What positive improvements and accomplishments has John Shay achieved in his 15 years as city manager for the City of Ludington (COL)?

I ask that question in earnest, as I have tried to counterbalance all of the negative policies and  issues that have arisen during that time.  I have reviewed the Mason County Press article and the COLDNews article dealing with his resignation, and found only his self-glorifying appraisal of his tenure, which is amazingly bereft of anything specific he has done and any recognition of anybody outside of city government.  

June 11th, 2018 Ludington City Council meeting from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

John Shay's spoken resignation at the meeting (1:42:45 into the video) effectively followed the memorandum he gave to the council and the fawning media, immodestly making a variety of claims about what his leadership has meant to the city:

Two of the councilors  gave praise to the resigning city manager immediately after Shay made it official, the first was by Councilor Kathy Winczewski:  

"We, definitely, of the city council have our work cut out for us here, in the very near future, with a lot of work. And I'd just like to give John Shay some recognition. I've been on the city council for five years. He is an impressive individual. His integrity is impeccable. He's very honest. He doesn't try to sugar coat things. He calls it what it's like. He's the most penny-pinching person I have ever seen, and I'm pretty penny-pinching too, but he's worse than me. We're very fiscally responsible with what we do. He has feelers at DEQ, MDOT, anything we need to have information from, he can get within a very short time frame. He's very professional. When I go to any state conference or anything, and I have to say this one more time, one last time, they always say "Oh, you're from Ludington, you've got John Shay, don't worry, you'll be fine, he'll take care of it."
He gets opportunities for our city that no other cities get, and we are going to miss him tremendously, these are really really going to be big shoes to fill, and it's going to be hard for someone to come in and do it, thanks so much John; it's been great."

Then Missouri-bound Councilor Michael Krauch weighed in:

"I won't be here for John's last meeting; congratulations. Ottawa County is getting an outstanding administrator. It's been very much a pleasure to work with John over the last four years and while I know that the shoes will be hard to fill, Ludington's an outstanding community with fabulous opportunities and positioned incredibly well and I think there will be a bounty of highly qualified city manager administrators that will look at this as a real career opportunity, a place to come and set roots and do good work, and so, John, thanks for everything you've done for the city, thanks for your professionalism. I know, I know the excitement of moving on to the next thing and I agree with you, this is a hard place to leave. Thank you."

After a regretful vote to accept the resignation, public comment saw the addition of one other former councilor, Gary Castonia lending his approval of the manager to set up a running joke after praising Krauch and the outgoing treasurer at 1:54:00 in the video:

"... John, what else can I say, that I haven't said already. A more professional person I have never known. For all the abuse you take, and you never lose your composure, I admire this. And last, when you hire a new city manager, don't let him have a grill."

While I believe I and others affected by Shay over the years can refute each of the general claims made regarding him amassing to:

professional attitude (see this 'professional' smear)

impeccable integrity (see integrity in action here, where he let's overbilling go on for 3 years)

very honest  (honestly lying on a sworn affidavit)

not a sugar-coater (correct, because he's a raw sewage-coater)

the biggest penny-pincher (by abusing and avoiding competitive bidding)

opportunity-getter (like an opportunity to get water towers painted at inflated price)

connected with state agencies like MDOT and MDEQ (which is why the road diet he wanted was nixed, and why he fought the WWTP upgrades for years spending sizable legal fees and losing)

These show nothing about what he has accomplished or how anything done by the city government will help the citizens beyond his departure.  In all testimonials then, before, and since, he has zero accomplishments, and when I try to salvage something, I have to go back to his first few years-- but even then I am unsuccessful.  

I wanted to allow him the benefit of getting the Cartier Park multi-use pathway installed which happened after a couple of years he was in office, but that project had already been in its initial phase in March 2002, over a year before he heard about a job opening in Ludington. 

The same goes for the DPW Building construction in 2005, which again was already in process during the interim CM tenure of Shawn McDonald.   The Stearns Park Skate Plaza was the brainchild of Mayor Henderson with his Youth Advisory Board spearheading the effort, the record shows Shay having no part in the development or funding of the skate park.

For those wanting to give him credit for putting the citizens of Ludington more than $30 million in debt for WTP, water/sewer infrastructure, and WWTP improvements, the hidden record shows that Shay and the city's attorneys fought tooth-and-nail against the MDEQ and MDNR mandating the changes several years before until they ran out of legal options, and spent a lot of money resisting. 

