2015 Courtesy Calendar for Ludington

[XLFD]

If you live in the City of Ludington, you may have seen one of these Ludington calendars arrive in your mailbox this week, probably Tuesday.  Made of quality materials it has the whole year covered and a wealth of information about Ludington inside.  The cover:

Followed by twelve months of Ludington events, LASD events, even various board and city council meetings, and more; here is a typical page:

The last few pages of the calendar give a lot of information about other aspects of the City's laws, where to find other information, contacts with the City services, even a map that shows days of garbage pickup.  Here's the back page:

If you got one of these, please comment in regards to whether you like it and whether you plan to hang it up, if you haven't already.  If you didn't, please express your opinion on whether it's a good idea.  There is no wrong answer, of course, and feel free to comment on any other aspect of it.

[Willy]

Who's paying for the calender? It had to cost a lot of money to put together, print and mail. I have a post office box and had not received one as of yesterday when I last checked for mail. Sounds like a wasteful project and appears the City has money to burn.

[XLFD]

I'm hoping to find out the overall costs; as you note the layout, printing, and mailing would be significant costs, but I've yet to see this show up on the city budgeted items.  In the last November meeting there was a $38 charge for calendars for the assessing department, but I'm sure that's for something else. 

The extensive amount of photography by Jen Tooman indicates that it's probably a product of her business, the design duck, which has been used by the City of Ludington oft times before in the matter of advertising and marketing.  You may remember her from the debate over the City's ethicality in situating the dog park in Cartier Park using their own officers to head a private committee in order to arrange it, then in short order, letting the City take over it by abandoning it.

[Wonder Woman]

I do like the transparency of listing all of the meeting dates/times along with the directory of phone numbers to contact our elected leaders.  I think it's a proactive way for the city to reach its taxpayers.  The costs concerns me and where the money came from.  It's hard to postpone projects & repairs because of budgetary constraints, but then spend thousands of dollars on a calendar & direct mailing.  Didn't the city council recently decide to post meeting notices solely on their website because they didn't want to pay the cost of newspaper ads?  All in all, it's a good idea...just need to figure out how it was funded.  That being said, mine went straight into the recycling bin as I already have a 2015 calendar that is more specific to my tastes.

[Willy]

That's a good point WW. One of the reasons for changing the ordinance was to avoid mailing fees so I sure hope this calender's costs were donated by local businesses and not paid for by taxpayers. X, Is there any indication on the calender as to who paid for it, such as a notation on the back saying "funds donated by ____"? It seems to me that if the City wanted the information on the calender to be given to the public they could have added that information on a sheet of paper sent out with tax notices, but someone at City Hall wanted to inform the public in a more expensive and wasteful way.

[AQUAMAN]

This is something that I would more expect that the Chamber of Commerce/CVB would have put out and distributed, not the COL. That way there would be no direct taxpayer expenditures involved, and the pictures from month to month may have been offered by local photographers and freelances for no cost at all. The way it stands now, it's suspicious and hypocritical at best. If Jen Tooman is on any city committee or in any appointed position with the city, then it becomes a direct conflict of interest. In essence, she and her firm may have been chosen without any fair competition to bid this work, and effectively been the only bidder, again breaking the city charter rules regarding such unethical actions.

[XLFD]

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on the source of the calendars funding, Willy.  I cannot find anything on the calendar where it says who provided for the calendars.  Hopefully, I can eventually figure that out without being capitally extorted by the City via the FOIA.

To my knowledge, Jen Tooman is not on any official boards of the city, but if she was she would be ethically required to note that relationship when she contracts for the city.  She wouldn't be restricted from business with the City, but any business sent her way should be legitimately earned through the city charter's bidding process if indicated.

[AQUAMAN]

If  I'm understanding you right X, you say the calendar has no reference marks of it's origin or maker? That would have to be the first and only commercially produced calendar of that nature I've heard of in my lifetime. That in itself invites huge suspicion and of course, serious investigation as to exactly whom and where it came from, as well as the price paid, and also by whom. Like I said earlier, I'm all for the COL having a calendar of this type, but, it seems to me that the COC/CVB would have been more properly suited to this task, as well as the mailing costs. I thought Shay said they were over-budget already on postage for mailing notices of overgrown grass. This illustrates quite clearly where priorities lie on the postage issues they whined about.

[XLFD]

Excellent point, Aquaman.  Besides the City of Ludington logo on the cover, I could find no reference to any printer or publisher. 

But in the councilor packet just put out for this coming Monday's meeting, the cost is over $7000. which may or may not include mailing.  Graphics Unlimited Inc. is a Texas firm 

[AQUAMAN]

Good find X, but we still don't know how many calendars were printed out for $6900. Since there are only about 700 voters registered in the COL, if they all got a mailing, that would make each calendar cost at about $10 each, when it should be about $2 each. This doesn't include postage, and any extra for any pictures by month.