Ludington City Council Meeting November 23, 2015: Blessing of the Bad

This surprisingly long but not very well attended Ludington City Council meeting had some things happening of note.  Two 'routine' public hearings were at the beginning of the affair.  If the first of these looked familiar, it's because it was held at the last meeting, where a citizen came forth and noted the public notice was obviously not proper, but the council voted on it anyway.  It was only held again because this citizen contacted the grant authorities (see Ludington City Council Has a Do-Over on Grants).

The second also had a deja vu quality, as it was finishing the process of getting 102 Second Street an OPRA certificate so that it's property taxes would be cut in half-- after it triples if all of the improvements are made.  Our city's leaders sometimes wonder why they see blighted properties when they go through Ludington, but their decisions on property taxes often play into the equation.  Consider, you spend a lot of money to fix your property up, the city notices and adjusts your taxes dramatically upward accordingly.  It's definitely a disincentive for you, but quite the reverse for the city.

I spoke during both hearings, keeping on point, and was pleasantly surprised that council meeting regular Tom Tyron added a few words against the Home Purchase with Rehabilitation grants.  Tom has a way of conveying a lot in only a few words, and he did not disappoint at this meeting.  He reminded them that this program had shades of what caused the crisis in 2008 and that the city had a love affair with grants. 

Our city leaders showed us he was absolutely right thereafter, with Councilor Winczewski telling us all that if we don't apply for the grants someone else will get the money instead.  But as a point of refutation, if every city has the same disdain for such ridiculous grants, the grant program will go away, and perhaps the state will devote the money to some program that is useful, has an actual public purpose, and is not so prone to corruption. 

Mike Krauch also chimes in about the homeowner educational program (such as he runs for MSUE as their director, and benefits directly from such a grant program) which will somehow make the purchasers not as likely to recreate 2008.  The council certainly has no deficit in faith in government programs (something equivalent to stupidity).

The meeting started with a nod to the blessings of Thanksgiving in Chief Barnett's invocation and my public comment.  I offered a month-by-month analysis of how our citizens were blessed over the year by the actions of our city leaders.  It is transcribed right after the video, and as a warning, it does contain a high level of sarcasm.

The most interesting, yet paradoxically the most boring, part of the meeting was when Mark Beauchamp (pictured, presenting his analysis to the Clarkburg Council) from Utility Financial Solutions (UFS) weighed in about the coming hikes in our water and sewer bills.  About one year ago, during the time I was bringing to the council's attention that the city attorney had blatantly overbilled the city for three years, I had also brought to their attention that the city attorney was siphoning funds from the city to pay UFS and their consultant Mr. Beauchamp. 

The invoices I received through FOIA requests clearly showed that Beauchamp's consultant work for cost of service analysis and studies was being done for the City of Ludington with plenty of conferences with City Manager Shay and others in the city's utility wing.  Yet, our city council had been out of the loop-- they never approved anybody contracting with UFS, as they need to do by charter, especially when the funds used are tens of thousands of dollars. 

Our City Manager and Attorney concocted a scheme wherein Attorney Wilson would contract with UFS, he would receive the invoices from UFS for services rendered, then submit invoices to John Shay to cover those invoices, where this money would come from the general fund to pay the attorney for attorney services rendered.  It's highly unethical, and clearly goes against the charter.

The public record has plenty of examples where cities have done it the proper way:  Village of Pentwater  City of Muskegon, City of Marshall, etc.  It's conceivable that our leaders felt the secret meetings and discussions with Michigan Power to eke out a water service plan may have been jeopardized if it had been done the lawful way.  

His presentation was informational, with the gist of it being that Ludington residents will see their water rates go up over 25% over the next five years, and see the sewer rates climb up over 70% over the same period in order to make the required renovations on their 40 year old plus system.  Perhaps if our city manager didn't waste $1.5 million from the water fund by painting water towers/tanks without competitive bids at least ten years before they needed to be, while the real problem was growing worse, we would have had more of the means to tackle this problem better.  But in his twelve years, it has been neglect of the infrastructure and focus on grants and needless city projects (the City Marina's transient docks, West End, etc.) 

