Ludington City Council Meeting, March 10, 2025: Too Comfortable with Contradictions

[XLFD]

One wouldn't expect the March 10, 2025 meeting of the Ludington City Council to last two hours when they look at the meeting's agenda packet.  Five citizens, however, spoke during both comments bringing a variety of subjects before the council, and the councilors were hard-pressed to defend the city's actions from recent history and many decades ago.

Two ordinances were in play.  The "Chicken Ordinance" was scheduled for adoption, but it was only a rehatching of a prior ordinance removing the sunset provision and passed without a peep from the citizens and only a minor squawk from Third Ward Councilor Tim Large, who wasn't around for the first ordinance, but related that a couple of constituents convinced him that it wasn't right for Ludington (Editor's note: even when many eggs have adopted his last name in their description).  With only two households in town with chicken permits (outside of his ward) and no complaints in the two years since inception, a half-dozen yes votes were placed in the carton, and it passed.

The other was a first reading of the "No Smoking in Parks" ordinance, which elicited some discussion, with enough councilors looking at the proffered law and indicating it still needed more work to throw it back to the committee and the city attorney for a rewrite.  We've argued before that this ordinance should be snuffed out, as it just doesn't make much sense in the overall scheme of things.  Citizen Tom Sanders had a great rebuke during his second comment, reminding them of the smoke output from firepits at the Cartier campgrounds and fixed charcoal grills at other parks. 

We would only add that the number of noxious gases and carcinogens threw off by idling vehicles going through a packed Stearns Park in the summer greatly eclipse the output of a beach full of smokers as to the effect on the public's health and safety.  It's really time to snuff this ordinance out before wasting any more of the city attorney's expensive time on it.  But expect this useless sideshow to be relit and come back secondhand next month.

The Lakestride Half-Marathon was approved for June 20-21st and the agenda indicated the only other action item would be to approve budget amendments for 2024 and 2025, but without giving any reason they removed those of 2024 from the agenda at the beginning of the meeting and added the approval of marina electrical upgrade bids, snatching it from the consent agenda.  It was almost as if they had access to my two comments where I pointed out problems with each.  The first comment also dealt with a vote from the prior meeting:

XLFD: (15:00 in) "I see a pastor is back for the invocation; the mayor must not be introducing another measure to close a park and a street to the general public for the purpose of celebrating alternative sexuality and the deadliest of sins.  On May 6, 2024, I was thrown out of a meeting for playing instrumental background music during my public comment, citizen Mike Shaw sat behind me at this meeting and did nothing-- but at last meeting he made sure to tell us that he didn't condone the pride festival or drag shows, but he did believe in free speech.  You sat on your hands last year councilor rather than tell Mayor Marx that his action of throwing me out of a meeting was a violation of the First Amendment.  Wear a dress from now on please.

Sorry, I have to address the chair:  wear a dress from now on please, you hypocrite.  Just a decade ago, Police Chief Marx and area churches blocked streets and created a scene to protest the "Girls Gone Wild" bus from parking at a private business and doing their schtick inside that private bus on a private business lot owned by a family whose son exacted litigation against the LPD after he was tasered repeatedly by an LPD officer just for refusing medical treatment while cuffed to a gurney at the hospital.  Treatment from injuries due to earlier police misconduct against a man innocent of any crime.  Look at you now, bringing drag shows to town. 

A consent agenda should not be used for controversial action items, but I see that accepting bids for two contracts for marina projects are in that section.  As a rule of thumb, especially for a council that shows it will often ignore the low bid, competitive bids should be resolved as a separate item on the regular agenda.  Additionally, when one sees that both projects are supported by a grant from the Waterways Commission, a public body which the city attorney argues throughout his memo provided in the packet is a strictly advisory board, it would seem to me that any councilor voting for this consent item contradicts the attorney's assertions.  Advisory boards do not have the power to dole out grants." [END Comment]

City Attorney Ross "Sewage" Hammersley's opinion starting on p. 46 of the packet, arguing the MI WC is an advisory body

This would be just one of the many public comments this evening pointing out city (and even state) officials contradicting themselves with their words and actions.  It needs to be noted once again, that my concern with the pride festival is the fact that the public was ill-served by councilors and other officials who don't have any idea what is going to happen at this celebration in a very public part of our community. 

