk's trained on the simple task of editing police camera videos, rather than assign that duty to himself and his captain, who should have better things to do than take two full workdays to edit out one simple arrest video or take two hours for another set of video that needs no separation of exempt material.

Leading off the second public comment period was Beth Hand in campaign mode telling us all why she would be the best prosecutor candidate.  Les Johnson followed apologized on behalf of me and thanked them for their service.  he hopes they don't get discouraged, noting that it's not easy getting attacked all the time, but keep up the good work.  He is very proud to have been part of the City of Ludington and projects they started when he was on the council. 

Before he was under recall and resigned to take a spot on the county commission, that is.  Guessing that was an appropriate lead in for my second round of discorruption, I took the lectern and spoke more frankly than usual.  

XLFD:  "One of the councilors over the last two meetings has labeled me as the city disruptor and I feel it was appropriate to inform him that he left out a syllable.  I am the discorruptor, one who does his best to fight against corruption, just like a disinfectant fights against infections.  Wikipedia defines discorrupt as to purify or to make less corrupt, and that's what I have been doing over the last 15 years with city hall.  Do I sometimes have to hurt the feelings of the corrupted by reminding them of what they are doing is unethical, unlawful, illegal, or just plainly against the interest of their constituents?  I sure do, I'm not a very good discorruptor if I accept the sociopathy I have witnessed over the last two years.

The corruption was on display tonight, the city attorney creates his own FOIA Cost Estimation worksheet in order to charge $25 for 31 second audio files, when caught in that crime he charges double the amount of fees using a new scheme that charges for body cams in a way that has never been done before, all without a change in policy by the council.  After the fact, this cutpurse has the audacity to create a new FOIA policy that allows him to create his own policies on a whim without council approval, and this council passes those changes unanimously. 

Tonight, your complicity shows through when you approve the charge of $120 for two three-minute body cam videos that have no exemptions through FOIA, among other outrageous fees meant to keep me and other citizens from learning how sadistic the LPD has become under Plagiarizer and Liar in Chief, Chris Jones.  Let's give that department an attack dog, so that they can take extra pleasure for arrests as the dog mauls those that our city manager has said their music is too loud for his real boss.  Then the rest of the department can enjoy those videos for free, while charging the public hundreds of dollars for the privilege.  [END comment]

I couldn't help but visualize what would have been done to Joe Oquist if Officer Versluis or Captain Haveman would have had a dog that night, or to the other three people arrested in the other two videos I was constructively denied from seeing.  If the current officers lack the discipline and the ability to de-escalate situations, why would we expect those traits to be different in any dog they get?

At the end, the city attorney was asked to include in the new rules for public comment (currently under construction) a rule that would prohibit the use of a device during public comment (like I used my computer), before Third Ward Councilor Oakes made an announcement and finished it with:

Oakes:  (1:46:50) "Tom, I am not corrupt, I am sitting on here because I love the community, especially the people that live here.  Your insults, you can toss them every week, they are going to run right off my back, because I know they are not true.  And a friend asked me to remind me to keep you in my prayers, and I have all week and I am going to continue."

While I appreciate anybody praying for me, Heaven knows I need them when going up against an incredibly corrupt Ludington government, I don't think her prayers are sincere, nor do I think they are for me, rather they are against what I stand for and the community at large.  She had the opportunity to help the community she claims to love by allowing the body cams showing four community members getting arrested to be disclosed so that the public can review whether the police procedures used were appropriate, or not. 

Permitting an unjustified fee for a public record is itself a corrupt act.  Like it or not, Ms. Oakes, you have recently been chosen by a corrupted city council as the best person out of five others to carry on their efforts, that should tell you something right there.  Pray for your own salvation and to wash away the sin of your three decisions to deny the community access to three public records without resorting to more public extortion.  

I have politely asked Ms. Oakes since that meeting to clarify what exactly she was praying for as concerns me, as I have the belief that she is selfishly praying for herself to not be bothered by my public comments.  Whether this involves some sort of acceptance of the city's corruption by me (which will not happen until the corruption goes away) or through some other silencing of my concerns is unclear. 

She has failed to respond over multiple days, but I know that I will continue to hope for and pray that we can get honest and honorable people into positions of power in Ludington (and everywhere else for that matter) and make this a city that we can all be proud of, rather than one where the city officials have at least two scandals a month.

