Ludington Code Enforcement: Threatening Letters Based on Unverified, Second-Hand Information for Ill-defined Laws

[XLFD]

At it's last meeting, the Ludington City Council passed two onerous ordinances which should have provoked a lot of the population to rise up and comment publicly on them, since they infringed rather liberally on your property rights.  One greatly expanded the definition of what is an inoperative vehicle and reduced sixfold the amount of time you can remedy junk situations.  The other ordinance allows City agents to go onto your property whenever any of your grass or weeds crest ten inches and cut them at your expense without any warning and without any immediate billing.  At the two meetings, only two citizens affected by the ordinance spoke up.

The latter is a potential gold mine for City revenue if they exploit it, and if you still have any doubts, they will do just that.  At least that can only be the impression one can get when they see this latest foible the City DPW attempted in their attempt at being code enforcers of a law that is as poorly worded as the above ordinances. 

Friends of mine recently moved into a recently acquired multiple unit house in the Fourth Ward this fall, and they keep the place up nice, inside and out.  This Tuesday, January 20th, they received the letter below from some anonymous city official working allegedly at the DPW:

As you can see, the letter was sent to at least one of the residents of the three unit house (two units are not occupied) and the new landlord, Remington Greiner.  An anonymous report claims the resident has been putting snow onto someone else's public right of way.  They include the city code law supposedly being broken by their actions.  They then put the resident on notice that they may receive a fine if they get another report that their behavior hasn't changed. 

The residents were greatly upset at the letter with the threats and the accusations that they had done something against the law, when they hadn't believed they did.  They were further intimidated that the letter was sent to their landlord, who may have took it as a reason to invoke his own threats and punishments.  Both landlords and DPW had to be called to try and clear up the reported claim, as it seemed to be baseless.  Either that, or everyone in Ludington is operating against the law.  Here is a view from the front door of the residence, it should be noted that over the weekend there was some thaw, and that 1-2 inches fell the previous night:

Like many people, including the house directly across the street belonging to Wanda Marrison, former Fourth Ward City Councilor, they have a shoveled path between the street and their house, not only for themselves to get out on the street, but for the letter carrier.  You'll notice the snow piled on both sides and a shoveled path leading to the right, which goes to the back unit. 

You will notice (in the picture below) the immediate neighbor to the west has not shoveled their sidewalk nearly as much, and further down the street no other neighbors have bothered to shovel their sidewalk.  This is not against the law in Ludington unless you're in the Central Business District.  You will also notice there is no snow placed in the neighbor's right of way, nor is there to the east.

The ordinance says:  "It shall be unlawful for any person, by shoveling or other manual or mechanical operation, to remove snow or cause snow to be removed from private property onto any public right-of-way in the city."

In section 50-152 of the City Code it explains what is the 'public right of way'.  On the residential street of Melendy, the right of way is 70 feet wide.  Melendy itself is nearly 24 feet wide from curb to curb, so, doing the math, the public right of way actually extends 23 ft. past the curb on both sides of the street. 

That equates to the very bottom of the first picture taken above.  The official right of way actually extends past the concrete retaining walls in the front.  But the ordinance also says the snow must originate from private property.  Here's where the conflict arises, since all of the public right of ways including all streets and sidewalks in front of private residences actually are private property. 

In Ludington, every lot extends out to the middle of the adjacent streets, corner lots jut out to the centers of both adjacent streets.  The city would love to believe they own the street and the sidewalk in front of your house, but you do-- you just can't do much with it.

In this light, each time the city DPW plows the street, they are committing this infraction.  Those big piles of snow you find at the end of everyone's driveway is concrete evidence that this ordinance has been violated.  Any undrifted pile of snow in the right of way in non-public-building neighborhoods indicates the snow has been removed from private property and placed on the public right of way.  Does everyone get harassing letters sent to them (and their landlord, if applicable)?

Consider this look down the other side of the street shown above.  Wanda's house is shoveled just like the beleaguered resident across the way, did she get a letter from the DPW?  How about the person with the orange car blocking his 'driveway' situated in the right of way with piled snow beside it? 

