Ludington City Council Meeting, February 10, 2020: Deaf, Blind, and Dumb

[XLFD]

The Ludington City Council met for over two hours on the night of February 10, 2020 and I have decided to wait to write my usual summary because I was interested in how the clerk would approach the writing of the minutes for this meeting as it included two public hearings (I also learned the last 15 minutes of the meeting was not on video).  I have heard comments from some that minutes of past hearings do not reflect what you see on the video.  She released those minutes earlier today and here's a recap along with a review of the minutes accuracy.

Business

Three non-controversial items came from committees including the approval of an ordinance to establish a fee for the currently free task of transferring cemetery deeds.  This passed unanimously with officials noting that the process requires enough personnel time to invoke such a cost.  They approved an ordinance to regulate the parking of RVs on city right-of-ways and alleys for more than 72 hours unanimously, with Councilor Angela Serna expressing that she would have liked to vote against this ordinance because of the lack of enforcement of similar existing ordinances, but voted for it due to the urging of her constituents. 

Lastly, they approved a service agreement with engineer firm Prein & Newhof worth potentially $2.36 million pending whether the City gets a $2.1 million grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC).  The 2019 LPD report was also relayed but was not gone into with any great detail, see more of these items in the packet.

Hearings, Pt. 1:  Legacy Park Funding Grant:  DEAF 

The MEDC grant for Legacy Park was the first hearing to come before the masses, it was set up by a audiovisual presentation by Community Development Director (CDD) Heather Tykoski before the public comment period.  She also introduced briefly the other hearing for Rental Rehabilitation Projects (RRP), and several councilors asked questions in a sixteen minute period, three minutes into the meeting. 

After making a false start to the podium during the original public comment to talk of city center development, Dick Powell (26:30 into the video) commented on how important having a plaza was back when he was in Mexico, and saw the advantages here.  He was followed by Tom Tyron who started off with:

"I don't have a problem with the plaza as it exists now, I have a problem with what you're doing with it now.  What's happening is you're building splash parks and you've just built another park at the end of Ludington Avenue.  Now you want to increase this park.  You're stretching your resources in terms of how you are going to maintain these things."

Lyla McClelland and Kathy MacLean followed.  Lyla gave historical footnotes on the area and Kathy properly noted she was a DDA member and adjoining business owner, effectively saying the plaza was a major reason why she decided on that property.  She failed to note the hundreds of thousands of dollars of money she's received at that business over the year for building, rental, and façade rehabilitation grants while she was the treasurer of the DDA, helping with the administration of those grants.  She never disclosed that relationship when those grants were gifted to her, nor did Lyla mention that she herself served as a city official now.   I went next:

February 10, 2020 Ludington City Council meeting from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

XLFD:  (35:10 in):  "When the concept of Legacy Park was introduced to the public back in 2017, the marketing director of the DDA expressed repeatedly on social media that Legacy Park would not be funded through the taxpayers. These are all part of the public record, they have been saved for posterity, and include the following:

"The DDA is funding Legacy Park with fundraising. No city dollars." Another:
"We plan to have a maintenance fund. No city dollars will find Legacy Park." Another:
"We are not using DDA fund balance for Legacy Park. It will be all private donations." Another:
"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."

After raising a measly few thousand for a costly produced Doppel Dock party, they apparently sought an easier way and decided to hit the taxpayers big time. 2019's TIF Plan had about $2.4 million in tax money going to fund this project, a project that was projected to cost less than 30% of that back in 2017 when Dusty Christiansen submitted a $700,000 project with the same specifications. Christiansen's low bid to be the engineer of this project was ignored by the DDA, and they instead took the much higher bid of Prein & Newhof, who apparently decided to set the project's cost 350% higher than it originally was, that gives them more money too, and city leadership decided to fund it completely with taxpayer dollars in disregard of their earlier claims.
I asked then how could a TIF Plan take in only $1 million over its course and fund a $2.4 million project. I was told they were figuring in the speculative money of a future grant they hadn't yet applied for, even when this speculative money wasn't mentioned in the TIF Plan-- because it couldn't be used as a source of revenue.
Please consider all of the deceptive and corrupt practices that makes this grant a waste of over $2 million, and reject this application today. This can be done far less costly and far more ethically.[END]"

