Ludington Leadership Lapses as of Late Summer 2024

[XLFD]

Rather than give a complete recap of the August 26th meeting that we didn't attend but caught on video, let's have a look at the bigger picture of the existing leadership crisis that several items on that agenda (and its packet) highlight or even spotlight.  

But first, let's look at the existing leadership.  In the city manager spot, leading operational control of the City of Ludington (COL) is a 75 year old named Jeanne Oakes who had never had any city management experience before being chosen by her peers on the city council for the top city job, gaining a pay increase of 2167% and violating a section of the city charter that disallows such employment of elective city officials until a year after their term served.  This is obviously a section to discourage someone like this from using her peer status and not her credentials to raise her pay by nearly a factor of 22.  Reportedly, she went on vacation immediately after this meeting and will earn almost as much during that vacation ($3250) as she would for a whole year as councilor ($3600).

Unfortunately for us, she's likely accomplishing more on her vacation than these lawbreaking councilors do in a year, but then there's the other executive Mayor Mark Barnett, who was instrumental in orchestrating ng the Oakes Hoax.  Oddly enough, the mayor legitimately got his position through running against an incumbent and securing a clear victory, but in his 20 months on the job he has did his best to quiet criticism, limit transparency, eschew accountability, and take Ludington back to the darkest of times under the John Shay administration.  At the same time, he spearheaded the push to give fraudulent tax credits to developers and used the mandate of his election to bring back the divisive deer cull without telling us that he was to benefit directly from that service by hosting it on his property. 

The latter debacle was not without political casualties (to date, however, no deer casualties have been verified) as former City Manager Mitch Foster abruptly started looking elsewhere for employment when the various scams and scandals dealing with the deer cull and other questionable contracting started emerging.  The unpopular cull split not only the community into factions, but also the city government, where Barnett finally won battles of his war against transparency by shutting down comments on social media, offering and implementing draconian rules for public comment at meetings, and charging hundreds of dollars for FOIA requests that used to be freely given (and properly so). 

This is our current leadership foundation in Ludington that is effectively dominating and directing the actions of the city council at these meetings.  As one would expect from the two leaders' selfish ambitions defined by their selfish and unethical actions, they are not working for the people of Ludington but for their own selfish needs.  If you filter through the substantive actions of the council over the last two years this should become apparent to those who observe and study it, like I do and speak up about it at most meetings.  Let's just look at the night of August 26th, a night I looked in on Scottville's Commission and Education Board, to point at these actions.

CAMP LOOS (-ers):  The first council action was to approve a change order of the two bathhouses recently constructed at the Cartier Park Campgrounds for $1.4 million.  These constructions were heavily subsidized by the COL who granted the enterprise fund several hundred thousand dollars and magically produced a savings account for a COL-recorded budgetary fund which historically has broken even each fiscal year without any money thrown into savings.  Lots of money spent here, but in truth, our citizens don't even use these bathhouses and they'd probably be accosted by the park manager if they even tried to use them without having a campsite.  Approval by all present.

LIMITS, NAH:  Act 152 of 2011 titles itself "AN ACT to limit a public employer's expenditures for employee medical benefit plan".  Every year since its inception in 2012, the COL has voted to exempt itself from the hard cap limits set by statute, always with the same mantra:  "We know better than the state does on how much money we should spend on our employees' health care costs".  Maybe they do, maybe not, but they never show it by considering anything other than a medical benefit plan that regularly bypasses the state's inflationary caps and has likely cumulatively cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last twelve years-- if their city council didn't exempt themselves from this act and tried to live within their means.  Unanimous approval by council, saying that the health of our employees is more important than the health of our constituents, many who can't afford health insurance and have to reach deeper in their pockets to fund the COL's excesses.

MORE NEW DOCK$, NO NEW MONEY:   As seen above in a memo from Marina Manager Jim Christiansen, the marina (another enterprise fund that should not be moving money between itself and the COL) suggests there is $364,300 in the marina fund to cover this floating dock construction, but when you look at the latest budget (2024) on p. 89-90 it shows them not putting any money into dock construction, to a fund that was as heavily subsidized by the COL for another dock construction as the crappers were out at Cartier Park last year.  Where's that money coming from?  Not from this business unfairly competing with all of our private marinas, but from you and I paying our ever-growing taxes and fees.   Unless you own a boat and decide to bypass our private marinas, you will never benefit from this expense, but the city at the expense of our private businesses will see more action.  

