Discovering Corruption

[XLFD]

Background

Three times early this year, the Ludington Torch (LT) requested body cam footage of three separate incidents where the individuals involved or the available public record indicated that the Ludington Police Department (LPD) had violated the rights of the public quite explicitly and often with unnecessary violence. 

The former city manager (until a former police chief became mayor) and former police chief had a commitment to transparency, offering up such footage to the LT for 13 of 13 times it was requested at no additional charge.  Even after Chief Christopher Jones came on and a new Freedom of Information Act Coordinator (FOIAC) was put in, the pattern continued, with five incidents with body cam footage released without charge.

But then these questionable uses of police actions came up all about the same time, and the new FOIAC, City Attorney Ross Hammersley, created his own form, never approved by the city council to ask for $229.38, charging $25 for nine videos and a small clerical labor fee.  This was illegal, reported but never acted upon by the sheriff's office or the prosecutor.  He did revise the illegal procedure, again without council approval, in order to up the charge to $423.80 making the outlandish and extralegal claim that it would take their police captain 3 minutes to redact each minute of footage, even if there wasn't any need to edit anything out. 

FOIAC Hammersley would create two more FOIA responses that were equally absurd, including a charge of over $100 to see an outdoor arrest sequence lasting less than three minutes that I had security cam footage of, which showed there was nothing to be edited out in either audio or video.  This was explained in more detail to the city council and the general public.

The current lapdog council failed to address any concerns at the time, and approved the outrageous fees and a new policy that would effectively give any FOIAC the power to charge whatever they wanted to without worrying about complying with the FOIA, as was done these three times.  Facing no other way to get the footages, I had to file a FOIA fee lawsuit against the City of Ludington (COL) with three counts.  The people whose lives were turned around for the worst deserved this footage to come out, and the scoundrels who are trying to conceal it, Ross "Sewage" Hammersley and Police Thief Jones, need to be humbled and dishonored for their cover-ups.

In bringing this case against the COL to the local district court, I expected the sitting judge, Susan Sniegowski, to disqualify herself from the case, as she had done in the prior 7 actions against the COL over the last decade, because she has done so due to her husband being employed by the COL for decades.  She has done so on her own initiative during this time, with or without a motion by me to do so.  This time she held a hearing, and even when I told her in great detail and explicitness why she should follow her past practices, she wanted to try it.

As explained, she made this change because she had already violated the judicial code of conduct in denying another citizen any justice against the vile COL juggernaut by never disclosing her conflicts in that case:

Ms. Sniegowski was the judge in the Grams v. COL lawsuit where he was seeking an injunction against the deer cull being held in Cartier Park this year.  In this case, a case where the DPW (husband Tom Sniegowski's department) was intimately involved with the deer cull by having them use the DPW Building and personnel resources for the cull, Her Honor would never do the honorable thing and tell Mr. Grams that she had that connection before deciding that the case was moot by the time it got to trial (her Incompetence failing to take into account that the contract with the USDA still had another year on it), rather than take up any of the issues raised.  I was present in the courtroom, learned from Mr. Grams that he was never apprised of the disqualifying factor by the judge or the opposing party, and Her Honor saw me there chatting with him.  Her lack of disclosure of the connection (and the city attorney's) was improper, or at the very least appeared improper under the canons of judicial conduct. 

Justice is lost, justice is raped, justice is gone, Pulling your strings, justice is done

Before this case, my last case against the COL concerning FOIA alone was filed on March 7, 2016 and effectively settled in court on May 17, 2016; all of the disqualifying and summary dispositions motions had been completed within 70 days leading to an effective conclusion in my favor.  

I filed this FOIA lawsuit on June 6, 2024, beyond that one hearing where the heavily-conflicted judge falsely said she had no biases, the first hearing is scheduled to be a status conference on October 10, 2024 (126 days).  At the DQ hearing, I emphasized that FOIA requires that the cases "shall be assigned for hearing and trial or for argument at the earliest practicable date and expedited in every way" (see MCL 15.240a(5)).  Her predecessor and Judge Wadel (who received cases after her prior DQs) always did their best to follow this part of the law.  Judge Sniegowski was reminded of this in the complaint and at this DQ hearing.  

Our lawmakers knew that information is often time-sensitive and that expediency is needed in these cases in order to get public information to its rightful owners: the public.  Suzy Snowflake snubbed her nose at this and unbeknownst to me, made a scheduling order which she made without any input from me and was never sent to me!  This 8 page document dated July 11th was first saw by me this week when I went to the courthouse to try to discover why I was getting some odd requests from the City's risk management attorneys.  Scheduling orders made by Judge Wadel for such cases where he was standing in for this failure were done in his presence with input from both parties and were three pages in length.  

