Half of a year ago I published Steve Miller's First Public Scandal which effectively pointed out the impropriety that then-mayoral-candidate Steve Miller had in brokering a marketing contract between WMOM, the radio station he worked for at the time, and the Ludington Downtown Development Authority (DDA), the public body he served as an official on at the time. His non-disclosure of that conflict of interest was not a deal breaker, he still won the mayor position easily against reform-minded Bill Dustman.

                  WMOM Award Winners from one year ago:  Nick Sims, Esther Beninati, Kendra Carr, and AJ Guertin

A new public scandal featuring the DDA's marketing efforts and WMOM seems to go the opposite direction, and seems to have directly led to the radio station's mysterious demise that happened on April 1st. It should make us all take the time to reevaluate the effectiveness and necessity of the DDA and how they operate in Ludington. Politicians love to say they created 'n' jobs by their policies and actions, but they never tell you about the 'n + m' jobs they have destroyed in the process.

Case in point is Harsco Rail. The local railroad construction and track maintenance vehicle manufacturer announced in late January that they would be leaving the Ludington area for South Carolina. The loss of around 300 unionized jobs will take conservatively $15 million of their earnings out of the local economy. That's quite a hit for our area, but have you noticed any kind of attempt by the local governments or private agencies intent on bringing jobs to the area to reach out and keep them here?

No, but new tax liabilities keep on adding up, whether they're proposed $100 million projects for the area schools, or a grand total near that for fixing the area's water and sewer issues. Sheriff patrol millage votes passing easily, public officials salary and compensation at ridiculous amounts, Promise Zone TIFs about to go into effect, property taxes rising higher than inflation rates, etc. start becoming a concern for those running businesses in or near the Ludington area.

As noted in the first link, WMOM came into the beginning of 2019 with a one-year contract with the DDA that needed to be renegotiated. One would think that WMOM winning a lot of awards in March 2018 (after the previous contract was made) from the Michigan Association of Broadcasters (including station of the year, several radio personality awards, and a merit in Community Involvement for work done in the 2017 Lake Jump, Shop with a Cop Pie Auction and spotlighting the work of many community minded individuals and non-profits) should make it a hot commodity.

The DDA apparently didn't see it that way. A February 6 E-mail from DDA Communication & Marketing Manager Jen Tooman acknowledges the reception of a proposed contract from WMOM's Sales Director Tristin Picard.

'This Thursday' would be February 7th, the DDA itself had its monthly meeting on February 4th, with no discussion about marketing contracts. Tristin heard nothing back from anybody, so the Monday following submitted a friendly letter to find out what was up, showing an eagerness to get things underway:

Jen didn't reply for 21 hours more, perhaps because she had some bad news to relate from the DDA's Marketing Committee.

Alas, the public can't even figure out who's on the DDA Marketing Committee, and they've made the final decision to not use their marketing money for radio. This is perhaps why WMOM owner, Patrick Lopeman, took a deep interest in my lawsuit against the City of Ludington for using subcommittees given no explicit lawful authority to exercise the full power of the parent public body. By the time of the next DDA meeting at the beginning of March-- as we will see-- the subcommittee's decision will be deemed a final decision by Jen Tooman.

But like any good sales director, Tristin Picard accepted their decision but offered an alternative for consideration that afternoon so as not to lose a client:

Nothing seems to have happened for a couple of weeks in reply; there may have been some unwritten communications between the parties, but the next E-mail comes from the sales director 15 days later and doesn't mention any.

And Jen sent back that she passed it on to the Marketing Committee, but expressed their disappointment that the DDA couldn't barter ad time for event sponsorships with the station:

Tristin pointed out that there really was no change from the prices and tenets of last year's contract and even offered a "Business Spotlight" option in addition to sweeten the deal:

Tooman apparently thought the DDA was entitled to have free Friday morning exposure courtesy of WMOM, and steadfastly defended her stats as to why they would not advertise on radio:


For somebody relying on statistics, Jen shows an ignorance of other math terms. '.01%' is one-hundredth of one percent, which effectively means 1 person in 10,000. When your sampling size is only 600, you cannot get such a result. She seems to have meant instead 1%, which 7 of 602 respondents would be (rounded down). Nevertheless, wishing somebody a great weekend on Thursday while in the same breath saying that you'll appeal the marketing contract to a higher power is normally considered bad form. But she did contact Pat later that day:

And this was not well received by the owner of WMOM, who was being expected to be used by the DDA for 15-30 minutes of free air time each Friday to promote their products and to offer free ad time for downtown events in trade for being able to say the radio station sponsored the event. A radio station cannot easily stay in business on such a model, especially when their paying customers get wind of it.

