Ludington City Council Meeting March 23, 2015: Water Torture

[XLFD]

The 80 minute long meeting of the March 23, 2015 for the Ludington City Council featured only two public comments lasting ten minutes altogether, both speakers cut off in their presentations.  The other seventy minutes was a mixture of new policy, two more annual reports for 2014, and some of the usual patting themselves on the back. 

In the meantime, they passed the second water hike this year (the first was the inflationary hike that happens at the beginning of each year, thanks to a covert policy change in 2010),

The first speaker was Jennifer Strahan (2:20 into the video) who talked of her problems and her successes at the skate park.  Strahan lives just outside the city limits, and addressed her concerns about sand removal at the park which is difficult for the kids who use it without some assistance.  My favorite line of hers was "I called and spoke with the city manager about my concerns last Friday.  During our conversation I felt that my request was considered unimportant.  Mr. Shay indicated that the city council had made it very clear that priorities are elsewhere, and mentioned cutting trees, sweeping streets, and filling potholes."

This is typical of what I hear from citizens who have dealt with John Shay, regular citizens and business owners who are overlooked by our city government except when it's time to get more money.  If it's outside the usual parameters of pleasing tourists and their own clique, Shay considers it not important at all, and if it runs counter to their overall plan, considers it as threatening. 

The first part of my public comment dealt with other ten-reasons-why-john-shay-should-be-fired so I thank Jennifer for expressing her opinion both frankly and earnestly, especially regarding the manager, but mainly about a local problem that can be easily mitigated by city employees doing a few minutes work.  The first portion of my comment is transcribed at the above link, the finish of the comment follows the video.

March 22, 2015 Ludington City Council from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

"First, the city is set to approve three bonfires by the CVB at the beach. This city council is the same one that passed onerous laws in September that said NFPA standards were not enough to rule what you could do with fires in your backyard. By current city law, any police or fire official can look at your lit barbecue or fire pit and claim it is a nuisance using their own subjective standards, and issue you a ticket. The City and their partners, however, do not have to worry about such rules when they feel like it.

Second, the city wants to avoid the competitive bidding process in awarding the marina fuel contract to Blarney Castle. At the Marina Board meeting, Manager Shay detailed his old familiar story of how the competitive bidding process made the city pay $90,000 more over five years for the waste hauling contract back before he was even our city's manager. The Manager’s competence in the process was a factor in that case, witness that City Manager Miller was fired within two months of that fiasco, paving the way for Shay to justify not using competitive bidding in deciding waste haulers since.

Most of this council was at the meeting where Darrell Finstermacher begged this council in 2013 to let him competitively bid for the waste hauling contract, but the fix was already in. If done inclusively and properly, competitive bidding saves money and promotes fairness, period.

Third, city water customer’s water billing rates are scheduled for being raised four times in 2015 and 2016 to pay for "planned" improvements to the water plant. We face even more burdensome rate hikes when the wastewater treatment plant gets much overdue maintenance in the future. The question here, as Tom Tyron asked before, is why were these problems not foreseen by our city management when they were putting money towards frivolous purchases in this department, most notably the unbid water tower paintings?

Fourth, the sidewalk policy slightly revised comes before the council with an irrational twist: to mandate that people who sell their property without sidewalks give the city money to install sidewalks. Our current policy allows the city council to establish priorities for sidewalk installation, which is much more sensible. Would you rather have a bunch of disjoint sidewalks to nowhere crop up on certain streets due to the new policy, or would you like to see the councilors use the limited funds to prioritize where sidewalks are really needed to be installed, like near schools, or to connect other pendant sidewalks?

The ordinance only makes sense if you understand that the city gets paid every time someone sells a property without a sidewalk, which then gets put in the general fund.[Here's where my presentation ended due to time, I include what would have been my finish] Places that really need a sidewalk go without, while the city bank account grows. It’s a very bad idea as written.

Fifth, I must remind the manager and this council that the DNR trust fund application to be considered must have the city's match totally specified; saying the city can get $216,000 in unspecified donations won't fly according to DNR policy. By October, the grant match must be totally secured by the city in order for consideration. Without committing any of that match now, will doom your application to failure."

After my comment, the city council went and agreed to the three bonfires.  As I said, it is hypocritical of the city to totally control fires on your own property with subjective-based ordinances that go beyond the purpose of fire safety, but then expand the beach bonfires.  It shows that they likely quenched your backyard fires in order to get these bonfires higher attendance.  Sorry, I like sitting around campfires with family and friends, not a bunch of strangers.

The next admission was a bit of a surprise, the city manager announcing that they had received a potential competitive entity in Hart for the municipal marina fuel bid, and that they would be considering competitive bids.  At the Marina Board meeting, the only one who was holding out for bids was Dick Boes, who voted against giving Blarney Castle the contract as they have for almost all of the last thirty years without competition. 

They then raised the water rates unanimously.  The readiness to serve charge, in case you didn't know is designed to collect revenues to cover operating and maintenance expenses, which the city manager has not used for that purpose, as the water revenues and expenses are roughly even each year.  We put nothing aside for the "planned" maintenance we need at the end of the year, this is why they are needing to raise your rates.

The water restriction ordinance shows the short-sightedness of the Ludington City Council of 2009, who passed an ordinance to ban 'irrigation wells' in the city .  It may be wise to explore your options, because the water and sewer rate, which are intimately connected are about to shoot through the roof like a geyser.

The competitive bid for the 2015 general alley paving helps show how much a competitive bid can save.  Two bids were given under the same conditions, and Rieth Riley's bid was almost half of the other's bid.  The fact that it was competitive, made RR and the competitor submit a low price, where one happened to be much lower.  The price without competitive bidding would have likely been twice what we got.