His effort to provide water for the cogeneration plant resulted in a secret trilateral agreement that left the citizens paying for tens of millions in improving the water system and the WTP to meet that need, while PM Township received their water from Ludington for under a dollar for 100 cubic feet of water, as Ludington citizens pay nearly two dollars.  

The new fire station?  He has effectively made the deal happen after having his second deal in selling the old station fall through once again by bonding out $1.7 million more in future debt when the citizens are already seeing their water and sewer bills double in a handful of years to help pay for the other debt.  It's placement in the northeast corner of town inside multiple school zones rather than a centralized location near the worst fire hazards (as it is now) will be seen as a colossal mistake when the LFD moves in.     

I can list a fairly long legacy of accomplishments for the prior city manager, Jim Miller, even though I have a fairly low opinion of him too.  But John Shay?  I can recall ten reasons and can supply ten more at this point of why he has been incompetent, unethical, and should have been fired.

So I ask my members and any of the other people that care about this city to please tell me exactly what John Shay has accomplished that has had a positive and will have a lasting effect after he completes his escape.  

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In all fairness he did not operate in a vacuum. His many accomplices on the Council backed him all the way no matter how questionable his actions were. He was an untethered force released upon the citizens by the Councilors and Mayors. I have to blame them for all the history behind Shay's tenure. He did manage to keep the City Attorney rolling in tax dollars by his commitment to concealing information and refusing to release said information thru FIOA requests. We are also still waiting for the destruction of the Ludington Ave beach. Plus we may never see a clean bayou or a helpful hand given to Ludington's original marinas. The last 3 situations can still be salvaged with the election of solid leaders and hiring of a competent City Manager.

You understand that Shay was just one cog of the gears of corruption, albeit the biggest.  Using a bicycle analogy, John's resignation changes the Ludington corruption 'cycle from an 18 speed to a 12 speed and makes it so that you can't take the city downhill as quick as you used to.  The other gear in front that can and should be removed:  the current city attorney, who has done nothing but harm to this city, much like what they are doing with Manistee, it seems.

John Shay seems to have accomplished mostly the agenda of John Henderson which may have been good for chamber of commerce and downtown development but seems like it had very little substantial improvement in things a city really needs for its citizens, like infrastructure, water, sewer and nice roads--which have been sorely neglected.  

I think John shay is not good at dealing with any criticism no matter how small or big.  He definitely seems to be an egotist, thinking he is smarter than everyone else.  He is good at cover-up for his staff, especially the Tykoski's malfeasances, and installing the workplace safety act for Ms. Tykoski and his inability to deal with FOIA requests and the resultant lack of courage has caused this city a festering pimple (more like a huge boil) that needed a massive lance.  I think his resignation will start to heal the festering.  But the cause of the boil needs to be healed.

 

XLFD , you ask such hard questions!!!!!

And nearly a day later, no answers.  Mayor Holman and Marcelina Shriver this morning didn't have enough good things to say about John Shay, but nothing of any substance.  What a great guy, it's going to be difficult to replace him, what a professional, etc.  This and the nausea-fest at the last council meeting has everyone acting like he just died, and you just can't say anything critical about him.  You'd like to say something about his life's accomplishments, but just can't dredge anything up other than just say "Wow, we're sure going to miss him."

I just want one thing to build a positive legacy off of.  It's been nearly a day on the LT and the LP on the Facebook, and nobody's proffered anything, not even the trolls.

Got one , After a long thought I finally came to the ultimate one thing he has done that was positive and will have a long lasting effect on the city.       HE RESIGNED  !!!!!!   

Good outside-of-the-box thinking, but is that really the best we can do?  I admit that a resignation saves the City of Ludington the significant amount of extra money it would take as part of his severance package had he been fired, and marks one of the few times when one of his decisions actually saved the COL money.   

"John Shay served as city manager for 15 years and was greatly revered for resigning after putting the city into record debt."  It doesn't seem like a great epithet.

I don't know if this counts, but since gluing a snarky photo of John Shay to the bottom of my toilet bowl kidney stones are a thing of my past. 

I now understand your past references to urinating on John Shay.  That could be a problem, however, when you have guests over to the house and they see all that s#!t stuck on the bottom of your toilet bowl and they think you have a different type of bowel problems

Ha ha, shinblind! That's a real accomplishment/contribution and would be an asset to add to his public servant record but I can't see that help the $40 million dollar debt we're left with.

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