Top Ten 2019 Achievements by the Ludington Torch

[XLFD]

We're much too humble to overstate our successes, but not since 2013 has the Ludington Torch accomplished as much as it did in 2019.   Even that earlier year's achievements may have been eclipsed by what we did as an activist alternative media website with a focus on public accountability and transparency. 

In sorting through our successes as investigators, prosecutors, and as town criers, we uncovered twenty distinct achievements that should be noted for at least posterity's sake.  We have assembled the top half of those here.  As it was our tenth year in this line of business, it illustrates our commitment to not rest on the laurels of our past accomplishments, but head fully into the future with our ideals intact and fully engaged with an arsenal of kinetic and potential energy over the issues we care most about.  Without further ado, here is 2019's top ten achievements by the Ludington Torch:

10)  Feb 2019: Debunked the City of Ludington's contention that all agenda items go through committee, before coming before council, en route to changing the way the agenda is presented:

"City government will continue to use these committee meetings to introduce things so that they do not arouse much controversy before they come before the council, or they will just go the even-more-secretive 'administrative route'. Witness the introduction of four separate issues brought before the council at the last meeting as coming from two of the committees that have never met for three or four months."  

9)  All 2019:  Reported on nine abuses of law and protocol by the poorly-trained sheriff's office, who obviously haven't read up on the law and the Bill of Rights:

  a)  Villains and Victims

  b)  Disorderly Synergy

  c)  Mayo-Ped Search

  d)  How Things are Done

  e)  Deputies or Snowflakes

  f)  Reaching In

  g)  Passenger Arrested Car Impounded

  h)  Sheriff U-turns

   i) Consensual Confusion 

8)  Mar 2019: Exposed the unlawful declaration of city policy by a contractor operating outside of open meetings:

"The declaration of a force majeure should have come from a properly informed Ludington City Council (along with an informed public), but instead it is seen in a review of the public records that the action was driven by the Community Development Director (CDD), who acting upon a simple question from a contractor, influenced the city attorney to immediately create a force majeure notice, immediately signed by the interim city manager who also had no authority to do so."

7)  April 2019: Won the main point of an appeal in the Michigan Court of Appeals regarding a FOIA lawsuit with the City of Manistee; on remand, the trial judge would have to hold an in camera review and relate which of the three exemptions asserted would apply

"For the foregoing reasons, we remand for the trial court to review the disputed records in camera to determine whether defendant’s rationale for not disclosing the records applied to all of the material contained in the requested records and whether the records contain nonexempt material that should have been disclosed."  -Rotta v. City of Manistee

6)  Jan 2019: Uncovered that the interim city manager unlawfully hired a Deputy Treasurer

"The city council has never elevated anybody to a treasurer position since Tom Ezdebski was hired as her replacement. They are the only group with that authority. The City council has not corrected the omission."  (still haven't)

5)  August 2019: Prevailed in full at the Manistee Circuit Court after the judge finds that public records he ruled were fully exempt a year previous were fully non-exempt. City of Manistee gets off easy with disclosure, court costs and disbursements paid to plaintiff

"The City of Manistee covered up this fatal killing by not responding to disclosure to the media of any portion of the public records regarding this incident until the court forces them to do so on remand from the Michigan Court of Appeals over 28 months later!"

4)  March 2019: Exposed the lack of a reviewable application at a public hearing to hear comments on that application. That passport grant application would be later challenged by the LT at the state level and would be denied

"One month ago exactly, the council acknowledged the City's duty to provide the public the opportunity to review the proposed application. Yet, we cannot. Furthermore, the application guidelines mandate that adequate opportunity be provided to the public to review this proposed application. Yet, we cannot. Furthermore, the city council has not adequate time to review and consider the grant application in any kind of diligent manner, even if Heather finished it later this afternoon and has it in front of you now. If you decide to vote to adopt this resolution tonight approving submitting this grant application that has had no public review, zero, you will find yourself with very diligent opponents."

3)  August 2019: Exposed the illegally formed and staffed Citizen's Council for the TIF Plan, which would lead to a contested plan passed by the city council being considered by the state. This would later be debated at a special meeting where the TIF Plan would pass, and is currently being looked at by the state's Dept. of Treasury following a complaint filed by the LT.

"Nobody addressed the multiple violations of state law or the insufficiency of the TIF Plan. The ordinance unanimously passed."

2)  December 2019: Two citizens with strong LT connections settle two year Open Meetings Act lawsuit with City, negotiations and conditions have and will lead to a more open and accountable city government, even so,the fight goes on

"Summarized, the City of Ludington for a long period of time had its committees conducting business in meetings not in compliance with OMA in three major ways: 1) deliberations/decisions that required the full council at an open meeting were being made 2) committees met with a quorum of the city council present without noticing the meeting as a 'city council meeting' 3) committees would regularly switch members freely, thus allowing a quorum of the council to deliberate/decide on public issues over multiple meetings."

