March Light Rains... Stress West End Drains

[XLFD]

The spring of 2020 will long be remembered for the unprecedented steps taken across America to battle the COVID-19 panic, but it's also the first spring that the completed $600,000 West End Project has experienced.  It was an incredibly mild winter with snowfall about 80% of the average for our area, yet the waters of adjacent Lake Michigan are still unusually high, as they were in 2019.  

You may not need to be told that if you took a walk or drive down to the west end of Ludington Avenue.  When lake levels were high before, the most water you'd see outside the lake would be in a puddle or two on the cracked pavement at the very end of the avenue-- nothing to prevent you from parking in the fifty plus spaces that are closer than the handful of parking spaces currently in existence.

The concrete slab which replaced all those parking spaces overlooking the scenic harbor is currently (no pun intended, as there is no noticeable current) overrun with sand and water.  Just like it was in fall.

That perhaps isn't the most striking feature, as the nearby playground, which never had a flooding issue before the west end project's constructions, has become a fully deluged water playground.  The previous day it was entertaining to see a couple of young girls trying to figure out how to get out to some of the equipment without getting wet.  It's pretty deep in some places. 

Let's hope that they didn't come into contact with bacteria and parasites that standing water is known to be a breeding ground for.  Mosquitos at the beach in 2020?  Thank city hall.

Abnormally high Lake Michigan water levels caused Ludington a lot of problems last year, and it has been forecasted by experts that we should continue having high water levels in 2020 too.  One of the better indicators of water levels is the breakwall, which was closed often last year because moderate sized waves would regularly sweep over the top.  As you can see by this picture, even without much wind, the only waves that are breaking are ones going over the lighthouse breakwall.

City Manager Mitch Foster stated over the winter that in 2020 the City will not utilize the West End as an event site due to the problems arising from the expected high water levels, not because he foresaw the governor's executive order prohibiting gatherings of over ten people.  We can fully expect, however, that the DPW and perhaps even outside contractors may need to spend a lot of time and effort in getting the flooding to abate and the sand back to the beach.  

Just think, less than two years ago we had a low maintenance parking area for five dozen cars for people wanting to look out on the harbor or look over their kids playing in a sanitary and dry playground.  Now, over $600,000 later, we have neither of those, just a lot of sand and water on a high-maintenance concrete slab.

[Freedom Seeker]

Little makes me more angry than arrogant public servants who will not listen to public input and who go out of their way to use their superiority to make fun of anyone who voices their concerns. What a waste of money. What a waste of parking space. These pictures should be sent to the DNR, the Govenor and any other state body involved with state money grants to show what a waste and poorly planned project our city leaders perpetuated on many citizens who did not want the "west end" in the first place.

[Freedom Seeker]

https://ludingtoncitizen.ning.com/m/discussion?id=4689834%3ATopic%3...

The link above has some history of contact information.

[Freedom Seeker]

https://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-350-79137_79763_79900_85167-1...

Above is a link to more recent DNR directory.  

[AQUAMAN]

And to think, our own ex-city mgr., John Shyster Shay, drove this farce hard to the present conclusion that we now are witnessing. And he also was presented with a gold key to the city, and plaques of praise and appreciation, for all these kind of great works for our locals to enjoy. The attached file is how I recognize and appreciate him yet even today.

[Freedom Seeker]

Good meter, Aquaman!  I wonder how John Shay is feeling about how he helped screw our City over in so many ways.  Got paid way too much for way too many years for screwing up or neglecting way too much.  And I suppose he had enough years to get a golden pension in time?  It's so disgusting, I don't know how our city can survive much more, except for the city to keep raising our taxes and water fees to pay for these mistakes and poor decisions.

[Willy]

Torch members were discussing this years ago, knowing this project would be a big problem not only taking away parking and ruining the beach but high water causing problems as well. So typically the City refused to heed the warnings of citizens and taxpayers. All I have to say is that Aquaman's meter was running at high capacity and things still haven't changed. We still have that idiotic water park and legacy park. It is so frustrating to see these self indulgent idiots throw money down the drain. And how about spending $100 million dollars on unneeded schools. This is madness.

Very good photography work X.

[AQUAMAN]

Many thanks to both FS, X, and Willy on this subject matter, many thanks.

[Freedom Seeker]

Likewise, Aquaman, thank you for your many years of common sense, insight into local issues, and foresight to fight for what is right and uphold justice!  We can only hope that the city servants can learn through hindsight that this boondoggle is a complete negative waste of city maintenance and state funds.  I hope a few who pushed for this have pains of conscience to realize their arrogance and need to have their way and find a different line of employment.

[XLFD]

Thanks for the photography praise, Willy; if I did good this time, it's likely because I have been paying attention to your work over the last ten years.  

Former CM John Shay and CDD Heather Tykoski always sought out ways to get free puppies for the City, regardless of the utility, popularity, and maintenance of the project du jour.  Lost in the calculus were the meaningful infrastructure projects that needed to be done.  Those weren't sexy projects at all, required lots of money they could otherwise spend frivolously, and didn't come with attractive administration costs that the City could garner for filling grant paperwork out. 