Grants are not fundraising, they are not private donations, and even if we are to believe that the DDA has saved $230,000 over the last ten years, it surely isn't reflected in the budget, and yet is going in as 10% match to this grant made up completely of federal taxpayer dollars.  I have copies of these blarney statements, I have read them before in front of the council without dispute, that continued at this meeting.  Our city leaders ignored doing something meaningful and equivalent on the cheap, we can only presume they are wasting $1.6 million on corruption, because they know the MEDC does not have any field officers to keep them honest, even if they were so inclined.

Dianne Seelhoff followed with the first of three poignant comments she would make this night:

"Regarding public input and the best way to use this grant, there were 52 comments on the City Facebook page, 72 comments on the Ludington Torch/Pitchfork posts and 23 on the Ludington Daily News."  Interesting numbers that seems to indicate one forum is more popular than a couple of others, she continued with pro and con comments before showing the 27 page guidelines for such grants, and noted several people commented that the money could not be used for other projects.

She finished by notifying council that the $2.1 million could be used in a variety of ways more in line as to what the citizens of the town needed.  "Did the grant writing team look at this one-of-a-kind grant opportunity with an aspect that it could be used for other projects, or was it squeezed into a mold to benefit a small area of the downtown which has already had a lot of money dumped into it."

In the minutes of this meeting, Clerk Deb Luskin did a good job of summarizing this hearing from what was recorded.  The comments of councilors, mostly asking questions that came up during comment, and the responses of CDD Tykoski that followed the last comment were faithfully reproduced.  The council without reservation approved the grant application.

Hearing 2:  RRP Grant Application:  BLIND

In the prelude to this hearing, Mayor Steve Miller noted that Tykoski had nothing extra prepared for speaking of this grant (nor is there anything in the packet), but he had her identify the three buildings (not the owners) in line for grant.  I started the comments:

XLFD:  (58:30 in) "Could I have a show of hands as to which councilors have actually completely read through the three different rental rehab applications and the City's main application to the MEDC? [Let the record show that no councilor raised their hand].
Rather than allow the councilors and the general public to read through these applications and the city's application by putting them in the packet, the community development director has opted to place them on a part of the city website that is inaccessible to most computers and electronic devices. There's a good reason for that, there are multiple ways that these applications are going against city, state and federal rules for rental rehabilitation projects.
This is not as complex of a proof as Fermat's last theorem, but suffice it to say that the proof is much too large to fit in a margin or a three minute presentation especially without the relevant material being presented as evidentiary to my claims.
I will only advise grave caution to those who vote to affirm this without due diligence and for those who will act as signatories without consideration of the ethical and economical insufficiencies of these applications.
I have pointed out on my website that this council is planning to okay a $270,000 rental rehab grant to a building that has an OPRA certificate that had the owner stating that he would have three apartments upstairs created by the summer of 2018, but they made nothing. Let me remind the council that they revoked an OPRA at the last meeting for the same transgression.
Will you punish one person for doing nothing with a tripled tax bill and then reward another for doing nothing with a quarter of a million dollars? But this is actually only a small part of what's wrong with this multiple application, and that will be revealed to higher authorities and the public whether you pass this tonight or not. It's your choice to pass it blindly and be complicit or exercise caution by voting no at this point. Thank you."

The council would become complicit through their ignorance in passing this grant application, sight unseen.  What quality representatives... NOT.  They would at least say they would explore the possibility that the OPRA was being exploited and unfairly used and have Foster review them by the next council meeting.  Kudos to Councilor Bourgette and Serna for looking into that aspect.

Before that vote, however, Kathy McClain rose and beamed about how the RRP subsidization made it possible for them to build rental units with the hundreds of thousands they received (not in those words).  At least she is grateful to these programs and finally admitting she as a city official were involved with them; she never did so on her applications that should have come before her Downtown Ludington Board along with a disclosure of the conflict. 