SUMMARY REPORT FAILS TO SUMMARIZE THE CITY's ERRORS AND DISENFRANCHISEMENTS:  In a memo from City Attorney Ross Hammersley (see p. 65) the council is treated to a one-sided account of what happened without mentioning their own mistakes which (intentionally or not) disenfranchised Ludington voters.  Hammersley glosses over the fact that he never included in the initial resolution to fix the costs of a charter revision or the compensation of its members.  He never would repair that omission by having the council fix any of those two charter costs.  The COL through a FAQ sheet on the process omitted both of these numerical values, and no media or other city source available to the public ever had these numbers fixed, leading the voters to mistakenly believe that the costs were free or negligible, and any commissioners would be free volunteers. 

They were mandated by statute to fix these numbers, whether through ordinance, resolution, or simple motion, but they never did.  Those facts won't change, neither will the fact that Mr. Hammersley gained tens of thousands of dollars he wouldn't have otherwise received had he not made the mistake (possibly intentionally, since voters might balk at the pricy action) of not fixing these costs in his resolution, or failing that, correcting it later, so the electorate would be informed.  This was not a fair election because of Hammersley's negligence, that's why the trial judge validified statutory law and voided the election results as several precedents before had done. 

The appeal's result in the COL's favor was nothing other than a Pyrrhic victory since other statutes which they deemed more solid for some reason set a time limit they could not meet-- in part because Hammersley asked for and received filing extensions from the appeals court.  The end result is that our city leaders, whose desire was to weaken the city charter so that they could have a more official-friendly constitution for the city, were foiled and worked against the people due to their own incompetence and that of their city attorney.  

THE NEXT HOPE FOR LEADERSHIP COMES FROM A CLOSED CHAMBER:  Lastly, the city council went into closed session for a while in order to look over 20 finalists chosen by Double Haul Solutions (who got their job with the COL not by having the low bid (they were third lowest), but because Mitch Foster was both in charge at the time and working for DHS.  There is nobody at city hall, nobody elected by the citizens, who object to any of the ethical issues that kept coming up over this current Barnett Regime, and this should scare everyone who expects more of our city's officials.

When they came out, they chose four as finalists, assigning numbers to them to protect their requests for anonymity.  These finalist's names were later released to the media who were accomplished and current city managers, even a county manager.  The Ludington Torch did a quick background search on each of these and they are as follows:

Greg Elliot (Adrian):  You may remember Mr. Elliot from his close call at being the city manager for Manistee.  From the Sept 17, 2021 Manistee News Advocate:  "At the time, Greg Elliot, who was administrator for the city of Adrian, was offered a conditional offer of employment. However, after a background check and some issues with negotiations, the council voted not to offer him the position in June."

“I’m not comfortable with the way that things have played out,” Councilor Jermaine Sullivan said. “We authorized the city manager, the staff to negotiate the contract and the emails that went back and forth that didn’t include the city manager I thought they were in very poor taste and sets a bad tone. And it kind of says to me that this candidate might have a problem following council’s agendas.”

Kaitlyn Aldrich (Kingsley village manager) since December 2022.  One wonders why she wants to move on after a year and a half of work in Kingsley, but her resume on LinkedIn shows she has education and some experience, and the internet only has good things to say about her, so one hopes she is just looking for a bigger market to test her skills.

Another person with less than two years experience at their current job, Ionia County Administrator Patrick Jordan was their alternate choice back in October 2022.  No problems have happened in Ionia since that time other than a leadership shakeup in their road commission, which doesn't appear to be Jordan's fault.

Pepper Lockhart, Evart's city manager (the former home of former City Manager Mitch Foster who through consulting for Double Haul is assisting the search) has been in that position since October 2021. making Mr. Elliot the only candidate who has had their current job for over three years.  She was promoted from finance director for Evart to that job, after being treasurer in the past.  Her LinkedIn account shows she worked in Evart for over 6 years altogether, after starting off with various jobs at Ferris State.  Various articles show that Evart has been too prosperous to keep up with their housing demands, due to success of more traditional businesses and in the cannabis industry.  

I like Greg Elliot, for the sole reason that he tried to marginalize previous Manistee City Manager Thad Taylor (aka Sad Failure), who really shouldn't have had much input anyway in selecting his own replacement.  These will all be interviewed later this month.

