Ludington City Council Meeting, September 9, 2024: Villains and Heroes

[XLFD]

The Agenda Packet for the September 9, 2024 meeting of the Ludington City Council had its share of action items, but most were routine and/or lacking controversy.  On the eleventh anniversary of the shooting of State Trooper Paul Butterfield, his name was never mentioned, being forsaken by Mayor Mark Barnett who recognized four other young heroes instead.  As police chief, Mark Barnett was at the 9-9-2013 meeting of the city council, where I saw him abruptly leave the meeting when he got word of the trooper's murder.

One item that wasn't rote was repetitive, and so after the usual rites saw everyone present and properly invoked, I touched upon that issue first and ventured further onto ongoing controversies that have not been reconciled during the first comment, where I was the only one who spoke.

XLFD: (9:00 in)  "On November 13, 2023, this city council passed a resolution assuring that an LLC from Lansing would get a very favorable PILOT of 4% of shelter rents for a project.  This followed a recommendation from the Buildings & Licenses Committee given at their October 10, 2023 meeting.  The state licensing office (wave paper) notes that the LLC in question did not exist when that recommendation was made, so why did they recommend approval of a contract with a non-existing entity?  Finishing the history lesson, the council approved the deer cull on the same day the LLC was incorporated, October 27th, and plans were made to hold the deer cull on that property.  The city has devolved into a bunch of conflicted individuals operating in secrecy and dealing with cronyism and quid pro quos.

Why then is our council asked once again to pass a resolution which is exactly the same agreement with the LLC as it was back on November 13th fully ten months later straight down to the 2023 dated memo from Mitch Foster?  Did your city attorney once again lack the legal acumen to do it properly?  This is becoming a regular occurrence in a city that raises taxes illegally in the summer of each year, makes budget amendments five months after the state allows them to do so, and scribes a resolution to do a charter revision without putting in all of the statutory requirements, which allowed our city attorney to funnel tens of thousands of dollars extra into his pocket from the taxpayers for nothing other than a Pyrrhic victory at the appellate court?

Our city attorney created his own FOIA policy that allowed him to charge hundreds of dollars for body cam videos to redact exempt material even when there is no exempt material to redact.  This is criminal, this is public extortion and HE will pay dearly for this outrage.

Our city attorney allows an elected city councilor to ascend to the highest paid office of the city on the same day she resigns.  This is not only highly unethical, but also, regardless of what this embarrassing barrister says, illegal according to the charter he wanted to amend.  Shortly thereafter she goes on a two-week vacation, at our expense.  This all needs to stop,  [END comment]

True to the Mayor Barnett regime, the reason for duplicating this approval of the resolution was never given for the rest of the night.  If you look at the Nov. 13, 2023 packet, p. 66+, you will find the exact same memo and contract you see on p. 21+ of this meeting's packet.  Why?  The several other Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) properties don't come before the council each year, including the other one set on 11-13-23, so why was this redundancy enacted?  

My belief is that when the relevant subsidizing agencies looked at the paperwork, they noticed that the Pere Marquette Lofts Limited Dividend Housing Association LLC official creation was predated by other actions before its creation, making those unlawful.  Our deeply flawed City Attorney Ross "Sewage" Hammersley would not give any indication of why the act needed to be duplicated, the reason is not disclosed in the most recent B&L Committee, so the bigger question to ask is why doesn't any of the councilors ask the question I asked?

Faux-Interim City Manager Jeanne "Hoax" Oakes would approach me after the meeting to take issue with my characterization of her two week vacation, saying that she wasn't paid during the vacation for her new (con) job.  Sorry Ms. Hoax, your contract was made public in the June 14 LCC meeting agenda packet and here are relevant parts:

Thanks to City Attorney Hammersley's contract writing skills, if she is not paid the $3000+ during the vacation she is entitled to by dint of this council-approved contract, she has grounds to sue to receive it.  Ross Sewage will be able to claim thousands of dollars more from the citizens to defend his incompetency, so why would he care about doing it right?

Councilor Terzano would alert us to a Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) education session held the next morning at 10 AM.  The UDO may sound like a great idea, I'm certain the Planning Commission has been indoctrinated into believing this will be the greatest thing ever, but any serious citizen of Ludington should be fearful of what a UDO will do to our city, its people, and its heritage.  We at the Ludington Torch are gathering more on this and will reveal it shortly.  

The council would adopt two Traffic Control Orders regarding parking.  One would deny parking on the northernmost block of Franklin Street and Anderson Street between Franklin and Staffon.  The other precludes parking on the north side of Tinkham in front of Oriole Field, where new construction of that street allowed some room for parking there.

