Ludington City Council Meeting, October 23, 2017: Frightening Fringes and Creepy Cronyism

With just a number of days equaling the number of legs of a spider before Halloween, the agenda for the October 23rd, 2017 Ludington City Council meeting was rather horrifying to those who would keep tabs on how this city works.  

But like a good seasonal thriller, let's take a look at the proceedings and follow along with the action.  It started innocently enough with the absence of just one Councilor, Michael "Myers" Krauch, who has scared a lot of townsfolk with his caustic words at the end of these meetings and his trenchant apathy to the sorrowful keening of the citizens of his ward, several who spoke out this night.  Unlike a regular horror flick, the chill-inspiring councilor himself may have been crouching in fear far away, because he would not show up late this evening with a menacing mien while spouting acidulous anecdotes.  At least at this venue.

The invocation, pledge and approval of minutes continued the calm atmosphere, lulling the viewer with a sense of security, but then a group of citizens with torches and pitchforks entered the town square, most intent on reigning in the monster devouring Ludington from within, their city officials.  The scary pumpkin guy (me) went just after 'Costume Patty' Klevorn announced that the council and public was invited to the COLDNews open house patty party on Friday between 11 and 2 PM:

October 23, 2017 Ludington City Council from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

X "Axe" LFD:  (4:00 minutes into the meeting) "The minutes of the last meeting should reflect that Councilor Krauch stated that only diseased trees were taken down at Copeyon Park.  What should be stated for the record is that both healthy and diseased trees were taken down at Copeyon Park in a certain area that the proposed splash pad has been staked out, and that no replacement trees have been planted in the area where that despoliation occurred.  The shady park that Copeyon once was would not work for a splash pad as kids would get too cold too soon after getting wet without sunlight.  The facts speak louder than your denials.

Since 2012, our city council has decided to opt out of state reforms meant to get the cost of public employee benefits under control.  This leads to happy city officials and employees who will see the amount of their fringe benefits crest the level of 75% of their salary and more as health insurance rates for everyone in Michigan is projected to go up 28% in 2018.  These benefits are being paid on the backs of the Ludington taxpayer employee who can't find many private sector jobs that pay half the percentages of what the City offers in fringes and Ludington taxpayer employers that cannot afford to offer benefits much more than the 30% level and somehow break even.  Most of our council has been or still is one of those groups, can you please justify for once why we need astronomical levels of benefits for city employees and officials when there is a mechanism for keeping them under control?

Lastly, you are set to approve the engineering costs for the plumbing work needed to be done at the Maritime Museum.  Rather than competitively bid out this contract, you are here only to consider the extremely high cost of $36,700 proffered by Fishbeck, an engineering company whose closest office is nearly 100 miles away.  Our charter and code delineate that competitive bids for all purchases and public improvements above $10,000 shall be obtained where practicable and contracts awarded to the lowest responsible bidders.

Your city manager has decided to forego the competitive bidding process and forego checking with our local engineering firm, Nordlund & Associates, who include engineering sanitary and storm sewer systems as part of their area of expertise.  Recall, when bids were requested for the engineering work on the Washington Bridge, Nordlund asked for $67,000 to do the same work Fishbeck would do for $240,000, and for some still unexplained reason, $173,000 of Ludington taxpayer money was wasted-- even worse, it was all sent to Grand Rapids.

It isn't competent of any official involved to continue such reckless and wasteful acts with our money."

'Tombstone' Tom Tyron asked a bunch of other necessary questions about the museum's sewer repairs concerning costs, when and why this sewer wasn't noted to have this problem before this year.  He then knowingly treaded on dangerous grounds when he expounded that the $2 million price for the new fire barn construction cost was awfully high.  Exceptionally brave when the fire chief, 'Scary' Jerry Funk was at his back. 

Back in 2008, the council was looking at $1.1 million  total for a new station to be built on North Washington.  This included demolition of the Varsity Cleaners building and did not include the architect costs which were already mostly completed.  The running bill now is at least twice that which is odd since the inflation rate since September 2008 has been less than 13%.

Dianne "Dyin'" Seelhoff then took the podium and spoke about the sewer engineering contract, analyzing the various figures the city used to come to their $36,700 figure, noticed that the engineers were getting paid big bucks for travel expenses and big bucks for wages, shockingly about 250% of what engineers normally get; she suggested competitive bids.  The two eerily similar observations of ours provoked a rather lame defense of cronyism later on by John 'Slay' Shay.  

At that the townsfolk went back to their places, as the council approved their minutes and went to committee reports.  The council went on to the second point I brought up, about opting out of state benefit-reform law (see Lunatic Fringe to see what the city has done over the previous years).  Zero comments, unanimous approval.  Our city official and employees will have benefit rates up to and above 80% of their salary, great for them, terrifying for those who ultimately pay for them (you know who that is).

