Petition Fishin' Expedition

[XLFD]

Ignition   On August 9, 2012 I sent the City Of Ludington City Manager/FOIA Coordinator John Shay a request to inspect the petitions that were turned in to the City regarding reversing term limits for the Ludington Mayor's office from three four-year terms to five.  Four days later, the City's most recently adopted attack dog, Kaye Holman, offered a presentation at the City Council meeting that was short on facts, but long on innuendo as regarding a citizen who utilizes the FOIA  kaye-holman-freedom-of-information-fighter.

Politician   Kaye considered my efforts a fishing expedition, meant to harass the City.  She had no justification for those statements, but that's what she believes.  I believe her rambling rant was predicated by my FOIA request into seeing the petition papers, primarily because there is evidence that there were things, many of them legal technicalities, that certain City Officials overlooked or bypassed in the process of getting this petition ready for this fall.

Exhibition   Initially, WMOM reported on a story saying there was movement afoot to extend term limits via petition, so I sent a FOIA request in April:  "These requests deal with records concerning a recent local story that involves an alleged petition that would change the charter's section on term limits for elected officials and a petitioning group called the Committee for a Stronger Ludington:

1)  All signature lists, affidavits, and other related materials dealing with such a petition since January 1, 2011 to present.

2)  Any written record (E-mail, mail, etc.) between City Officials (including all members of the DLB/DDA) in that time period that discusses the amending of the "term limit" provisions of the City Charter to provide for more terms, or mentions the "Committee for a Stronger Ludington".

Omission  The reply came back on April 19, 2012 from FOIAC John Shay:  "I have attached the City of Ludington’s response to your FOIA request  April 19, 2012.pdf  .  This says that no documents exist that fits this FOIA request.  What does that mean?  It means that nothing had been filed with the City Clerk, but then that would mean that there had been no initiative started up to that point, April 19.  This is because Section 7.5 of the City Charter says very clearly: "b. Petitioner's Committee.  Any five (5) qualified voters may commence initiative or referendum proceedings by filing with the City Clerk an affidavit stating they will constitute the Petitioner's Committee and be responsible for circulating the petition and filing it in proper form, stating their names and addresses, and specifying the address to which all notices of the committee are to be sent, and setting out in full the proposed initiative ordinance or citing the ordinance sought to be reconsidered.

Promptly after the affidavit of the Petitioner's Committee is filed, the City Clerk shall issue the appropriate petition blanks to the Petitioner's Committee."

Supposition  No affidavit of the Petition Committee, filed with the City Clerk, existed before April 19, and so petition blanks should not have been issued by the City Clerk for this proposition before that time.  A Statement of Organization for the "Committee for a Stronger Ludington" was filed with the state on 3-5-2012, but this does not fulfill the local requirement (nor does it appear that any proposed initiative was offered to the state during this period).  State law says  MCL 117.4i   Each city may provide in its charter for the following:  (g) The initiative and referendum on all matters within the scope of the powers of that city and the recall of city officials.

Having an affidavit with the petitioner committee's names filed with the City Clerk is within the scope of powers of the City, and is incorporated in the charter; but this wasn't done, at least until April 19, so any signature dated before that date at the least is invalid for this petition.  There is a good likelihood that affidavit was never filed, because it's just an annoying legal technicality, at least that's what the City-official-packed Petitioner's Committee thought.  But it is legit City law.

Division   There are just under 6000 registered voters in the City of Ludington.  The Home Rule City Act, MCL 117.25 says that you need 5% of the registered voters in an 'city' to enact an initiated law.  That amounts to just under 300 signatures.  Sources say 308 valid signatures were gotten, I counted 302 definite signatures among the 47 pages of petitions.  Either way, the number of petition signatures would meet the state criterium.  But then there's that annoying City law, Section 7.5 of the City Charter, section c1, that now says 10% of the registered voters is needed, meaning about 300 more signatures.  I think this aspect of City law is illegitimate, but it does exist, and should be addressed and repealed (to the state's 5%) before this proposal is to be considered valid.  But even then...