Another action was to remunerate the LPD K-9 dog handler an additional $6000 per year to reimburse them for time used outside of normal work time for care of the four-legged asset.  Just one more of those costs to the city that was never portrayed when the K-9 issue came before the council for approval.  Not that it would have mattered, the council seems eager to have their totally uncontrolled department sic this beast on citizens, regardless of whether they are guilty of any crime.  

A group of folks are wanting to form a 501c group called 'Friends of City of Ludington Parks' to figure out ways of how to improve the city's parks.  The roster of these folks (found in the packet) does not seem to include any person I know of that publicly thought it unwise for the COL to hold a deer cull at Cartier Park or sell alcohol at Stearns Park, so don't expect much from this group other than exploitation and degradation of the existing parks.  

These 'park friends' undoubtedly would approve the erection of five 'peace poles' around the perimeter of Rotary Park, so that the Rotary Club can further establish its presence in this public park, the council voting unanimously to allow it.  When most people go to a public park, they do so for the natural surroundings, not to see meaningless PVC obelisk clutter.  

Mayor Barnett would appoint (and have approved) Chris Gronstal to the DDA/DLB, but before this he would recognize the four youths that saved a man at Stearns from drowning in late August.  The police chief (and later the mayor) would offer each of the young men Brayden Lewis, Joey Spahn-Baxter, Bradley Schneider and Gary Jacobs (who was absent) a written commendation.  

Councilor John Terzano surprisingly gave a bad review of the construction company erecting AndyS and their ongoing blocking of the 100 block of South Rath.  The company allegedly said they would have the street open by Labor Day, but they recently asked to use the street until the end of the year.  Councilor Cheri Stibitz would agree with him wholeheartedly, but no actions by council were taken, meaning that it's likely up to the next city manager to take action.  

In the last comment period, Commissioner Les Johnson would give an update on CHILL grants used to update housing stock of up to $800,000 in the county.  Annette Quillan would urge the city (and any of its park friends) to consider the wintertime use of parks to encourage outdoor activity.  Between them, I gave them some "bad news":

XLFD:  (45:45 in)  "Keeping to theme, one week ago, I put up money for the city attorney to process a FOIA response of what would be at most two three-minute body-cam videos of an outdoor arrest of a local businessman.  The footage would have no material to redact, the victim's security cam footage verifies that, but I was quoted a price over $100 to redact these videos.  I paid the price, where are the videos?  This gentleman really wants to start his federal lawsuit against the LPD, but neither the local justice system or Ross want to share your videos even when they have been bought and paid for.  I get it, they show unwarranted police brutality and will cost the city a lot more later than the $106 you want to extort from the public now.  Maybe Ross and Thief Jones can get the mayor's approval to finally release these videos before you all adjourn?

Rather than just passing a resolution of appreciation to four heroic young men whose actions saved a man from drowning, why can't this council bring up the topic once again of having lifeguards at Stearns Beach?  I remember clearly back in 2010 that a man named Anthony Goldsmith drowned after he and his son dove into troubled waters to rescue another person in distress near the breakwall.  This heroic act turned tragic was one year after the city gave up on their lifeguard program.  Several others have drowned at Stearns since then, several near misses that shouldn't have been close.  Let's have an honest debate about lifeguards."  [END comment]

No approval was ever given to release the public records I paid for, just like the topic of lifeguards-- so conveniently left out of the official appreciation/recognition of the four heroes who risked their life without any water rescue training-- would be.  It was proverbially left struggling in the water gasping for air and calling for help, totally ignored by the city council and their handlers.

What a sorry group of people and their biggest fault would likely be that they would have left any talk of lifeguards off of the table even had their been five drownings that day.  

[Willy]

Thanks for the report X. I like your work on the GIFs. Things are just not going to get better until voters elect honest people to run the City. Love the nick names you came up with for some City officials. Your articles are still the best way for folks to get the information on what is going on inside City politics. There is no other outlet where the truth can be found except from your articles. All these corrupt people running Ludington only care what they can get for themselves at the expense of the taxpayer.

 

[XLFD]

Other media in the area walk on eggshells because they are worried about losing access, press releases, and privileges that come with playing ball with city hall.  I challenge city hall, as the press should, to be transparent and accountable to the people, because WMOM, the COLDNews, and the Mason Clown-Depressed won't, and will defend them rather than inform the people when city hall does bad things.  

I began assigning names to city officials quite a few years back during one October meeting recap before Halloween, and ever since when Donald Trump ran for president in 2016 and this year, I usually catch the fever again and do what he does so well, grant nicknames to opponents and other bad-acting officials.  It's a great mnemonic memory device, and hopefully the titles will stick to our loyal readers minds, particularly for Jeanne $ Hoax, Mark "of the Beast" Barnett, Police Thief Jones, and Ross "Sewage" Hammersley-- and they will catch on with the local consciousness.