Dianne Seelhoff once again closed out the hearing:  "... where is the level playing field for everybody to get a rental rehab?  I mean, even those people downtown, many of them didn't know it.  We have other sections of the city, and Fourth Ward is crying.  Fourth Ward has commercial businesses, why do we not think about them?  I have no idea of what's going on here because all of this seems to be done in quiet chambers, as far as I can see."

She has a great point in that there was no public notification that there was any potential grant money available, making it appear that the three people who got grants were awarded them due to their city connections (and they would be correct, but nobody on the council made the connection).  The meeting minutes summarized what happened fairly close, yet somewhat misrepresenting the 'show of hands' reflecting that no councilor admitted to viewing the application or the three RRPs.  One more example of the council doing zero diligence.  Hopefully when the grant agency sees all that they decided was not worthwhile to look at, sees how CDD Tykoski pushed this through (the grant deadline was Valentine's Day), they may reconsider their poor job performances and the corruption of the community development department (more to come on that). 

FOIA and OMA Issues:  DUMB

The last two issues were part of the city manager's report, which included how difficult it may be to find a quality water treatment plant supervisor to replace Kurt Malzahn.  The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) issue did not involve me, but the City claimed an exemption that it could not otherwise claim unless it had the requester as an opponent in a civil action.  Having been in the courts with the City myself and getting the same exemption, I suggested they would be best off waiving the exemption because it could be easily circumvented, this was in my original comment:

XLFD: (19:10 in)  "On the agenda tonight is a FOIA appeal and for once I am not the appellant. But I do feel strongly that the City should release the requested records, so allow me to submit a brief oral amicus brief on behalf of the appellant in this instance.
They have asked for records that would normally be non-exempt but for the city's decision to invoke an exemption due to the claim that they and the appellant are parties in a civil action and these records are relevant to that litigation. The appellant counters by claiming that there is no civil action to speak of and utilizes Michigan Court Rules effectively to support their claim.
I personally find the appellant's arguments more compelling, but even if members of this city council contest that interpretation and believe that the exemption in this case is valid, I would still suggest strongly that you release the public records rather than spend tens of thousands of dollars defending the City's tenuous position. Fighting this disclosure of records would leave many citizens scratching their heads and wondering what's in the records requested that warrant such a misuse of our public defenders?
And the answer would be that there is nothing. If I were to make a request for these records, the City would have no exemption to fall back on. I could use those public records in whatever way I see fit. So if I shared them with the public on my website, that's my prerogative. If I share them with a couple that has seen the City's zoning law being weaponized over the last two decades, there's nothing stopping me.
If this city council cares not a whit about how they are perceived on the matter of transparency by the general public, by all means vote to deny these records to the appellant tonight and subject the city to another lawsuit that they will eventually lose. And for what?
For if you do vote for nondisclosure, I will draft my own FOIA request tonight for the same records and try to thwart such a sinister, costly scheme on your part." [END]

The FOIA Coordinator urged a slightly different direction that accomplished the same result and was approved by the council.  He told them to waive the exemption in the response, but to deny the appeal, he actually had prepared these records for the Keith Kolfage's neighbor, who would likely be handing them over to the interested party anyway.  In my belief, and the Kolfage's attorney's belief, these records should not have been denied since there was no 'civil action'.  FOIAC Alvarado did not make any convincing argument otherwise.

The Open Meetings Act (OMA) issue was a continuation of the conundrum posed at the last meeting.  Richard Wilson, in his last action as city attorney, urged the council to effectively declassify the two meetings where the council held closed sessions in a manner contrary to the OMA.  This would make the minutes I sought viewable under Wilson's legal theory. 

The city council, and FOIAC Alvarado, in their pride, somehow believes that their second unlawful closed session may have been legal, and so there was a long discussion among them that was pointing towards a problem-solving conference, until Councilor Joe Lenius decided that the meter had ran long enough.  His full statement was clipped at the end of the meeting's video due to time, but he steered the rest of the council to having the issue decided in court. 

That's right, I have been doing all that I could to keep this from going to court-- while getting the public records every citizen is entitled to-- and the city council moved and unanimously agreed to keep the minutes of both minutes sealed, despite their new attorney advising them towards resolving the issues in an open meeting and the clear words of the OMA legislation saying both closed sessions were held unlawfully.