Not here, this order allows for three months of open discovery for a FOIA fee case and blanketly covers all types of legal actions-- other than FOIA.  MCL 15.240a(4) indicates that in FOIA fee lawsuits "the burden is on the public body to establish that the required fee complies with its publicly available procedures and guidelines and section 4 [of the state FOIA]."  

There's nothing that I can supply to the COL in order to help ease their burden, I only made requests that were essentially denied because of the unprincipled costs assigned by the COL!  Nevertheless, the COL's risk management attorneys decided to use discovery as a weapon against me, as seen in their 17 unique requests for production and Interrogatories to TR.

How does one even answer such ridiculous questions like these interrogatories?  The Michigan FOIA indicates that a person who asks for access to public records is not required to justify his or her request to anybody else.  None of the interrogatories or requests for production is designed to further their own heavy burden to justify their illegal fees, rather they look for information that should not be discoverable within the current rules of Michigan for discovery and is seeking justification that needs never be divulged.  

The reason why I can't stop laughing about this outrageous discovery inquisition, however, is that when you use the internet's law libraries to find out if strict FOIA cases should have discovery made by the public body, I cannot find any examples for Michigan, only direction from some federal FOIA cases, all of which point towards it never being allowed-- except by the plaintiff in extraordinary situations, for example:

"The court denies plaintiff's request to conduct discovery. Citing prior case law, the court notes that "discovery is customarily circumscribed, or entirely disallowed, in the FOIA context," and that "[i]n the unusual case when discovery has been allowed it is often limited to the agency's search, indexing and classification procedures."

"Discovery in a FOIA case is 'rare and should be denied where an agency's declarations are reasonably detailed, submitted in good faith and the court is satisfied that no factual dispute remains."

"The court denies plaintiff's request for discovery "[b]ecause discovery in FOIA cases is the exception and not the rule, and because [plaintiff] has failed to adduce any evidence that the IRS has acted in bad faith."

"Postponing discovery until after the government has submitted its dispositive motion and supporting documents allows the court to obtain information necessary to appropriately limit the scope of discovery or forgo it entirely."

This highly unethical court who couldn't even be bothered to allow me a part in the scheduling process or send me the judge's product will likely ignore precedent and the parts of FOIA and discovery law that have applied in other fairer courts, so who knows how many more rules and codes this harlot  will break in this decidedly non-expedited process that allows discovery by the party accused of abusing the FOIA and committing crimes of public extortion.  And not by the plaintiff, who understands that discovery is only a stalling tactic by the court in FOIA lawsuits.

[Freedom Seeker]

Your title says it all, X...unreal. All I can think is that someone (referred to as the mayor? Formerly COP) Is pulling all plugs to try to sink your ship and the reason is because they are corrupt and don't want to provide the public with public information.

[XLFD]

I can't say it enough that the same man, then-police-thief Mark Barnett, who convinced a listless city council that a three-year-old police incident report of 120 pages which turned out to only have redactions on the first three pages for addresses and phone numbers needed $2500 worth of redactions is the same sinful person who keeps trying to stop public information that shows improprieties or incompetence of his police officers (which that former police report concerning the Baby Kate case did in many ways) from being shared with the public.  Mayor Barnett and Thief Jones will turn Ludington into little more than a police state, and that suits our circus court judge and her COL husband just fine.

[Willy]

All of this B.S. you are experiencing on a continuing basis shows why most people put up with corrupt politicians, the  unjust courts and those out of control officials who twist the laws  they enforce. People just do not want to anger them.  I don't know how you do it. I assume they think they can wear you down and hope you will fade away. It's like we are living in whack a mole land where bad politicians keep popping up from their holes.

[XLFD]

Unfortunately, Mark Barnett hasn't learned that I only bear down on city hall more when it starts down the road of unaccountability and non-transparency, and he and his buddies, Thief Jones and Ross Sewage, will have what reputations they had forever besmirched by following his guidance, which IMHO is ruining the city.  I understand Barnett himself is being used as a tool by the people behind the scenes to prosper more than they could with the more open and accountable administration before him. 

[Freedom Seeker]

Really? X, can you expound on what/how you understand "the people behind the scenes to prosper more than they could with the more open and accountable administration before him" (referring to Barnett being used).

[XLFD]

I cannot really go deeper than that, I have hearsay, patterns of synchronous coincidences and associations, and amazing patterns among my reading of the tea leaves that I find around the city.   Secret coalitions without plausible deniability of their existence are the exception, so don't expect me to reveal the men or women behind the curtain without having enough of the receipts to make the connections.

[Freedom Seeker]

Fair enough. I understand. I have a few ideas of past incidences so just wondering. Will be looking forward to a full cup of tea when you have collected enough tea leaves!