Neither of these candidates look as if they will solve the leadership problems currently plaguing the city at first look with their given skill sets.  Should the council decide to choose the mayor's preferred candidate, the problems with accountability and transparency will likely continue for the citizens.  If they choose someone that may clash with the mayor and/or the empowered police chief, they likely won't last long.  They won't choose someone who will offer resistance to the mayor, because a majority of the council has illustrated that they won't cross that bridge over the last year. 

EPILOG, REAL LEADERSHIP:  The day afterwards when I had reviewed the meeting, I dropped by PM Township's meeting to witness better leadership practices by Township Supervisor Kelly Smith.  In under a year, the township has gone from a dysfunctional fiefdom to a well-ran machine that has opened up a new park, significantly improved personnel interactions, and impressively settled some longstanding issues dealing with blighted properties.  Smith has dealt with issues and questions from the public with the wisdom, competence, and compassion one would not expect in Ludington during this current leadership crisis.  

The township would have a scare at this meeting, however, and it wasn't from the prior supervisor clipping his ear with a bullet from a nearby roof.  Smith would relate that he had another 'opportunity' come up beginning soon, and that while he would still be able to serve in his current position, he would only be able to work 35 hours each week, needing to take two-hour lunches to realize the 'opportunity'.  He was willing to have his guaranteed salary cut by 1/8th in order to remain supervisor to reflect his move, but believed he could still fulfill his duties even if he needed to work after hours.

The board was not given this as an action item, only something to consider before the next meeting.  It was noted that the duties of his office, the terms of his contract, and his job description, didn't necessarily preclude the move, nor did it suggest that the pay cut would be needed.  But Supervisor Kelly Smith disclosed this to all rather than doing it on the sly, indicated that he would still commit the same amount of effort to the job, and indicated he would take a pay cut if the missing of an extra noontime hour each day would be problematic to the board.  

Meanwhile, somewhere in the world, Interim Ludington City Manager Jeanne "Hoax" Oakes is in the midst of a two-week vacation, earning over $3000 in her absence in what was an illegal appointment with contractual wrangling done fully in secret.  She knew then that she would be taking a meticulously planned two-week vacation a month after the contract's ink was dry.  Also meanwhile: our Ludington city officials are laughing at you for so easily allowing yourself to be used by them.

[AnxiousGuy]

I agree Kelly Smith has been a good fit for PM Township. The question I have is what is this new lunchtime “opportunity?” From what I understand he is still a realtor in town. Does anyone else in town have the privilege of having 3 jobs that cater to this time crunch? I already had concerns (unproven) that he could be using his time as supervisor to handle realtor work. I would personally prefer the person holding the township supervisor position to work the same hours everyone else in that office is required to work. It comes across as special treatment, I don’t think many others would be blessed with.

Are there any other employers in town that would let their employees seek out other “lunchtime opportunities?”

[XLFD]

I see your points and I am assuming, of course, that the 'opportunity' has no additional conflict of interest with the supervisor position, which may come into play if the 'opportunity' is in local realty.  

The problem is that if you have an employee that has exceeded all expectations and has such an 'opportunity' come up, you generally don't want to lose them, and you generally believe that if they make an overture like this that tries to fairly resolve a scheduling conflict that isn't too unrealistic, you see whether a compromise can be reached. 

In the City of Ludington, employees have done worse side hustles than I imagine this is and either kept it secret or disclosed it to other city employees that were fine with letting it happen even though it was effectively unethical or a dereliction of duty.  I believe Kelly Smith when he says that this arrangement could work, but I will try to find out more of what the opportunity is and what problems other township employees and board members may have with this special arrangement, if any.  

[AnxiousGuy]

Just curious. If the work can be done in 35 hours why is he being paid currently for 40 hours? While he seems like an honorable guy, he didn’t come to the board meeting saying “I would like to reduce my hours and salary because they exceed the work I need to put in”. He now has something on side that pays better. Volunteering to take that reduction was a benefit to help himself, not the taxpayers. Working oneself up in public opinion should not give a person special privileges in their duties.

[XLFD]

If nothing in the standing supervisor contract suggests that they must work 40 hours (as indicated by a trustee) and only must only be a full-time employee, then 35 hours satisfies that requirement.  Otherwise, I would hope that the trustees take a good look at his productivity and his work product up to this point.  At most workplaces, a good worker working 35 hours a week will do more than twice as much than some who work 40 hours.  If I'm the boss, I will want to keep that good worker and make fair compromises and /or concessions to do so.

[Willy]

Excellent reporting X. Thanks