The City had no response from Pat in their FOIA response, so I can only imagine the phone call that took place betwixt the two. Heather Tykoski would almost immediately look for validation on social media to spin her departure from the Friday morning radio spots by advancing her own narrative and diminishing Ludington's only radio station. It's probable that Tooman did the same, albeit more discretely. It seems a bit petty when the station had been honored for their community service so many times, finally stopped giving away freebies to the city government, and became the ogre-- to be shunned or ran out of town.

The next day, March 1, the DDA launched their new marketing tool, 'video production', on their Facebook page and the City of Ludington's. I wonder if the Marketing Committee understood all of the benefits that radio has to offer as a marketing tool when used properly and aimed at a target audience. The DDA ran 1.5 30-second ads per day on WMOM, it's hard to make an impact using such a model, for as any marketer knows, it takes a while for ads to connect and they should have been running three per day. I doubt whether making their own videos will have the same impact as their radio spots, but I'm not in their Marketing Committee.

A subcommittee which made the decision for the whole DDA Board, as noted in the next meeting of the DDA, where it was announced that the 'powerless' committee had already unilaterally denied the radio contract and directed the DDA's money into video production. Pat never said anything at our March 6 courtroom encounter about this travesty which is a clear Open Meetings Act violation by the DDA, akin to the ones we discussed at court, but he did announce that he would have some big news in a little while.

One needs only look at how WMOM was exploited by city officials and then trashed by city officials to recognize what happened in this case wasn't good for the downtown, wasn't good for the local business climate. Lopeman would shut down the radio station on April Fool's Day, announcing it through his sports announcer, Todd "Scoop" Hansen on Facebook with a real 'scoop'. Coincidentally, April 1st is when the aforementioned Harsco Rail started laying people off. Maybe the joke is on us, however, since the departure of these companies may be the harbinger of more to come as the burden of taxes and the caprice of our public officials continue to grow.

Views: 971

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Sound like Jan and the DDA spent too much of their budget on phony ice to have anything in the coffers to be able to support local business.

Tell me, was WMOM one of the banner sponsors of the phony ice?  If so did they spend cash for the ad? Will the DDA do a survey of how many people saw the ice rink ads? Will the DDA be offering the sponsers a refund or free advertising later in the year? Maybe the supporters of the DDA should be placing their money in an escrow account until time comes when it is better managed. 

I honestly do not think WMOM sponsored the faux ice rink, but if you read the latest from the DDA, they are planning on marketing and improving the ice rink even more for this next winter.  In that case, seven (if they were lucky) out of 8000+ actually tried to skate on the rink (less than 0.1%), yet Jen Tooman wants to throw more money at that.  Typical DDA mentality. 

DDA way, make a bigger rink put up more barriers sell more ad space.  Maybe the new rink can be 4 foot wide and a 100 yards long, why I bet Jen would get the vapors over the ad revenue such a configuration would generate.

Wishing the best to Patrick Lopeman and justice for any unfair deals suffered. Quite lonely without WMOM. Just a buzz on the station now. It's been a great station for many years.

Regarding the survey that the DDA claimed to have conducted. Of the 593 people who did not hear about it on the radio, where did they learn about the event? Were the 595 who heard it from sources other than WMOM residents of the Ludington area? If they were, then it would mean that WMOM was not very effective in reaching the public and I can understand the change. However, I'm always skeptical about surveys. For instance, who conducted the survey and what method was used to engage the public? What types of surveys were used in the past and what were the results? From the email exchanges, it appears that WMOM was surprised at the decision so what kind of surveys did WMOM use to justify what type of entertainment to broadcast and who is listening to what they present? I know nothing about marketing but it seems to me that the DDA should have notified the station right after the results of the survey were known so possible adjustments could be made. I've always contended that the Government has no business engaging in private businesses business unless businesses want Government in their business. If it wasn't for Governments involvement this would be none of my business.

Don't forget Danny V

Danny V "#Winning" again in the usual way-- classic altered photo, Willy.  

Jen Tooman brings up and alludes to the survey in every of her last four E-mails but she never in any of those E-mails says anything other than 7 out of 600 (or 602 or .1%, whatever) mentioned they heard of an event from the radio.  Was the survey taken of people from out of the area, chances are they never could have heard it on the radio.  If a radio spot only comes on once a day, it's likely not to make a lasting impression on the listener if they just happen to be actually listening to the radio commercial the fraction of a minute it's on.  I spent over a couple hundred on advertising on WMOM during the last two weeks of a political campaign, and got three spots a day-- I think it was good exposure from the comments I received from a mostly younger crowd.

And that's not what this survey seems to have looked at.  How many kids or young adults listened to the radio and told their parents or friends about the event?  Those event-goers would not show up as one who heard it on radio, and of course, they could have easily continued a chain reaction where some would post it on social media, others would tell more friends.  That one person who heard of it on the radio may have inspired dozens or even hundreds to go to the event.  

Rumor has it that this is the original photo while the other one was released with Danny V photo-shopped out of it.

RSS

© 2024   Created by XLFD.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service