An Invitation from the King of Ludington

[XLFD]

Last week, I received an E - Mail from someone I hadn't heard from in a while.  Ludington City Manager John Shay. 

 

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 10:39 AM

Tom: 

The City will seek bids to reconstruct Dowland Street between South Washington Avenue and South Rath Avenue this spring.  This project will entail replacing the water main, water service lines, valves, sanitary sewer, storm sewer, curb, gutter and the road itself.  The City has scheduled a meeting on Thursday, January 12 at 11:00 a.m. in the downstairs Community Room at City Hall for the property owners/businesses/residents on Dowland Street to meet with the City’s engineer on this project.  The engineer will explain the scope of the project and address any questions or concerns that the property owners/businesses/residents may have.

 

The Department of Public Works will be handing out notices to the residents about this meeting.  While I know you disagree with the Letter of Trespass issued against you, the purpose of this e-mail is to confirm that you are invited to attend this meeting without being in violation of the Letter of Trespass. 

Please contact me if you have any questions.

 

John Shay

City Manager

 

This marked quite a departure from the last eight months where I haven't received anything other than a "CC:" E-mail sent to LDN that was irrelevant.  Through these last 8 months and the two months before, I have been banned from Ludington City Hall and Police Station, threatened with arrest for misdemeanor trespassing if I set foot on this public property.  All because some at City Hall feared what I was uncovering with FOIA requests.  John Shay last replied to me when I asked to enter City Hall for purposes of turning in my nominating petition that allowed me to run for City Council in 2011.  That was May 2nd. 

 

Since then, and before the correspondence above, I wrote him three times-- three times I received no answer, even though I asked him about rescinding and/or reconsidering the City Hall ban.

 

On June 13, 2011 I wrote to him:  "The fifth amendment to the Constitution says that "No person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Under your letter of trespass, my liberty of being able to set foot on public property (to whit, the City Hall and Police Department) was denied, and yet my due process amounted to me being served the Letter without having any offense, real or imagined, leveled against me. In your one-sided newspaper article three days later, you mentioned me making numerous FOIA requests, and having run a stop sign three years earlier. You failed to mention I was on my bicycle and the stop sign was illegally placed as well as not being backed by a traffic control order, but those are technicalities from your vantage point, I'm sure.

So as a citizen, and as a candidate for the At-large City Councilor position, I beseech you to retract this onerous restraint on my liberties, and allow me the ability to use the city services and participate in the Open Meetings held at these places at my pleasure, as all other law-abiding citizens are able to do."

 

On September 9, 2011 I wrote to him concerning an invite to my associate to a meeting:  "... If His Honor {the Mayor} wants to extend the same courtesy to me, it will need to be contingent with a public retraction of the baseless Letter of Trespasses against me by yourself..."

 

On October 7, 2011 I wrote to him:  "... OK, the balls in your court, John. Drop the baseless Letter of Trespass for me, as per my attorney's request to the City to mitigate some of the damage already caused to my reputation and my election chances (attached), or face some more litigation due to preventing me from attending a so-called open candidate forum on equal terms."

 

My distinguished attorney had wrote three very sensible letters to the City Attorney seeking to have that onerous policy retracted in October.  No permission from the City Manager, recognized by the new City policy, was forthcoming and I was pilloried repeatedly by the "blind, deaf and especially dumb" local newspaper for having 'declined' my invitation to the above mentioned 'open forum'.  While the City was violating the City's own sign policy by picking up my legally placed campaign signs, I had to send surrogates to City Hall to get them back. 

 

Election day came, and even though my residency of the Third Ward was well-known to all City Hallers, as I had applied to be appointed to fill that open position in April, interviewing in front of most of them, they apparently forgot I would need to vote at the very City Hall I was banned from.  Even though I had discussed this at my interview for Third Ward, talked to the City Clerk about this very issue, and other City Officials about ramifications of the policy, I received no invitation at all to vote. 

 

I have since had that investigated by the County Prosecutor, and will soon have the FBI involved in checking out that serious breach of Federal Election Law.  I have heard nothing from any Ludington official changing the policy or the letter of trespass I received, but apparently John Shay has finally decided-- after prohibiting me from going to an open forum and from voting-- to allow me to go to City Hall for an informational meeting on a street project.  Yippee, I'm glad you think you have that power as well, Mr. Shay, as you continue to function without an Oath of Office. 

[Willy]

I'm guessing that you feel no less threatened and intimidated by Shay than a particular City employee who claims to be threatened and intimidated by you so a logical course of action would be to have a letter of trespass issued to Mr. Shay for Foster school in order to provide you with relief so that you can enjoy school functions. I think you should start addressing Shay as "johnny". That would show the proper respect that he deserves.

[XLFD]

Well Willy, that WSP only is made for the protection of City employees, not anyone else who has safety concerns about a rogue city employee they have to deal with on public property inside the city. 

A further shortcoming of the policy is the lack of how to apply it if the City Manager is the actual party that an employee feels is a 'safety concern' to them.  There is no alternative in the policy for getting a LoT against the Ludington City Manager, unless he decides to sign one on himself.  This would only need to be applied, however, if the City Manager was a total psycho...   

[Willy]

I was under the impression that a letter of trespass can be issued for any area of Ludington, private or public and that the Police Chief had stated that, of all the letters of trespass issued, Mr. Rotta's was the only one concerned with City Hall and the rest were issued for private property.