Then the amendment to the architect's contract took place.  The Christman Company was originally considered the only firm to construct this $2 million fire station (with the same hair-raising no-bid contract most take for granted from John Shay), but for some unknown reason (maybe they wouldn't kick back enough to Shay), they were dropped in the trash like yesterday's COLDNews.  Our Manistee architect will now take over any sort of competitive bid process, if any, in choosing a successor.  

Councilor Kathy "Katie Moonbeam" Winczewski made the observation at 18:50 that was ludicrous:  "we are not spending any more money than we would have in the first agreement we set out."  After hiring the architect and having the blueprints, Shay said the project was going to cost about $1.7 million, up from earlier estimates of $1.5 million.  Christman wanted $2.2 million.

As noted here:  " Ash Flat Fire Department is a combination volunteer and full-time department and recently investigated getting a new pole barn type structure for their fire station and balked at the $720,000 price tag.  Wakarusa FD, nearly twice the size of the LFD and also featuring full-timers just had a regular building costing $1 million.  The Lindsey FD moved into a $1 million new station less than a year ago and they have 34 volunteer firefighters; Ludington has 20 if they are fully-staffed."

The council passed the amendments, so now any sort of competitive bidding, if used, would be done by a private Manistee architect who doesn't need to share their information with the purchasing Ludington public.  I see some out-of-county construction company getting the maximum amount the City wants to use in purchasing this station, and other people likely benefitting when they shouldn't.

Next, the museum sewer issue came up, Shay saying that there were no issues before this year, apparently not even during the 2008 flood.  I don't buy it, unless the contractors in the effort of making the museum screwed up somehow.  At 23 minutes in, watch Shay dissemble about how Fishbeck (aka FTCH) was deemed worthy to work on this wastewater project since they are already working on the water treatment plant, where he says:

"Some cities, the city has done this in terms of selecting engineers, has done this in a variety of different ways.  Sometimes the city has had a long term relationship with an engineering firm that has done work almost exclusively with one firm, and in other areas, they bid it out, and contacting with other cities in Michigan, some use an engineering firm for all of their work, regardless of the type of project, some bid everything out, some do a mixture of the two."

In Ludington, we legally must use competitive bidding in such instances with the only exception being true emergency purchases due to our laws (see the city code Section 2.4).  When we don't the city official's involved are breaking the law, and making the cronyism charge against them stick.  

Councilor Brandy "Handy" Henderson objected somewhat to the funds being 'borrowed' from the local streets fund, and wound up being the sole dissenter in the votes.  It seemed rather strange for multiple councilors to admit this sewer problem was the city's responsibility when they were the same people who never batted a jaundiced eye when Shay and Utility Maintenance Supervisor Daryl "Plasmodeus" Plamondon said that lead goosenecks originally installed by the city and attached to the city's water mains were homeowners' responsibility.  The LT will be investigating the specifics of this operation closely.

After approving the 2018 Ludrock event at the Waterfront Park on July 7-8, the clerk had the city council change the city charter.  What actually generated this change was that state law changed, and made the old charter provision obsolete, since state law supersedes local law.  This would otherwise require a vote of the people.

A Thursday, November 9th meeting at 5:30 PM was set to have a follow-up meeting to the community listening session.  This was followed by a proclamation to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews).  Mayor Kaye "is for Killer" Holman loves these events, as she always says, when she gives the latest award, probably because the folks being honored have generally nice things to say about the City-- which the COLDNews definitely does on a regular basis.

But then it was back to the grind.  C. Dale "Banshee" Bannon talked of the fire department, and asked whether the old fire barn was able to be used during the construction of the new one, a good question.  Chuck "Chucky" Sobanski followed with a question over the city calendars costing $17,000 to make and distribute, which seems high, but within the realm of possibilities.  He then graciously thanked the DPW for clearing the roads of Fourth Ward last week.  This seems to be a common theme of Fourth Warders that I've noticed:  they can criticize with the best, but they also must balance their statement with a compliment.

I then went and introduced my latest lawsuit (42:15) to the council, while after I was cut short in my delivery, my process server gave them the latest FOIA lawsuit which seeks redress from the city's handling of FOIA responses.  Dianne "Chipper/shredder" Chippi asked the city to consider using the local street fund in improving the failing surface of Water Street (just south of the PM Bayou).  

