Tall Grass, Easy Cash for City of Ludington in 2015

[XLFD]

Noxious Weed Notices Put Out, Nobody Notices

Earlier this year, the city council tampered with a city ordinance that dealt with tall grass and noxious weeds, changing the old standard of sending out a notice (via certified mail) to a homeowner to apprise them that they had grass higher than ten inches high and needed to cut it.  The owner would be advised to cut the grass or else the City would be in its right to cut it and charge the owner.  It worked well; people would get the notice and take care of the problem almost 100% of the time.

City management thought it would be a good idea to bypass the expensive notices and go directly to the revenue-generating tactic of being able to have a crew mow your lawn without proper notice and charge premium rates to the homeowner.  They have indicated a new system whereas they would publish an ad in the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) in March and that would supersede any need for notice later, when the problem is alleged to exist by the City of Ludington.  Some of this has been talked about in my article:  weeding out rights.

March is almost over, and you may or may not read the COLDNews regularly, but you may wonder why you haven't seen the notice posted in the newspaper.  At the city council meeting on March 23, I asked the city clerk whether this notice had yet been put in the newspaper, as I had not seen such notice.  She indicated it had, that t was rather small,and later got back to me that it had been posted in the Monday, March 2, 2015 newspaper. 

I located the back issue at the library and found it on page A8 in a small box.  I circled it in green, before posting it below:

She also indicated the City had posted it in that weekend' newspaper on March 7th, this was a little less hidden on page A3.  I was kind of surprised I missed this since it was adjacent to a couple of stories I was following, Sammy Seymour and the next council meeting:

So even though you could not even see your grass on the days that these notices were posted, they served as due notice that you understand that the city can come onto your lawn during the summer, cut your grass, and charge you an arm and a leg secretively by attaching a lien on your property. 

Isn't It Illegal for the City to Come Onto Your Property and Alter It Without Notice?

Can an entity invade your Constitutionally-protected property, alter it without your knowledge, and then charge you ultra-premium rates for that alteration?  If you allow it, I'm sure they can, but it is not lawful, and those who suffer this indignity will have proper cause for grievances.

As noted in this thread, "(City) Attorney Wilson prattles about the process (38:50 in) for publishing notice in a newspaper that would allow the city to enter onto a property without further notice as a state sponsored idea, yet fails to give such a statute.  I will give him a statute (MCL 247.64a) which appears to say what he thinks it says, but there is a big difference.  It only applies to noxious weeds which does not include grass.  Here is that full section of State law which it states it's:

"AN ACT for controlling and eradicating certain noxious weeds within the state; to permit townships, villages, and cities to have a lien for expenses incurred in controlling and eradicating such weeds; to permit officials of counties and municipalities to appoint commissioners of noxious weeds"

It is not for common grasses found on most people's lawns.  The City Attorney is poised to get the City of Ludington involved in more lawsuits when their Gestapo lawn cutters come onto your lawn and cut your tall grass.  A review of other cities around Michigan (other than Manistee, who have the same lame attorneys) show that they have proper ordinances for grass that doesn't buy into the notion that they are noxious weeds."

When common grass gets tall it does need cutting for the lawn to look better, but it does not present a hazard to the community.  In fact, the grass seeds from the overgrowth may help fill in a lawn better, and counteract the incursion of low-growing weeds and crabgrass.  Should high grass motivate the City of Ludington to violate your right to be safe and secure in your property or the ability to take a large amount of cash from you that they would otherwise not be entitled to?  Maybe, but only if they give you real notice after they believe you are in violation of it, and you decide not to do so in a timely manner. 

This is how the old system worked; it realized you may be on vacation or have negligent landscapers taking care of your lawn, or that you may not have did edging work around your trees, etc.  The new law says if anyone determines your grass is high, you have to submit to a raid by city contractors on your property, then a raid on your bank account from the suit-wearers.

Will the New Law be Equally Applied?