The Jaycees $45,000 Recreational Passport grant which had a public hearing at the last meeting was the next up, they even had a further grant application for $10,000 from the Mason County Foundation.  I hope to speak more on this later, but it is a pretty sad state of affairs when the local Jaycees freely donate the profits they make from the mini-golf course to a variety of causes, and then needs to have public funds subsidize their maintenance of the course.  I wonder how the owners of the private mini-golf courses in the area, who qualify for no such grants, feel about that?

On the bright side, if the grant is won by the Jaycees, it may actually work against the City's application for the West End of Ludington Avenue Project (WE LAP), which was next on the docket.  Sending an application for a $200,000 grant for this project was unanimously passed by the council without any indication on the application form or the resolution of any city money being used.  The COL has $51,000 committed to the project from the Mason County Foundation and a Consumer's Energy non-profit organization (likely a payback for letting them do overpriced work for the WE LAP project).  This leaves $216,000 needing someone with that money to magically appear before April 1st, and to secure that pledge by this October.  This is different than what the City did from other years and may disqualify them immediately from the process.

The next presentations were annual reports from Cartier Park  and the Senior Citizen Center, the latter lasting about 13 minutes, which could be of interest if you follow those agencies (these start at about 50:00 in).   

It was then time for the council to deny one of my latest FOIA requests, which they did unanimously and with relish.  I will cover this in another article, and just say at this point that it was the most amusing FOIA denial in a while.  They then dedicated the remainder of the meeting to defending their boy, John Shay from the slings and arrows, with a mention by the mayor to see that the skate park would get trash cans and some cleaning implements.

They effectively got the opportunity to set their fragile universe with John Shay in the center back into place after the two citizens dared to question his actions, ethics, and integrity.  God bless them, every one.

[Willy]

Good job X. If all of the Councilors voted to request a grant for the Dead End Ludington Ave. project then that means they all favor the destruction of the dunes located there. And they still have not thoroughly aired this project at a Council meeting or public hearing. As far as I'm concerned this is Shay's project. It started with him and it's still going strong even with a clean slate of new Councilors. These Councilors are mini Obama's. They do what they please and couldn't care less what the people think. I did not know that tax dollars are supporting the mini golf course at the beach. I don't want my taxes paying for this type of entity. The money from the Recreational Passport funds is supposed to pay for publicly owned projects. It's not a charity fund.

[AQUAMAN]

Thanks for the cogent and accurate observations again Willy, well said. Nowthen, this was quite a long meeting. Some, like Ms. VanSykle, stayed at the platform some 14 minutes, give or take. I noticed the Mayor still has a stiffy for any public comments that exceed 5 minutes, even though some state they only want another paragraph of time, denied emphatically! Another rude and obnoxious reaction imho, carrying on Mayor Henderson's ways. Kaye Holman doesn't seem to be able to control herself, again. She definitely shows her anger, and her pettiness when the subject of FOIA comes up. How is she personally hurt? She has said this before, and has no business making public business of the city her personal vendetta. And, Shyster Shay, yes, he's a great bean counter when it comes to FOIA's, but a disgusting failure when it comes to public finance, esp. the infrastructure system he has let go to ruins. Then the RAM effect of passing poor ordinances for more monies/fees/increased rates, that must go forward. The West End project remains intact for applying for another grant application, now they lowered it to $200K, and still no mention of where matching funds are, or how they intend to raise them. And except for Krauch, no mention of how the citizens feel about denying this project for it's unwanted purposes. I noticed the pow-wow between Shay and Cox at the 48 minute mark, ignoring the speaker for Cartier Park, another rude sideshow that wasn't professional, as so many claim Shay is. Well, then Castonia weighed in, at a whopping 350 lbs., or more whale blubber making waves in favor of Shay. I didn't believe a word he said, and neither do most people with half a brain. And finally the Mayor also weighed in, at a whopping 120 lbs. of feathers and bird poop. He kinda reminds me of a little woodpecker, pecking away on the wood tree, to make big noises from a tiny miniscule birdman physique. For all the time wasted again with moronic ideas and more rate increases, they still want to prop up a failure, that of CM Shay. He has a stronghold on that council, one that isn't professional, nor objective, that's a sad reality. The saddest part of all that, is that we aren't talking about a bad play, a bad movie, nor a bad sitcom on TV, this is a reality show, one that makes the citizens of Ludington look foolish, and one that hurts the very essence of Ludington's present, and future conditions for prosperity, and moreover, for it's very essential needs in infrastructure that again, remain last on the list of priorities for the public.

[shinblind]

Would it surprise anyone if Michigan Power either in their own name or anonymously  supplies the $216,000 that is needed for funding the West End Scheme.

Michigan Power apparently needs the water, Shay apparently needs the money for the WE LAPer's Scheme, funny how these things work some time.

The DEQ stated to bring the water plant in compliance and upgrade the water mains will cost $3.7 million. Adding additional capacity drives up the cost to $13 million. 

The losers in this deal will be the ratepayers of Ludington.

[XLFD]

The WE LAP application is due tomorrow, I will hopefully see the entire application via a FOIA by late April to the DNR, such a backdoor deal with Michigan Power or other source (if it exists) should be included in there.  As noted, unless they have that $216,000 match specifically in there at the time, it's likely a no go for the WE LAP this year.

Shinblind, you have an impressive insider's knowledge of how the minds of our Ludington leaders think. 

[AQUAMAN]

Good observations and theory on the West End Shinblind. Also, why add so much additional water capacity at this very moment in time? Is Ludington growing by leaps and bounds? Do we have another big industry coming into town, or is it for Mich. Power? If so, then let them float the bonds themselves, or payola up front, since they benefit solely. Let's keep an EyE on this stuff before it all ends, and see if any theories remain intact, and true to life, with numerous Shysters in the mix.