The Varied Perspectives of Public Spending

[XLFD]

Our city leaders are a bit confused as to figuring out exactly where the money for their pet projects comes from.  Witness Legacy Park.  The spokesman for the Ludington Downtown Development Authority (DDA), Marketing and Communications Director Jen Tooman, told the public over and over again that Legacy Park would only use donations and fundraising money to finance that project.  

What could be clearer than her saying these quotes on social media in 2017:  "The DDA is funding Legacy Park with fundraising. No city dollars." and "We are not using DDA fund balance for Legacy Park. It will be all private donations." and "There will be ZERO cost to taxpayers for the west end project. It will be a grant and donors for that project as well. Same with Legacy Park."

Problem is, that the latest Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Plan grew the $700,000 Legacy Park project into a $2.5 million project, with all of the money scheduled to come from a 15 year TIF Plan which would only raise a little over a million dollars in total.  Every single penny of the TIF scheme is a part of the taxes paid by downtown property owners, which captures 12% of the taxes paid to all local taxing jurisdictions other than the schools.

 At the special meeting on October 24th where the council adopted the TIF Plan (illegitimately), Community Development Director Heather Tykoski stated that she envisioned Legacy Park being 90% funded by Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), a mechanism not even hinted at in the plan, not to mention that the CDBG funding is exclusively from federal tax revenue filtered through the Michigan Strategic Fund. 

The mechanisms are complex and most people want to think their government is not lying to them, but the legacy of Legacy Park will be that it was founded on a foundation of lies and misrepresentations.  Frauds and cheats.  

With that introduction, let's take a look at another bit of misinformation, courtesy of Ludington City Councilor Brandy Miller, and perpetuated by City Clerk Deb Luskin in the meeting minutes of the last city council meeting.  The video of the meeting unfortunately terminated at the beginning of the closed session to show how the councilor at-large tried to create a new narrative, but the minutes report:

I appreciate the councilor asking how much legal fees the City had in this exercise, it is quite a bit, about sixty times more than what the frugal plaintiffs spent (and recaptured through the settlement, along with other bells and whistles).  The new city manager explained where the money came from. 

Not content with hearing that insurance coverage footed their legal expenses, the councilor made an unchallenged statement much like what is reflected in the minutes which befogged the truth in order to make a fallacious claim.  As you can see the clerk printed it as:

"This is taxpayer money that the City paid out for this court case."

It was a rather insulting assault on the facts of the matter.  My co-plaintiff took great offense to it; I may have myself, but I expected it, having been on the receiving end of city spin at the end of other civil cases I have had with the City that ended favorably for me and costly for their insurance company.  This is pure propaganda from Brandy (Henderson) Miller, the executive director of the Ludington Convention & Visitor's Bureau (CVB), whose agency imposes and collects a couple hundred thousand dollars in 'room taxes' from Mason County innkeepers whether they benefit from the CVB or not.

Before this case had even originated, my co-plaintiff in 2017 requested some simple actions by the City to remedy their violations of the Open Meetings Act which left many in the city without a voice or an ear in public policy over a course of many years.  Had the City decided not to ignore those fair demands, a couple of the City's civil attorneys would have had to earn $53,000 elsewhere.  

The actual funding mechanism is much like the city manager portrayed, the City spends a good deal each year in an insurance pool known as the Michigan Municipal Risk Management Authority or MMRMA.  You can read about it in this July 24, 2017 council packet on p. 72:

This authority pools premiums and uses it to cover legal fees for civil lawsuits, like this and my others, it may also to a certain extent cover costs of settlement within reason.  It is likely the City will spend about $1500 or so of their own money to conform to settlement terms, I will be surprised if they spend any to cover the MMRMA attorneys fees beyond their annual insurance payment.  The check covering our costs and disbursements for prosecuting this case will come from MMRMA.

It was revealed recently that last year, the risk management group refunded some of the money not used in the pool to municipalities including Ludington.  Being that half or more of the total legal costs accrued in that first year of this lawsuit (2018), the City cannot reasonably argue that we cost them (or other cities in the pool) anything other than maybe a slightly smaller refund from the excess money pool. 

Now that you know where the money actually originates from, perhaps you may want to direct your ire towards the people who truly waste taxpayer money on crazy projects and straight out lie about where it's coming and going over the course of their 'service' to the public.

[Willy]

I can't imagine a small town like Ludington having such extravagant non essential projects. $700,00 is ridiculous but $2.5 million is obscene. The nuts have been in control of Ludington for to long and it's showing up in rising taxes and failed infrastructure. Why is it that when many people get involved with Government they think there is an unlimited amount of money waiting to be spent? Good article X.