Our officials have actively striven to make Ludington's reputation as a family destination; if an unvetted new organization without providing any details as to what they're doing holds an open festival flaunting their sexual dysphoria, one can see the potential shattering of that wholesome family image.  And it will be on your Bible-clutching watch, Mayor Mark "of the beast" Barnett and Councilor Magic Mike Shaw.

Two other recurring figures at council meetings this year, Jeff Henry and Ray Karboske, would follow my comment up talking of the ongoing controversy involving the state and city as regards their public marinas and the funding thereof.  The city gave them both a gift this meeting, by having the city attorney offer an opinion that the Waterways Commission was advisory in scope, while having two contracts bid out that would be available only through financial grants given out by that same advisory body.  

The problem is that the commission has not been acting as an advisory board even when being recognized as such by the legislature and chief executive of the state for decades, using an ungranted authority to amass taxpayer money and use that to fund hundreds of millions of dollars in public marina projects throughout the state, with a lot of that in Ludington which features two public marinas.  The actions were finally admitted to by the attorney general's office, calling it operational rather than advisory, so the point has been ceded.  But everyone who can see the actions taken by the Waterways over the last six decades of its 'advisory-only' status, including the two approved bids funded by them at this meeting, show they are operational and therefore illegal.

The persistence of Henry and Karboske, second generation marina owners, should be highly commended and their findings should be validated by both the city and the state.  But public officials facing over a half century of unlawful actions are not generally humble enough to admit their mistakes and accept the consequences.  Karboske gave a very humble speech, expressing his disappointment, while commending the invocation's focus on sunshine as a message for the council to seek truth, honesty, and integrity, just as he is.  Henry, would work in some of his own biography as a wrestling coach and with area marinas, point out the city's contradictory use of a Waterways grant at the same meeting they (would) say the Waterways is strictly advisory, and advised the council not to duck from the truth, but seek it.

Two others commented.  Annette Quillan spoke about plans from the DDA for expanding Ludington's social district.  Quillan would cover the various rules and some of the new rules of these areas that allow people to drink outside on the sidewalks of what are and would be downtown areas.  She would lead off the second comment, with a continuation of this and wonder about the equity of the city's stance of allowing people to drink in front of children in the heart of the city while working actively against allowing smoking and marijuana in Ludington.  

We must realize that the DDA by its nature will always support social districts as they focus on the purported benefits of increased revenues and a welcoming culture for enhancing tourism.  It is up to people like Quillan and others to remind the city council that there is a cost to these districts.  Any revenue benefits must be weighed against the known, massive, socialized cost of excessive alcohol consumption. Cultural changes that promote tourism and socializing must likewise be weighed against the known harms of normalizing frequent alcohol consumption and increased exposure to advertising/social district signage.  We understood this balance as a society before the COVID lockdowns were forced down our throats, we should understand it even better now-- but dollar signs get in the way.

Tom Sanders had an epic night of telling it like it is.  His first comment held to a theme where he first compared Visscher Construction's remodeling work on 215 S James to make it their base with help from an OPRA to similar handouts given to a former councilor's daughter's lot on the corner of James and Filer (now an empty lot for sale for $450K) and with Foster School's OPRA, which looks like it will also be unused, with the developer likely giving it over to the city.  He asked the city to only consider OPRAs until after the project is complete.  Unfortunately, this last sensible argument violates OPRA in that the receiver has to certify that work hasn't been initiated before the OPRA district is created.  

In his second comment, Sanders, would elucidate on the folly of the smoking ordinance, affirm Quillan's perception of how an expanding social district will be bad for the community, following my lead, he faulted the former LPD chief (Mayor Marx) for his past action of threatening sound violations for those attending "Bike Night", which made them avoid Ludington in the future.  He would then explain noticing an obvious water main rupture on Washington that was overlooked by city trucks until he brought it to their attention and a dead tree in his neighborhood on the right of way that should be taken down before it falls on a house.  

I followed Sanders and kept it real by addressing the 2024 Budget amendments once on the agenda, then stricken because the Finance Committee at the last second, for some unspecified reason, decided not to act on them.

