The Place Where Ludington Talks
Waterproof Signs and Decals
At city hall, we have seen two decades of corruption dealing with the fact that we have a community development director (CDD) who is partial owner of a private business which has gotten quite a lot of money from the city by being their exclusive contractor for everything that the business provides. Safety Decals, formerly Tye's Signs and Tye's Inc., is the business originally created by Nick Tykoski, CDD Heather Tykoski's husband and here the proud owners stand outside their old location near the First Street Industrial Park.
It is usually not too hard to reveal this form of corruption for those who review the city's invoices included in council packets. Several times each year, one can find purchases made from Safety Decals. It's become so commonplace and so accepted by apathetic city officials, that the Ludington Torch rarely calls it out to them.
We called it out sixteen years ago. Nick Tykoski served as an officer on the Ludington DDA, a public board, and on the signage committee back in 2009, where his company was paid over $15,000 by the City through his wife Heather and City Manager Shay also serving on the DDA. This was before the sign contract was put out for bids in 2010, where Tykoski had already made his bid while other companies were sent the request for complex proposals three days before they were due.
Tye Signs, Tykoski company got voted the contract and were set to do up to $150,000 of way-faring sign work (those mostly useless and confusing gold and black signs downtown). Never was a contract made between the city and Tykoski. Caught by our reporting, the three ethically challenged individuals spent less than $60,000 on the signs, saving $90,000 from going to the pockets of corrupt officials.
We duly recognize that their business should not be shut out of providing goods to the city, but if they do, city and state ethics laws requires the public body to acknowledge the purchase from a city official vendor and that it was the best value, this may be by fair competitive bidding for large buys or (for smaller buys) by pointing out all other vendors would charge more than the official's company. They definitely did none of this when ordering sesquicentennial cups in 2023, t-shirts back in 2023, plaques in 2021, LOSD labels in 2021, 'free' mask signs in 2020, etc.
Whether it be detailed cups, clothes, plaques, labels, signs, etc. Safety Decals was the first choice and often the worst choice when one considers price. At least one city official profited from their position while all other city officials let it slide every time, showing how deeply set the taint is in our city government.
When the city's marina board finally released agenda packets and minutes of their meetings over the last five months after I chided them for hiding them at the Monday city council meeting, I recognized that Safety Decals was awfully popular with the berthing people. From June last year to June this year, the Ludington Municipal Marina Board (MMB) approved eight distinct purchases from Safety Decals classified either by signage or decals:
In that same period there was one MMB purchase of a reflective sign made by North Wood Signs, but in the realm of detailed Safety Decal products, there were no other product providers noticed. Our immediate area has four other businesses capable of making signs and/or labels/decals. This map shows all of them:
Assuredly, the internet offers many more options, but these four businesses should always be under consideration whenever a need for signs or other detailed product is needed by the city, rather than having Safety Decals be the default. If our officials at city hall were following the rules, expressed in state laws and the city code, Safety Decals would never be the default option; when this official-owned company was used, the reasons would be fully delineated and defined as to why they were the best option in that case.
If the city was committed to acting in the public interest and within the law, they would have no issue doing this simple act. They never do despite our lectures, so what does that show?
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