[Freedom Seeker]

This city is becoming a nightmare in full attack mode to cover up their corruption. The city manager is the complainant which turns into a police brutality case and more corruption in release of the FOIA tapes. Absolutely hard to believe. Les Johnson getting up to bash you again and Oakes hypocritical prayers. Wake up and see the corruption, the breaking of the law and quit being the problem, city counselors.

[XLFD]

I expected some repercussions from the city for the mayor/councilor recall efforts and calling out the various administrators for the public extortion and Brunette scandals, so I have put my own trust in Providence to weather the ensuing political storms I saw coming from the distance.  They have refused to acknowledge that their unethical actions in the first place were the cause of those recalls and scandals, but that's just further proof of a group-sociopathy I mentioned, and it's all expected for them to hue and cry about what a bad guy I am and what inflammatory rhetoric I use (but never the content thereof) about who we are told are good officials following procedures and protocols (but are not). 

Myself, I would sooner pray for justice for the three individuals improperly arrested and abused by the LPD, than waste my prayers on having a council member actually give a damn for the people they supposedly serve.  Oquist lives in Oakes' ward, but she could care less about him, let alone include him in her hollow prayers.  Ordained priests have been doing that for a year and a half, and this council is only getting worse.

[Freedom Seeker]

Along the thought of not really having a clue about serving the residents ... Kathy Wink goes to MLA school. More brown-nosing the city employees rather than the residents. I don't mind if city employees get a fair wage, it's just that their wages and benefits are so out of range for local wages/benefits that it seems to go straight to their heads with the Mercedes mentality and keep raising the taxes/fees of locals to pay for it. Until more get on board with over-throwing this old regime, locals might as well bend over ....

Wincz needs to learn to have empathy on locals .. but she appears to be more interested in hob-nobbing with power and authority and getting her name in the paper for a job not well done.

[XLFD]

The continuing education of Kay Winks has not been very successful, or maybe it has been if Municipal League University is teaching her how to raise tax rates substantially after a truth in taxation hearing and then deny, with utmost conviction, that you raised tax rates in order to bring in nearly $300,000 extra from the property taxpayers of Ludington.  Before Councilor Oakes came forth to pray for my conversion to being an apathetic citizen, there was the condescension of Councilor Moonbeam suggesting it was unfortunate that I didn't know what was going on, but never offered to take the time to explain what was actually going on.  

The problem was that I was unfortunate to know what was actually going on, and to an extent, so did she.  She just had the mentality of an MLU student, who seem to be blind when it comes to her city committing fraud, overlooking favoritism, hiking taxes, etc.

[Willy]

A very fine article X. Love the Discorruptor angle. One would think that after all these years people could expect their local Government to have discontinued their corrupt ways but I guess there's no changing a corrupt atmosphere until the attitude of those elected has changed and that doesn't seem to be the case. Even after you have proved time and time again that bad actors are in charge, and the misdeeds just keep piling up. Before you started the Ludington Torch, I thought everything was on the up and up but boy was I wrong. With all the corrupt actors in charge being bolstered by local media, the public in general did not have a clue as to what was really going on. I don't know if these politicians are just morally bankrupt or they possibly may  be so clueless and brain dead that they don't have the capacity to see past their noses. Either way it's the citizens who are getting shafted every day. The over the top debt of $100 million dollars spent on the "school located in nowhere" and the elimination of neighborhood stabilizing schools along with gymnasiums and basketball courts is only one of many mush filled brain decisions made by local mush heads.

Hat's off to Paul Kik Sr. for a fantastic renovation of the old fire wagon.

[XLFD]

In starting the Ludington Torch, I noticed there was a niche in local media: an aversion by the same to be critical of local governments in their articles or editorials.  There was a very real fear in them of losing their access to the information that often fills their reports in doing so; the Ludington Torch shows this fear was real, just witness all of the FOIA appeals we have taken up at meetings and in the local circuit court.  How many other media have had just one FOIA appeal come before the COL or go to circuit court since 2009?  Zero, because they know the extra work they would have to do if they went that extra mile to verify or clarify the City's usual line of twaddle and propaganda would only hinder their future privileged access to such foolishness.  

Folks need to ask themselves:  when was the last time you saw local media (other than this agency) be critical of controversial city policy or questionable action of a public official?  Riley Kelly of the COLDNews came close in his coverage of PM Township, Patrick Lopeman of WMOM would do so privately, but I haven't seen anything over the last 15 years in any local media that conveyed any critical content to the public about the COL or other local public agency.  Help me out if you can by proving me wrong with a meaningful counterexample.

We do it weekly here, and even though it makes us a target for Pollyannas and politicians, we do it because we need to have some real journalism happening.