Emergency Repairs Needed on Ludington's Sewer Main

[XLFD]

The City issued a contrite and courageous Press Release acknowledging that there could have been an appearance that they technically violated the Open Meetings Act.  In justifying that at no time did they deliberately violate the OMA and the fact that they would have unanimously approved a contract with Hallack to perform emergency repairs to the sewer and street, they also made the following claim at the end of the second paragraph:  "The city council subsequently unanimously approved payment of Hallack's invoice for its work to repair the sewer main and street."

Press Release.pdf

A frequent reader of the Ludington City Council minutes at that time (being legally banned at the time from stepping foot on the property without City Manager written permission), I had never seen such a vote made or such a project brought up in the open meetings of the City Council.  I figured this was just one of many face-saving claims that they made in their press release.  Checking out facts is a lost art to many news organizations nowadays, and they hadn't expected the local print news source to write anything other than what they put down.  Knowing the City's track record and my personal knowledge of the events, I had to check it out with a FOIA request; I worded it in the following way, to inspect...

"The complete minutes/packet of the meeting wherein "the city council subsequently unanimously approved payment of Hallack's invoice for its work to repair the sewer main and street."  As per the January 21, 2013 Press Release issued at 7:00 PM (announcing that the City had violated two major tenets of the Open Meetings Act, and were not contrite about doing so)"

The packet included many things beyond the minutes, so as to inform the councilors more fully.  When I received it today in my reply (which had no charge) I found that "technically" the press release was accurate, but misleading.  Recall the City Councilors gave their approval of going into contract with Hallack Contracting via E-mail a day or two after an open city council meeting. 

 

The work was began over a month later (and two more scheduled open meetings later) for this "emergency" (which the City Manager has admitted there is no official definition for), and the readily available documents have no mention of the brother street project until well into the next year.  Nor did it ever mention anything about an emergency aspect (until they admitted their violation in this January's meeting) or the bidding process for it (or lack thereof). 

If you have seen a Ludington City Council meeting, the first thing that comes up in committee reports is the Finance Committee Chairman announcing the payment of the bills in the amount of a few hundred thousand dollars, which they generally approve.  This is what happened with the Hallack Contracting payment, it was couched in this October 24, 2011 meeting's bills.  Thus along with this 14 page billing statement including payments for auto parts and fluids for the DPW, restroom cleaning charges, clothing allowances, cell phone payments, etc all totaling a little over $400,000, the Hallack charges come up.  $45,352 shows up on p. 8 and p. 10 in the Local Streets and Sewer Maintenance budgets respectively, and the extra $5275 charged to the Water Fund budget, for a grand total of $95, 979, over 40% of the accounts payable for that period.

At 18:00 into that October 24th meeting Councilor Holman mentions that they're paying the bills, with nary a mention about the Brother Street project which comprised so much of the discretionary spending thereof.  As in the  O Brother thread, the only mention of Brother Street work was done the next year, nor was it anything available to the public-- without specifically asking for it with a FOIA request.  This is something that the City wants to tout when it has been accused of keeping things secret?  That they unanimously approved the project as part of 'paying the bills', of which the public was not allowed to see?

  

A vote on paying the invoice three months after they covertly deliberated and voted on it, willfully and intentionally violating the Open Meetings Act on July 26 and 27 in doing so as the record shows, is not something that alleviates you of any blame, nor did it allow the public the opportunity to see them actually bring up the particulars of the project, deliberate, or vote at a public meeting.

Unless you as a City Official expect everybody to go through the bother of a FOIA request just to find out where the City is spending money.  A theory that is pretty much disproved by the deceit and scorn you heap on those who dare bother to ask for the people's information by continually making it harder to look at-- even allowing your FOIA Coordinator to go against statute to do so.

There's a definite blockage and darkness in the sewer system of Ludington.

[Willy]

Not to mention the sewage backup at City Hall and the City Council meetings.

[XLFD]

Yes, Willy, but look at the bright side:  By the end of most City Council meetings, after trickling out slightly during the committee reports, the sewage starts flowing freely during the "communications from city officials" section of the meeting.