XLFD: (1:55:50 in)  "The Michigan Treasury Department puts out a Uniform Budget Manual for Local Government Units revised yearly, the 2024 version says in its section on amending budgets:  "To be in compliance with the [Uniform Budgeting and Accounting Act], local units of government shall not amend the budget after the year end."  Last year you were amending the 2023 Budget in March and May, I called out your law breaking, but this year you are still planning on breaking the law, while no other local unit in the county appears to be doing the same as you.  Please tell me why you are planning on breaking the law so cavalierly. 

You also approved the paying of the bills without telling us why the LPD made out a check for $132 to Spartan Stores LLC for FOIA supplies.  I'm not sure what $132 of FOIA supplies look like, but it doesn't sound like something you can get from a supplier of food products.  I've made hundreds of FOIA requests to the city and I've never gotten any food, I never knew you could order food through FOIA.  But then I realized that Police Thief Jones is notorious for stealing things.  Whether it's public extortion, by changing city FOIA policy on his own initiative to ask for hundreds of dollars for non-exempt body cam footage, or using general fund credit for purchases for his dog after he told us this would not happen, his sticky fingers are always grabbing for more, so writing a check for his own groceries isn't that surprising.  "I'll just call these Twinkies FOIA supplies... [END comment]

City Manager Kaitlyn Aldritch would finish the meeting looking at this question and another about the floral arrangement in her section of the payment of the bills at the end of the meeting.  She gave a flawed, undisputed lesson on what are acceptable uses of money by city officials, showing once again that our city officials have no idea what they can use public money for.

Aldritch: (2:02:30 in):  "Questions about items on the bills.  One about the floral arrangement, was paid by a donation, so it was an item approved tonight on the bills, but it was paid by a private donation.  Another item that was mentioned earlier tonight was the $132 for FOIA supplies.  We hosted a FOIA training last month and our requirement for hosting that training was to make sure drinks and snacks and different supplies for the training so the cost of supplies was related to the FOIA training that we held back in February."

Let me get this straight, Kaitlyn: somebody donated $59 to the city manager for her to sign a city check to purchase a floral arrangement for the funeral of Charlie Dewyer, a mechanic in the city's motor pool for many years, retiring in 2016, eight years before she arrived in Ludington?  Seriously, nobody believes this happened and since this issue wasn't brought up at this meeting, it must have been brought up at the Finance Committee meeting held just before this one. 

  

In the MI Audit Manual for Local Municipalities and the MML Fact Sheet on Municipal Expenditures we find guidance on what public funds can be used for, and what they cannot be used for.

Reading these, we realize that even had some unnamed individual donated $59 or more to the city manager, her use of that money, belonging now to the City of Ludington, to buy a floral arrangement was against the MIchigan Constitution's restrictions.  Likewise, the LPD spending $132 at Family Fare to buy pop and snacks for a training session where the general public was not invited does not constitute a public purpose.  I would have loved to go to such a training, just to find out how they would try to be blocking FOIA requests in the future, rather than fulfilling them.

If the new city manager wants to be looked at as something other than an apologist and perpetrator of corrupt practices, she would be better served by admitting to and (in the future) correcting these mistakes in purchasing.  As it is right now, she is condoning unlawful spending practices and looking as tainted as her peers-- perhaps more so since they are at least remaining mute about the city's malfeasances.

Henry and Karboske would try again to get the council to understand the facts and the rules of basic fairness, with Henry concentrating on the advisory/operational dichotomy and paradox, Karboske reminding them of what enterprise funds are and how the state's (and city's) blatant subsidizations of the public marinas showed they weren't true to their creation.  He reminded them that the marina handing charter boats rebates in the past were a means to attract them away from the private marinas using public funds.  

A foundation based on contradictions, lies, and unfair competitive practices, is not what you build public marinas on, not what maintains them.  Yet, your city council embraces all of these and they all (except for John Kreinbrink with his support/vote at this meeting) just don't care if a lot of private businesses fail as long as their own heavily subsidized marinas get all they can get from all the taxpayers of the state, the vast majority of whom can never utilize a marina because they just don't have the disposable income after heavy taxation to afford recreational watercraft.  Local and state government should not be in that business, we wish these local heroes success in their seeking of justice in a justice system that is needlessly complicating the issues.

[Willy]

Thanks for that excellent report X.