The city business ended with recent DDA member Wally Taranko resigning from the organization, after the city discussed an easement with the Maritime Museum for electrical conduit right-of-ways along South Lakeshore Drive with him.  His other hat has him being on the Mason County Historical Society which is reconstructing the old coast guard station into a maritime museum. 

Video Timeline and Highlights

My initial comments:  3:15 in

My comments (in my camouflaged fleece hoodie in celebration of deer hunting season) about the HPR Grants:  10:00 into the video

Tom Tyron's comments:  13:00 in (followed by council's grant lovefest)

My questions on OPRA certificates at 102 Second Street hearing:  16:20

John Shay's 'answers' to my question:  18:20

John Shay's posturing, followed by regular business:  20:40

Beauchamp's 35 minute presentation:  29:00

Taranko's resignation vote (the controversial vote):  1:13:15

A transcript of my comments and questions follow the video:

November 23, 2015 Ludington City Council from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

Public Comment:  This Thursday, most of us will be observing Thanksgiving, a time to reflect on all of our blessings and to give thanks for all that we have.  All too often, I come before this council and point out the  improper acts of our city officials and the deficiencies of our local public policies.  Too often, it has led with contacting state agencies and using the court system to set things right.  At this time of the year, it is only proper that I give thanks for all that this council has done for us Ludington citizens throughout 2015 month by month. 

In January, this council blessed us with revisions of the junk and tall grass ordinances.  These rewrites kept the spirit of the original but took out the due process protections that were way too burdensome and wasted everyone's time.   Few cities will come and mow the lawn for you if you fall behind, without even feeling the need to notify you.  Ours will even defer immediate payment.  We are surely blessed.

In February, you introduced a proposed sidewalk replacement program which would have put our existing sidewalk funds into installing sidewalks based on recent sales, instead of installing them at all those needless places around schools, medical and housing facilities that are currently without sidewalks.  Before our city could be blessed with random sidewalks, however, our leaders recanted a few months later.  Thanks for trying.

In March, you blessed us with our second water and sewer rate increase of the year, a 5% raise over and above the inflation rate increase at the beginning of the year.  I forgot to thank you on both occasions, but I'm taking the time now to do so, seeing that rates are scheduled to be raised three times incrementally by 20% over the next three years. 

In April, you blessed not only us, but the US Congress with a resolution for them to repeal a fundamental federal civil rights law, admittedly because you were frustrated with settling with those who have been treated unfairly by city officials out of a fear that a jury would believe the truth.  We are truly blessed to have leaders that blame the federal government and the victims when they mess up, but never themselves.

In May, the city was blessed with a second property for a future fire station thanks to the hard work and hard money of our taxpayers.  Thankfully our students walking in the street due to the lack of sidewalks will admire the responding firefighters and the firetrucks pass quickly and closely  as they go to and from the nearby station.  Blessed are those in the far northeast corner of the city who will be the only people seeing their response times drop.

In June, the city introduced its plans for a rental inspection ordinance, and blessed us with their legal wisdom behind this costly program that thankfully had no input from landlords and renters who may have injected some of their own cursed ideas into the mix.  Bless you for rarely answering the publics questions or establishing the need for such an invasive procedure and eventually passing this ordinance.  Everyone knows both landlords and tenants are unsavory characters unworthy of the rights guaranteed in state and federal constitutions to the rest of us. 

In July, we were blessed with ordinances to allow both an ORV and golf cart operate within the city, yet we have not been blessed with any golf courses or ORV trails inside the city limits.  We are truly blessed to have had a mayor whose family business sells both ORVs and golf carts advocate freely for this and not admit his own conflict of interest throughout.  The people are thankful for their ignorance of such things, and this city never fails them in that regard.