The other Dianne, Seelhoff, expressed disappointment that Krauch couldn't personally hear her refutation, before explaining what she thought was vitriolic on his part for bringing up a calculation error she publicly admitted herself after detecting it herself.  She wanted the vitriol coming from either parties to stop.  Unfortunately, the only side that has been regularly using the vial of vitriolic personal attacks has been city officials.  

At the end where the council consumes the last words, they horrifyingly could not figure out between them all how much the calendars actually cost the taxpayer, stated that they would be using the old fire station until the new one is constructed (which has never been clarified before, it has been widely thought that they would be using other facilities like they proposed during the 2008 deal that fell through the Western Land Services), and hypothesized for the COLDNews what the lawsuit they were just handled would say, misrepresented the previous lawsuit, while lamenting over the legal costs they brought upon themselves.

Chief Mark "of the Beast" Barnett talked of downtown parking and how his officers had been enforcing one-hour parking in a parking lot which had no signs posted saying that it was for only one hour.  He didn't elaborate whether the people that were written up parking tickets when there wasn't any signs present for awhile were given clemency as they should have been.  Local parking laws are typically only enforceable if traffic control devices are present, which the chief admits wasn't the case here (see MCL 257.606 sections 1a and 3).  The LT will also be forced to review what happened here to see whether justice was served.  

The meeting was adjourned, the regular townsfolk talked about all of what just happened with incredulous horror, then went back to the safety of their homes.  Or is it really safe with these city hall monsters ready to bend the law and everything ethical to accomplish their goals of enriching their coffers and add to their immensely horrific power they have mostly usurped from the people.  

It's enough to make you welcome the traditional terrors of the holiday.  

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Thanks for supplying me a proper nickname for this haunting recap, I gave everyone a scary nickname except myself.  I was out wielding three 'axes' today (a normal wood axe, a light maul, and a heavy maul) in order to split wood for those wanting campfires next summer.

AAAAHHH!!!  The HORROR!!

Unfortunately these truly frightening facts aren't present just near Halloween, but all year long.

The worst of the city's iniquity seems to get thickest right at the end of the year, but your summary is eerily accurate.

One of the big differences between us and city officials, Dyin', is that we admit our mistakes when we make them, and own up to them.  We are contrite and apologetic when (due often to having incomplete information) we err.  

I can't recall ever hearing any city official at any of the six years of meetings I have religiously attended, apologize for their erroneous acts of words.  To anybody, other than maybe their fellow officials.  Does anybody else recall any time that's happened?

Just once I think, Moonbeam's BIG Mistake on lead goosenecks/piping/faucets being sold at this time at Lowes. She said it originally like it was the gospel, and lead piping/faucets went out in 1986, and she had no idea or clue, but made a vitriolic issue of it at first. That's only one councilor, and as for Shyster Shay, NEVER! In 15 years or so!

Same with LFD architect.  There's is a very good one in town... Architectural Classics (Kevin Moytka).  There other cheaper ways to get a print done too.  COL, or COL hired construction manager, should be handling bids and running job, ..including watching designed costs.  Design could be much more cost effective.

Great points, Brad.  Motyka is at 409 W Ludington Avenue, only a block away from the proposed 'Bowling Alley lot" development, has two dozen years of experience, but does he ever get any consideration from the COL?  Nope, their architect crony in Manistee, Kendra Thompson, get the nod for everything you can think of.  

Don't even think that when she has control over the competitive bidding process that she will conduct it with the Ludington taxpayer at the forefront of her concerns.  As Brad indicates, her concerns will be that her designs are followed, and cost is only a concern if she pushes the price beyond what even the city council can tolerate.

I sometimes give compliments, usually at the head of my comment, but then it seems to quickly devolve when I analyze their public actions, policies, and conduct.

I had planned on having your nickname as "Dyin' squeal", but I didn't want to offend you by inferring in any way that you would make the sound of a pig when you received that fatal blow.  "Dyin' peal" also missed the mark, since peal is typically the sound of thunder, laughter or bells.  Thanks for accepting your alternate name with grace.

If street/parking lot rain water can be drained from Loomis boat launch directly into Lk Michigan (at end of Lud ave), why can't this parking lot go into PM Lake?!

Should of been caught by construction manager or the COL.  Very surprised why it didn't.

Not X, but  to what proposed Goeff Hansen legislation are you referring?

Two more issues with the fire barn fiasco.

If the second  bid  of the fire barn construction came in for less money wouldn't the little light bulb in John Shay's head go off and maybe form the thought that a third or fourth bid might be even less money? And where is the city council on this? not holding Shay accountable but instead nodding their approval like a herd of syncopathic bobble heads.

And the second point, if other communities manage to build their own fire barn using volunteer labor why can't we do the same thing here? Was this even explored as an option?

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