Two years from now, when these same councilors will be complaining about $50,000 in legal bills, I hope somebody in the audience other than myself can give them a resounding raspberry and call them the fools that they are for holding illegal closed sessions and making unwise decisions after that to claim they held legal closed sessions and had the power to keep their minutes secret.

Denouement

Although I was through for the night, when the second public comment period came around again, there were two incredible comments to come from the public from others who had already spoke.  

Tom Tyron reminded the council that the $22 Trillion in debt the country has is due in large part to a grant process which tends to misdirect public money away from where it can help the public.  He added that the rental inspection program should be rescinded.

Dianne Seelhoff questioned the wisdom of taking on new projects when the City is taking on more and more debt.  She wanted to have the city look at other options rather than concentrate money on a downtown project that has limited benefit to the other 90% of the city.

The council adjourned shortly thereafter.  The clerk's minutes actually turned out to be fairly accurate recaps of the hearings, she's doing her job.  The city council, however, failed on all cylinders of common sense.

[XLFD]

It's very shameless.  Her husband also attended this meeting, a guy who has reportedly earned millions over the years from state contracts with his construction business, then finagling through fraudulent means hundreds of thousands out of three different grant programs with critical help from his wife to create what was then a redundant bicycle shop.  Fixing flats, what a nice way to retire (pun intended). 

[Freedom Seeker]

Good analysis, XLFD.  What is most corrupt to me is that Kathy MacLean who got at least $140,000 rehab grant that I know of (were there others?) And $1000 from the DDA funds before she bought the building without disclosure that she was a city official had the gutspa to stand in front of the public to unabashedly tell about it. 

It is state welfare like this, going to people who really don't need it that will destroy the state and country financially while the city officials who benefit from this "public service" laugh all the way to the bank.  

I

[Du Wright]

"But if we dont take the state welfare handouts for public improvement grants, some other corrupt public official will." There should be a couple other classes of monkeys in the picture: one with their hands outstretched for welfare, and another pick pocketing the taxpayers. Those monkeys receiving the state welfare cannot understand that they are learning to be beggars and thieves, instead of making their own way as a respectable business. Tom Tyrone is right in his few succinct words. Someone is going to pay for the $22 trillion dollar federal debt. These city officials who are supposed to be excluded from receiving these rental rehab grants need to be held accountable at the state level. And the state needs to be held accountable to federal guidelines for "public grants."

[Freedom Seeker]

Just dawned on me your theme with the monkeys, XLFD.  Don't forget "Monkey see, monkey do."  If one corrupt city official gets away with it, it becomes common place for another corrupt city official to beguile the state, HUD, and the taxpayer.  

[XLFD]

City officials involved in the process aren't actually excluded from getting grants, but there is definitive disclosures of that fact that have to take place before the public and all other reviewing agencies.  

When most public officials of a City know that conflict, and let it happen without disclosure is when you know you have a corrupt City that would screw over the general public and defraud the state and federal government for their own personal profit.  Mitch Foster should not be delegating autonomy and authority to certain individuals at city hall without exercising a high degree of vigilance; if he does not he's going to have to take the fall when they do.   

[Freedom Seeker]

And did these grant recipients through housing or jobs help the low to moderate income persons?  How does that work?

[Willy]

Excellent work X. Mr. Smith goes to Washington or is it Mr. XLFD goes to Council. Wonderful job on bringing your points home and of informing not only the Council on their sinister actions but also informing the public that all is still not well at City Hall. I'm pleased you were not alone in your objections to the City's action and that other speakers were brave enough to lend a voice. X's request for the Council to raise their hands in response to a question was absolute genius. It not only shows the arrogance and ignorance that exist within the City but also reveals an underlying cesspool of potential corruption. For this type of behavior to keep continuing is very troublesome. Something is very wrong.

I have to bring up one point  in regards to another topic posted on this forum about educating Councilors. I would say that this meeting is a prime example showing that no matter how much the Council may be required to be schooled it will have no affect on how they behave when it's time to do their jobs. No one can tell me that they are not aware of the legal implications and FOIA regulations and that even if they all had  a university degree in those subjects it would have made no difference at this meeting for the people to have a more citizen friendly  outcome. The corruption will not be fixed by requiring seminars for elected officials. X has been educating them for years. They are either corrupt, dumb as rocks or easily swayed to the dark side.