I couldn't help but notice that in the prior year, tall grass violations noticed by the city seemed to be located mostly in certain zones of the community.  I decided to look at data from three different Code Enforcement Reports placed in the July 14, 2014 and the August 25, 2014 and the September 22, 2014 city council packets (near the end).  I plotted these on a map of Ludington for all three months, to try and see a pattern of violations, the result is below

The tall grass enforcement actions seem to be mostly located in the middle of the city, between James and Washington Streets, rather intense on East Melendy, North Rowe and Delia Streets.  No actions took place in the northeast quadrant of the city. 

One could conclude that the poorer sections of the city, the ones that can ill-afford to pay a couple hundred for a surprise grass cutting, are the ones that get busted for tall grass a lot more often.  And that the rich "Forest Hill" section of the city manage to take care of their lawns without exception. 

Or maybe we can conclude that the code enforcers cover different sections of the city differently.  After all, if they are looking around for junk code and general building violations in an area, they are more likely to catch someone with tall grass.  We hope to keep them earnest this year by subscribing to their issuances of tall grass violations, and reporting that to all.

[shinblind]

It is funny that whom ever is in charge of enforcing  the previous ordinance  never noticed the field between the Car Ferry Dock and the Marina. That had to be out of compliance. Maybe the former rule was written with a "depending on whom you know and whom you blow" clause. 

[XLFD]

That field belongs to Bob and Janet Manglitz out of Holland, and yes I can concur that it was out of compliance for much of 2014.  The new rule is written with the same ink, one would have to believe.

[AQUAMAN]

You guys are sure are on key today. That is the owners, and I pass by there almost everyday. Having said that, the field you refer to is definitely overgrown most of the time. It does get some trimming into late summer, cause I've seen boats and boat trailers parked there during peak times, and grass had been cut recently. Examples would be the Lud. Offshore Tourney, and all of August. Otherwise, it's been another eyesore for downtown.

[XLFD]

Unfortunately, Aquaman, this and the junk ordinance will be used to batter the poorer and middle class homeowners such as Steve Iteen, who heroically spoke before the council worried that his accumulation of stuff on his little lot over the years will have him paying the big bucks to the city for junk violations due to the changes.  As can be seen by the map, and the uneven enforcement actions levied by our code enforcers noted at the car ferry docks, you don't have to worry about tall grass enforcement if you can actually afford it. 

[stump]

I think I will keep my weeds cut to a height between 8-9" . Maybe the grass also, take daily readings, recordings and pictures . By the way, what's considered a noxious weed? Then when the city comes and cuts it, I will see them in court. From then on I should be able to have a full time lawn service do my yard , of coarse paid for by the city.

[Willy]

X, did you create the violation map above? I have to hand it to you, after reading the code enforcement reports I would have pulled my hair out trying to organize the information and applying it to the map. You have done a service by simplifying the detailed report into an easy to understand map. I wonder why the City doesn't condensed the report into a more simple form so it can be more easily understood. When trying to understand what is going on in the Government, to much information can be as irritating as to little. Another thing is the violations are listed by violation date instead of alphabetically by street names. Finding a violation requires knowledge of "when" a violation occurred not "where" it occurred.

[XLFD]

I did create the map, and after resolving to do it, I'm glad I did it, because it took me only about an hour to get the information mapped out.  I did it because it seemed as if there were some places in Ludington where the 'grass grew extra well' just by looking at the addresses of the violations. 

The city in 2014 issued tall grass violations to well over ten percent of the city's houses, with no repeats (the city is not obligated to send a notice for each subsequent violation in a year).  I currently have another one of those irksome FOIA requests pending inquiring into the schedule of money they plan on charging for mowing your lawn, since they apparently cannot be bothered with telling you what the cost will be for this task.  I will share that when I get it. 

[shinblind]

It will be interesting to see how it compares to Manistee's ordinance. There they charge $250/hr minimum for the first hour and $25/hr per worker for each hour after that.

Did the COL ever post their junk vehicle ordinance in the COLDNews?

Was there ever any explanation why it costs $6.60 for the COL to mail a certified letter under the old ordinance?