In August, we were blessed to have our city leaders get rid of the worst invader ever, a young girl selling educational books door to door.   This menace came during dinnertime and tried to sell books that went against the orthodoxy of how we teach things here in Ludington.  Thankfully, this heretic was driven out by our leaders so that we never again had to deal with this energetic entrepreneur.  Let it be a message to all who intend to run a small business here in Ludington, whether they work door to door, rent out apartments, or establish marinas, that your kind will not be tolerated. 

In September, as a token of appreciation to the city they were presented a lawsuit at this venue admitting the fact that I hadn't been blessed with certain non-exempt records.  I have since then, and yet they still think for some reason the records were exempt at some point in time.  Thankfully, they have yet to make a cogent argument as to why that is the case, so I am likely to be further blessed when I prevail next year.

HPR Grant Public Hearing Comments:  In the city manager's memorandum to this council in your packets, he declared the wrong information given to the public about the original public hearing was minor, in that it referred to grants benefitting homeowners rather than home purchasers.  The difference is not minor, as they comprise a wholly different segment of the public, one who already owns a house and one who does not.  This was not significant enough to this group at the last meeting to re-post the notice and try again, as I cautioned them to do.

But the reason public hearings are held is for the government unit to provide the facts behind what's proposed, and for the public to address their concerns based on the factual data they have been presented.  The public has not been presented with anything about Homebuyer Purchase with Rehabilitation Grants, other than what our community development director has presented in very general terms at a meeting where much less than 1% of our city's population attended. 

We have a new website with a lot of bells and whistles, why not use it for such hearings? 

As for these grants and the level of openness we have seen with Ludington, I see this nearly $300,000 of grant and donation money being utilized in a fashion that is inefficient, where the funds will not go to the truly needy but the truly connected, and not solely for the purpose they are intended for.  

Let me one again offer a case in point concerning our Downtown Development Authority Treasurer and local Chamber of Commerce President Kathy Maclean.  She fraudulently pre-applied and applied for Rental Rehab grants, before she had the title to the property in question.  After this well-off public official got hundreds of thousands to make four apartments, she brazenly ignored the condition that she needed to either be renting those apartments at a reasonable level or at least marketing them as such for five years after completion.

And yet, a bit earlier than that, she begged for more state funds, this time through a façade grant when she claimed she wasn't a city official, devoted money from the DDA where she served as treasurer to her effort even before it was committed, and said her rental units were vacant.  Nor were they being marketed. 

Instead of public money being redistributed by a corrupt system, why don't we just allow that money to either stay in the hands of private individuals or used to buy the truly needy some fishing lessons rather than just a fish.  Thank you.

102 Second OPRA Hearing Comment:  I just want to ask three questions concerning what I have already brought up about this , and see whether the city council will ignore them once again.

1.  Why did the adjacent parcel, a vacant lot owned by Nolan Family Investments, have it's taxes propelled from $40 to over $1000 in a three year period after Nolan Family Investment's acquired the lot?

2.  John Shay and NFI acquired their current properties in 2003.  Why did the property at 201 Second Street have its taxes rise by 500% in 2012, while John Shay's taxes decreased by 25% during that time?

3.  The records show that the 201 Second Street's value will triple if the proposed changes planned get executed, so why has Councilor and community development director Tykoski's property value went down by 40% after they made significant approvements at 201 N Washington?

Good luck to NFI in getting their property improved and for eventually achieving some reasonable answers to the questions I posed today. 

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OMG your Thanksgiving comments to the Council is classic. What a way to remind everyone how unresponsive those people are. I was listening to Beauchamp's long explanation and I actually fell asleep. He reminds me of those  boring instructors whose only influence on those they talk to is to act as a sedative. Love the image of the kids holding those books. This was another terrific article.

The sad thing is that some of the council and our other media might not have known I was being facetious with my comments.  I figured that the COLDNews might come out with a story telling how I had inhaled the city hall spores and/or flipped (or flipped out) on past issues. 

Glad you found me more exciting than Mr. Beauchamp and that dowland and Aquaman enjoyed my talking turkey with the councilors and seeing them gobble up the pumpkin pie in the face I gave them.