One of these people, or some other neighbor in their own violation of the law, reported this resident who is likely keeping better control of their property than them.  The DPW, who supposedly travel the length and breadth of the city plowing the streets, cannot even verify the anonymous report before issuing a threat and wasting city resources in doing so when the report is clearly baseless and its own brand of public nuisance. 

A half block further down is our new (albeit illegitimate) Fourth Ward Councilor Michael Krauch's property, where he has piled snow in the public right of way from his driveway as seen by the pronounced snow pile near his mailbox.  About the only lots owned that haven't had their owners violate this ordinance are those adjacent to public buildings and those next to vacant buildings which haven't needed to be shoveled. 

One can believe the intent of the law is to prevent people from throwing snow at the end of their driveways/sidewalks into the street, which seems like common sense not to do.  But if it is strictly interpreted and applied without verification and oversight, it can lead to everyone being in violation and paying hefty fines.  Just like the new tall grass ordinance has the potential to be.  The people of Ludington need better defined laws on the books, as too much interpretation and selective application always leads to tyranny and then to the inevitable popular rebellion.

[MED]

So the answer is NOT to shovel one's snow in Ludington neighborhoods at all? I really don't get it. (Plus I'm wondering who complained and what was it truly about.)

[AQUAMAN]

True MED, it sounds like someone has an ax to grind with a neighbor for some unknown reason. But, legally speaking, here's what an attorney told me years ago regarding such notices. 1) The letter is incorrectly addressed to "resident", not a named person. Therefore, it has no grounds towards any individual, as much as just the household itself, so it's not credible in a court of law. 2) The letter isn't signed by any authorized public official, in any capacity of title, therefore, that also makes the letter null and void. The COL may want to pass this by the prosecutor's office for verification. I would have said pass it by CA Wilson, but I would expect his interpretation, like most of his on laws, would be extremely biased in favor of whatever the COL expects for an agenda and outcome. All in all, this is a stupid waste of time and money on behalf of the COL, as we are witnessing more every year of recent.

[XLFD]

The parties concerned feel that the anonymous reporter is likely a neighbor whose axe to grind is that she has made it clear that she doesn't want rental properties in her neighborhood. 

The three units on the lot has a 'duplex' house and a small residence on the back end of the lot.  The resident of the back did not get a notice.  I believe your attorney had a valid point Aquaman about the legality of the note, it's only purpose is to try to threaten and intimidate. 

I don't really know what one should do at this point, MED, just continue with what you have been doing if you don't get nasty letters like this for doing it.  This law has been on the Ludington books for at least 30 years, so it hasn't been really challenged until now as far as I know.

It shows the City of Ludington has no problem in wasting resources in harassing lower-income rental units in a building that was recently foreclosed and vacant and now being cared for and used productively.  The elitism and social-designing attitudes prevalent in our City Hall makes me believe that they would like to see all the poor and lower middle class folks in Ludington either moved out of the city limits or herded into multi-unit dwellings like Pineway, Evergreen Trail Apartments, Birch Lake Apts., etc. 

[Willy]

I think you are correct X. This all boils down to an ill written code. The obvious intent is to prevent people from snowblowing into the street from the sidewalk and curb cut. Also to prevent folks from snowplowing their driveway snow into the street. It's obvious City officials have no idea how to enforce this code. Most other Cities have front lot  lines located between the sidewalk and house. Ludington settlers obviously laid out the plats so the property lines start in the middle of the street. Are you sure of this X? As far as how this non violation is handled by the City, it seems they have a policy of leaping before they look. Not a good way to enforce the code but there are other cities that do the same because of a lack of personnel to do the job. Instead of tightening the noose around the peoples necks with  more restrictive code changes and other projects that are unnecessary, the City should revise the Codes to reflect some common sense. The only problem with that is the Council, Shay and the double dipping City Attorney will be opening that proverbial can of worms and may in fact lower the boom on the citizens by putting the squeeze on them with an entire book of nonsensical code revisions just as they have done with the weeds, junk and inoperable vehicle codes. Why can't Ludington have elected officials who have some common sense and a City Manager that won't rule the roost but will follow the bidding of the Council? I know that in the Counties and Townships that are rural, most of the front property lines run from the road center. That's because the surveys that were done long ago when section boundaries were established adjoined the sections next to each other and the only place to put a public access road was generally along those section boundary lines.