[XLFD]

That 'show of hands' approach was one I formulated so as to sidestep the blank-faced silence that usually greets anybody who asks the council a yes/no question they should-really-answer-but-don't out of protocol.  I was proud of the moment of ingenuity that spawned this approach, thanks for recognizing it as my latest invocation of Einstein intellect at the city council's expense.

As for your next observation, it is a continual struggle to make the council think for themselves.  Too many are in the job with an idea to move the city forward, which is good, but they wind up becoming the representatives of the City corporate rather than the citizens and let the city manager, city attorney, and other city hall staff have all the say with a direction that isn't necessarily forward or in the public interest.  

Ludington is currently at a point where the frontline decision makers are new and somewhat willing to consider options that aren't self-serving for themselves.  A new CM, a new CA, a new police chief coming, a councilor that is willing to ask necessary questions and rock the boat-- all are promising particularly when they differ from their corrupt predecessors.  But we still have bad apples at city hall that are willing to negate the positive changes and they will do their best to make anything good go away or go their way.  A very important time to continue the struggle so that city hall doesn't go rotten and instead goes Rotta-in' to greatness.

[AQUAMAN]

Just another CC Mtg. where the public comments are ignored and voted against throughout the entire evening, sad. I also was quite surprised by a comment by Mitch Foster as to the Plaza/Legacy Park reasoning of passage. Not as Dianne Seelhoff exposed the paperwork for rules on infrastructure, and other necessary improvements for the taxpayers as the best reason for HUD grants, but that those ideas are "not sexy projects" to the board that reviews the grants and denies or grants them. What's so sexy about Legacy Park improvements? I just don't see it. If some of those boards came to Ludington, or saw pics. of our infrastructure as it stands now, I believe any with common sense would surely turn this application down entirely as non-efficient usage of funds. These grants are geared for projects much different that the DDA keeps pushing. I also am flabbergasted again by the conflict of interest of the McClain's grant requests, esp. in light of their personal wealth now also exposed. Sad too that the last 15 minutes were not included in the video, but, I assume their taping machines do not exceed the 2 hour time frame for recording these. And in closing, Dick Powell's comparison of Mexican small towns having a main plaza to gather and celebrate at, is not parallel to the USA at all. Most of those small Mexican towns that I too have visited, had mainly gravel and dirt streets, very old buildings, small populations of starving peasants, not much if any law and order, and no other so-called parks for the public to enjoy. If he likes it so well there, perhaps he should move there for his remaining retirement, and leave Ludington to it's own citizenry to govern.

[Freedom Seeker]

I thought similarly about "the town square," Aquaman. Unfortunately Ludington, and most U.S. cities weren't developed around the Mexican "town square" concept. I like town squares. Yates Center, Kansas and Albuquerque, New Mexico and the Olivera Street Los Angeles area built them in their original plans, to name a few that I know of. I think they are a nice idea for community to gather, but to make a town square 150 years after the fact out of a long rectangle (street) with major infrastructure (sewer, etc.) under neath is just cookoo, imo. And it just keeps getting more cookoo and more rectangular and taking away parking space. It's designed now to benefit the businesses and entertainment, maybe to some degree because the people who own condos at waterfront park are getting tired of so much commotion and abundance hubbub of loud noise and entertainment, I wonder? They didn't want the splash pad at Waterfront so it got pushed to Copeyon in a stupid pedestrian inaccessible no-sidewalk down the hill and IS taking the whole greenspace and quiet fishing area. This young "front row," kids running this city used to throwing tantrums and getting their way, keep pushing until they get what they want against the wishes of the majority and write it off as having to deal with naysayers, even when their projects fail immediately (west end and skate rink, for instance). Wasting grant money, investor money and taxpayer money. When will they start to see wisdom in the majority of long-time citizens who have weathered the storms and the economies ups and downs?

[Willy]

Good points X, aquaman and freedom seeker.