And even though we at the Ludington Torch were the party that prevailed or favorably settled cases that we prosecuted in three different courts throughout the year, our most notable and long-lasting achievement was our part in keeping everybody's tax bill under some semblance of control without having to hold a legal knife to city hall's throat:

1)  September 2019: Exposed the illegality of the City's imposition of an administration fee on taxes, council resists voting on the issue, and leads to $120,000 more per year in the citizens' pockets

"Despite the PTAF being assumed into the 2019 budget, it has yet to be considered by the city council as a resolution or ordinance, as the law requires. Any review of the agendas and minutes since Brock's suggestion to adopt a PTAF to support his budget clearly shows it has not happened. I haven't missed a council meeting yet, and this topic hasn't even came up this year in passing or in theory."   

We will try to achieve even more in the future years.  Thanks for your support.

[Willy]

Amazing amount of accomplishments X. Very Trump like or is Trump XLFD like? It's hard to believe that there were that many issues the City had to be called out on. It's scary to think what they would have done without your intervention. It's even scarier to think of what they did do with you watching over their indiscretions. Wouldn't it be nice to have people in charge who have the public's interest at heart and that would be the first thing they would consider? Great job in 2019. Let's hope the City will not need oversight in 2020 but sadly for at least the last 10 years that has not been the case. Congratulations!

[XLFD]

Thanks, and I should stress that these achievements did not happen in a vacuum (for it is either very dusty or airless, depending on what type of vacuum you are talking about and neither is a great environment).

Kudos for positive changes in Ludington government has to be given to city officials new to the scene who have embraced a more open system in Ludington:  Councilors Serna and Rozelle, Mayor Miller, and City Manager Foster.   Continued vigilance on our part will have to go forth, since these folks could easily get swayed by the old guard to accept what was considered acceptable in the past, or they could just forget that there are other sensible/popular alternatives out in the public mind that they should seek out rather than listen to their insular circle of officials who so often give us the ridiculous.

More people in the community are accepting open government as a positive thing to shoot for, and so the Ludington Torch and our little sister on Facebook, the Ludington Pitchfork has been gradually gaining acceptance from those willing to hear us out and look at what's happening in our local city halls, schools, and courthouses.  I hope we can get even more of a critical mass in our membership of both to advance these principles further in the Roaring Twenties and beyond so we can get to the point where we can count on our local leaders to do what's right without having to check up on them so much.  

Thanks Willy, Dianne, John Doe Jr., Aquaman, Freedom Seeker, Shinblind, Stump, etc. for your support and insights which frequently give extra guidance and help in getting better results around our area.

[Freedom Seeker]

I hope all the city people read this review and vow in a new year to work for their taxpayers rather than the brainiacs who in secret meetings hatch plans to squander tax dollars on projects like west end, heritage park, splash pad, and anchored beer tents, only to have taxes rise year after year while infrastructure gets put off.

When the city is forced by the state to remove lead pipes, they cry they have no money to fix them, then raise the water rates by a huge 7.5 percent this year and next while making a free extravagant splashpad that will pour out millions of gallons of free water while our lead pipes and roads are not repaired. I hope the citizens who are tired of having their tax dollars squandered take notice.

Our debt is so high, how can we ever pay it off while the brainiacs keep coming up with fluffy projects like a fake ice rink and another beer festival that cost more maintenance people, salaries and raises? They are so out of touch with the people and with reality and that's they way they want it. They do not want to hear people's comments. They have blocked the media from allowing people to comment because there is too much negative feedback. Happy new year? For the elite in Ludington getting huge salaries, the best health insurance, and year after year raises, happy new year under your bubble.

[XLFD]

Thank you for these very salient points and concerns about Ludington's future, present, and past.  I hope city officials take note and feel secure enough in their position to think outside the box they've made for themselves.  It is great to see that awareness of the issues you speak of are taking root in the public consciousness more as the years progress.

[Du Wright]

True.  I don't see a lot of happy in the box that has gone on in Ludington's past administration.  And until we have councilors who see our debt load and take a stand against the one-sided thinking that has caused our debt and resultant neglect of infrastructure and citizen's needs, I don't see much brightness in Ludington's future.  It has been a very unsunny, closed past ten years that has given very much to the downtown and CDD pet projects while only raising taxes and not doing their number one job--providing services to the taxpayer.

[Freedom Seeker]

A debt hanging over the city of Ludington taxpayer crashing down much bigger and harder than the ball they'll drop tonight. Get drunk and forget about it and spend some more on fun and frivolity!