Exhibition    ...there is the petitions and that lack of an affidavit on April 19, 2012.  Let's choose the best case scenario for the petitioners, that they actually filed an affidavit on April 19.  Then we have to disqualify the following signatures as being valid:

Milan (Budde) Reed's 1 signature here

Brandy Henderson's and 9 other sigs here

Gerry Hansen's and 11 other sigs here

In total, 8 signatures here (one signed on April 19!)

Joyce Usiak (petitioner) and 9 other sigs here.

In total, 9 signatures here.

Just Lori Kazymicki's one signature here.

Kathleen Fisher's (petitioner) and 10 other sigs here.

Fisher has 10 more 'early' sigs here.

Fisher has at least 6 more here.

The LFD Chief and his wife are the 2 here.

Barry Neal is one of 2 here.

Addition   There are thus 82 people whose signatures are disqualified from the petition's total.  That either puts you down to 220 or 226, depending on where you started.  That total only gets smaller if the affidavit was signed later than April 19.  The petition is invalidated by state and city law, and should never have been sent to the state by the City Clerk for consideration this fall.

Repetition   Clerk Luskin was a bit better at getting some of the "Election Lawbreakers" including Tim and Carrie Callihan who both signed on August 5 and August 7, with petitioners Heather Venzke and  Michele Johnson respectively.  Petitioner Heather got Lars Kvalvaag twice, once on April 16 and then on August 5.  At least 19 other people signed twice, as well, even when the petition says in capitals and boldfaced:  "A person who knowingly signs this petition more than once... is violating the provisions of the Michigan Election Law."

Attrition  More signatures were disallowed due to voter's signatures not matching their filed signatures (at least 7), they were not registered (at least 16), not registered at the address indicated on the petition (at least 16), and two had signatures dated after the date the petition was filed.  These were dutifully knocked off the original amount turned in (around 360).

Commission   The petitioner's committee, seemingly limited by the City to five, and, if not actually limited has to list its circulators/members.  The amount of petition circulators were far more than five, it was actually 20.  The original committee looks to have been made up of Heather Venzke, Gerry Hansen, Joyce Usiak, Kathleen Fisher, and Robert Neal.  Fourteen more made the push starting around August 4th.  Were these legal circulators?  City law wouldn't recognize them as such without a special affidavit, but State law is more forgiving.

Wishin'  Don't you wish you could choose what laws apply to you, and which don't?   The City Council has no problem passing laws which have no regards for civil rights guaranteed under the Constitutions of Michigan and the USA, all they need to do is have the City Attorney draft it, City Manager John Shay recommend it (both refuse to take the Constitutional Oaths of Office themselves), and then the City Council gets out there rubber stamps.  So now they can enter your house at any time to 'inspect your pipes', restrict you from entering a public place without any due process or rationale, and even say how you can feed your's, or other's, cats.

Sedition   Yet they never seem to follow their own City Charter, even when they're called on it.  Raise your salary from $50 to $3600 by putting aside $20,000 for 'transportation expenses' and then incorporating it into your salary.  Insist on having contracts competitively bid for projects over $10,000 in the charter, and then have a City Official who marries the Community Development Director get the signage project without a contract, without a competitive bid when started, and then an unfair bidding process later.  Mix that in with a lot of missing documents, a cover-up by the City Manager involving perjury in a FOIA appeal in Circuit Court, and violations of the Open Meetings Act, and you get an idea how corrupt our City Hall has become.  And that's just a start...

 

Finishin'  The City will run with this proposal, even if it is proved illegitimate in more ways than I have just shown; that's how corrupt governments work.  Kaye Holman, one of the 20 petition circulators, will demonize a citizen for asking questions, and trying to receive documents that may answer those questions, but don't be fooled by her, her fellow City Hallers, or her partners in the City of Ludington Daily News who will not even acknowledge the shortcomings of this petition, better yet, explain the cruel, hard truth away.  Proving that they can do anything, regardless of the laws saying they can't, is just one more way of showing the citizenry their power, which is close to pure tyranny.