The MDEQ and MDNR eventually had to force Shay to do something with a wastewater treatment plant that had been in violation of environmental standards for years.  He got big loans for this and the water treatment plant, then skipped town on his own, getting hollow accolades from his peers at his last meeting, getting five minutes of meaningful criticism from me at his last council meeting on July 9, 2018, just in case you may have forgot I said:  

"After reading the resolution of appreciation for John Shay in your packets, and posing a question dealing with his accomplishments on multiple areas of social media, I haven't seen one specific action over his 15 years of management that supports a positive legacy. The resolution notes that he accomplished the minimal duties of his office and had a certain type of character that the 15 year record effectively refutes. It reads like the eulogy of a man who hasn't accomplished anything over their years on Earth, and can only be memorialized by general statements of dubious accuracy.
I have five minutes total tonight, so I will present five specific points of Shay's real legacy that we have been forced to deal with, I won't even mention the biggest debt and pension liability that the City has ever faced.
In 2008, the City settled with former Building Inspector Jack Byers for $250,000 in order to squelch a federal lawsuit involving violations of the Whistleblowers Protection Act and the Open Meetings Act. The available record shows Byers was just doing his job with concern for the public, while city leadership was not.
Shay led the creation of a workplace safety policy in 2011 which allowed him the ability to keep citizens out of public facilities without any due process. I was issued one apparently to prevent me from inspecting public records at the city hall and police station, and I had admittedly done nothing wrong or even threatening. Shay's actions once again led the City and him personally to federal court where they spent tens of thousands in legal fees and settlement fees and reluctantly changed their obviously illegal policy. True to form, Shay hurled false and slanderous allegations at the victim at the end of the next city council meeting without reprimand from his employers.
In another court case in 2012, John Shay created an affidavit claiming that he had provided me with all of the records compliant with my FOIA request to support our city attorney's legal brief. Other public records shown he was clearly lying, with a few of those records authorized or signed by him eventually brought forth. Willfully lying on a sworn affidavit amounts to perjury and yet the presiding judge would not look at it that way and a good reason why is that the judge's son was on the City's defense team, something our city attorney and manager would ever divulge until the judge finally admitted it much later.

Painting the water towers at top rate during recessionary times is the fourth part of Shay's legacy. The water towers were painted for $300,000 in the year 2000, and shouldn't need repainting for at least twenty years. In 2009, when the City should have been tightening it's belt, it tightened it's noose by getting in a contract to paint both towers at $1.2 million, four times as much, without any competitive bids. Shay has said at a meeting that the contract called for a "free" repainting in the tenth year of the contract, which would be 2019. Guess what, Shay lied, the contract never said that and he's clearing out before that lie is confirmed. Is it any surprise that this company no longer exists?
Lastly, Shay's legacy of negligence and lack of leadership would not be complete without his actions at the PM Bayou. In 2008, the sewer main under Madison Street dumped 15 million gallons of raw sewage into the bayou after large portions of Madison went in as well. Nothing was ever cleaned up. But worse is that in 2012, another sewer force main developed a leak and dumped up to 2 million gallons of raw sewage into that area and much of that was due to Shay giving the order to bypass pump the sewage into the bayou without any authority to do so. Is it any wonder he never properly contacted the DEQ or the health department about it? Hopefully, our local private marina owners will hold him to account for such villainy when they no longer have to support his legal defense."

I hope his wife and kids enjoyed hearing it as much as I enjoyed saying it that day.  The dude was a dud.

[Willy]

Your composition on those photographs was spot on and in my opinion that is the most important aspect of taking pictures. As far as Shay goes, your talk at City Council hit the nail on the head. He had the entire City Council fooled because they were complacent and stupid. You took a pile of dirt and turned it over so everyone could see it was actually a pile of sh-t. The Council was to stupid to figure out why all the flies were attracted to it.

cor·rupt

 (kə-rŭpt′)

adj.

1. Marked by immorality and perversion; depraved.

2. Venal or dishonest: lower than the scales on a snakes testicles 

     examples: john shay, city council, city attorney, ludington  political 

     underbelly

[Du Wright]

That speech was so accurate X and it is a good reminder in light of the West End Fiasco Failure right now. I hope the new city manager is reading every bit of these posts and socially distancing him from the remaining corruption so he might be able to start to see that our failing city infrastructure and Polluted Bayou gets attention, and see through the "sexy" BS projects that are failures. He certainly has been doing more to listen to the citizens than anyone before or still. We need more Councilors who can think for themselves, but if our mayor keeps shutting them up, he deserves to be socially distanced in the next election. I'm afraid he is on a platform for me, me, me, carrying on the past corrupt administration. Haven't seen much else from him, but at least he can run a meeting with order.

[Du Wright]

This is what happens when you build too close to the Lake Michigan, remove dunes and don't listen to long-time residents. So now you're learning a hard lesson at the cost of the taxpayer. Fire the young punks who wouldn't listen.