Amen. LOL. Love X public Thanksgiving.  Just made my  Thanksgiving.

Here's another interesting tidbit on the Tykoski/Venzke property on Washington Ave. right now. The property was bought in foreclosure in August 2010, for $127,500. It's value by previous owners then was at about $350,000. It's current taxable value in 2015, today, is at $92,000, it was previously down around $80,000 after purchase. The last owners had valuations in 2009 of about $330,000. Does that alone tell us something about favoritism in taxation? Tykoski's only claimed about $10,000 in improvements, when well over $50,000 was estimated to have been spent. Thanks for roasting the Turkeys at the City Council X, well done and not juicy in advance of the Day we cherish. I hope the 3rd ward constituents know all this, and if they do, should make a recall on that tidbit of information alone. Not only a conflict of interest and ill gotten gaining via public office, but inside conspiratorial fraud at it's best!

Here's the link to proofs of my last reply for those interested, and those that think this is just rumor, and not fact!

Attachments:

How could he be able to vote for the R.I.P when his wife is pushing for it , so she can get more grants. What a conflict of interest.  Bill & Hillary  2

Aquaman, I can't see where the house was valued at $350,000. I must be missing something. Suffice to say they got a good deal. 

If we compare assessed values, which is what another branch of our city government does we should note the property was assessed at $143,700 in 2009

And paying the 18 mils for school operating, as I've recently found out, the Cook's were not claiming it as a homestead when it got foreclosed.  However, in 2012 after Nick did some substantial improvements, the assessed value went down to $84,400

And the assessed value is still below $100,000.  Somehow, the assessed value went down over 41% between 2009 and 2012, and that's a $120,000 decrease in the value of what was a house worth $286,000 in 2009 to $168,800 in 2012.  Aquaman's figure is a bit high for the tax roll figures, but perhaps he knew the Cook family that lived there had plans on selling it for that figure.  Councilor Tykoski missed another meeting, but he's noticeably not wanting to talk about such things even on the rare day he's there.  Probably too busy making signs for water trails.

I haven't seen this being discovered by the Oceana County Press or the other Shoreline Media outlets in and around that county, including the COLDNews, but Grand Rapids FOX 17 and WOOD TV reports that three women from Shelby have allegedly bilked the state food stamp program (and the federal SNAP program) for a cool $722,000, by a scheme where they would redeem the 'food stamps' and give cash at their ethnic Mexican food store.  Fabiola Garcia, Cruz Gonzalez and Gisela Mendoza are each being charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) fraud while operating the La Fortuna Carniceria store in Shelby. 

With our city's indifference to the Maclean's (and others) fraud of MSHDA, does anyone doubt whether they will be any different in the HPR grants, even with a third party administrator that they choose? 

The ex-honorable Judge Clay Olmstead I owned the property in question before the Cook's. Perhaps that had some bearing on the location and timing of this foreclosure sale that appeared to be behind back doors, and not on the courthouse steps when auctioned off. Someone seemed to get unfair advantages on the sale, and it happened to be in a ward where someone just recently quit the council. The $350K figure was in the archives of the tax paperwork, not the current page I posted, but it's close, maybe about $325K when the Cook's were the owners and being taxed. Either way, the current taxing authority has done a great job for the Tykoski's in getting their assessments greatly reduced and paying less than fair value in taxation now.

Tykoski certainly got a great deal on that house. I wish everyone could find affordable housing just like they did. The money they saved probably helped them to stay off the "food stamp" program so some good did come out of it.

This situation is common all over the U.S. I know of many people who sell their benefits for just what is described in the article. 50 cents on the dollar is the going rate. The "food stamp" program has been abused like this for years and the Government is unwilling to stop it. The reason these women have been charged is because someone probably turned them in and stayed on the Governments butt until something was done about it. I'm also guessing most of the fraudulent redemption was by legal and illegal aliens. Our tax dollars wasted again and again. Today, almost anyone can qualify for "food stamps".  I would like to see the "food stamp" program eliminated.

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