[XLFD]

For someone who advocates innocent until proven guilty, you do read a lot into Aquaman's post to suggest a hostile tone.  He only suggests you read the archives because he feels you are making suppositions that may not be valid.  Shouldn't those who make up their minds on things look at the full body of evidence before reaching a confusion?

[Lisa O'Brien]

come on XLFD, you do know that when typing in all CAPS it suggest's shouting. I can see how it is perceived as hostile.

[XLFD]

Aquaman all-capped TRUTH a couple of times and TORCH, two five letter terms beginning with 'T' that are often considered synonymous.  Plus the word ALL.  It's part of his style of posting, as it is for some others here, notably Angela, Johanna, and the lately absent Edie Lindsay.  In context, I read it as emphatic, but not hostile. 

This is why someone new like CLFD who comes on here and reads hostility into posts that aren't and the site creator as being riled when I am far from that (especially on the news today), gets me concerned we do have someone whose sole purpose is to come on here just to sidetrack issues.  I hope that's not the case.

[CLFD]

XLFD

I am not the only person who sensed hostility. My better half sensed it too before I even read it. Are we both wrong? Or are we right?

If Aquaman has valid questions of me then all he needs to do is ask me. I have no idea what he meant when he told me to tell "ALL of us (you?) the TRUTH". I am not sure what "evidence" he asks of me.

Willy pointed out that one of the council members said "are you sure, have you read the ordinance". Willy said that was "petty, small and vindictive" of them because they could have told you what was in that ordinance. I think that should work both ways! Don't you?

  

I am having difficulty trying to understand why I have been admonished to read a bunch of your archives that have nothing to do with my comments here in this discussion. So I ask again that if there is something specific in your archives that you or Aquaman want me to review then please post a link and I will gladly review anything you ask me to review.

[CLFD]

XLFD

I do not understand what bicycles have to do with anything I have posted. Following the law is usually the best policy. I believe people are innocent until proven guilty. I commend you for being willing to admit your mistakes and for being humble enough to thank the people who assist you.

[XLFD]

CLFD,

if someone acting in their official capacity did something horribly wrong, like asked for money they were not entitled to, lied in court records, or repeatedly used excessive force on someone for no reason at all (in the McAdams case), were found not to be guilty of same in the local court system (in fact, the reporting party suffers financial injury), when the evidence is overwhelmingly proving the official's guilty of the infraction/crime, wouldn't you start to become wary of the proving grounds? 

Particularly when the original arbiter and the other lawyers violated several Canons of Judicial and Attorney Conduct  by not reporting improprieties until well after the fact, and tolerated perjury on the defendant's part?   I'm sure I can expect your answer to be "Yes".

[AQUAMAN]

CLFD, I can see where you are, and have been going, and it's always to put the Torcher's here on the defensive, by posting alot of nonsense and obscure observations that just don't exist to the naked eye. Like a poke in the eye so to speak. I'm not as hostile, as I am frustrated, with you and a gang mentality that come on this forum for your jollies, and don't back up your thought process with anything concrete, simple as that. Do your homework sir, and quit asking us all to repeat and babysit you newbies. It's rather old, immature, and sad at best you have so much time on your hands for this type of foolishness. Contribute to the forum, and quit trying to tear it down.

[CLFD]

Aquaman

What are you talking about?

[CLFD]

XLFD

I am not trying to antagonize or rile you. My comments here in this discussion refer to the mayorial term limit petition mentioned in your opening post, and to a couple of the accompanying member comments thereafter. All that other stuff you just mentioned has nothing to do with my comments here in this discussion. If there is something you would like to know about my other comments in other threads then please ask me in the appropriate discussion. I will do my utmost to answer your honest questions to the very best of my ability. You may rest assured that I know how to speak for myself.

[AQUAMAN]

Thank you so much Attorney who? You speak and post like one, and so, I must assume, like a liberal without any concrete proofs, that this is what you are portraying now, and so what's next, councilor? Ignorance and intelligence should not be confused, some of the most intelligent and educated people are still ignorant to facts and figures, and in unemployment lines too.  I'm just curious, being with Homeland Security as part of my job, we all need to know exactly what you are up to, or don't we have a right/need to know?