Board Rot: The Regular December meeting of the Ludington School Board

[XLFD]

One would expect the December 13, 2021 Ludington School Board regular meeting would have a lot of busy work, what with a new superintendent and elementary school slated to come online in January, and a couple of board members recently having to be appointed anew to their positions due to a procedural deficiency just after their election three years ago.  The agenda reflected there would be ten action items.

It was somewhat unexpected, however, that the meeting held at the school's administrative office's board room was poorly attended by the public.  Surely there was the usual handful-plus of lesser school officials sycophantically attending and a teacher or two, but the public skipped out on this meeting, except for this humble writer.  This was in general contrast to meetings from earlier this year when the school's Covid mitigation procedures were controversial; the debate seems to have disappeared after the school effectively allowed anybody at campus to claim an exemption, they just had to fill out a form. 

The controversy remains, however, as the pseudo-mandate they currently have is still having an effect on the conduct and morale of the school system.  It also indicates that the board may adopt similar policies that do not take into account the rights of the students and their parents in the future, whether it is a more restrictive mask policy or a vax mandate.  That's why I continue to go to these meetings and provide science to counter the hysterics that Covid policy politics create among school board despots.

The school has provided another gigantic controversy after the last meeting by selling the Foster School property for an embarrassingly low figure, doing it without notifying the public that they were going to sell the cow for a couple of 'magic beans'.   The property had an assessed value of $240,000, precisely what the less austere Lakeview Elementary property sold for earlier this year, an offer came to them for 1/11th of that and they accepted it with glee at November's meeting.  

I sat idly by when the district overlooked a bid made from a local homebuilder for the Lakeview property, mulled over the bids for three months and six public meetings of the board, and allowed another bidder, one who sits on the Ludington Planning Commission, to match that bid, apparently getting the nod because influential people of that neighborhood had an issue with duplexes being considered by what should have been the bid-winner.  I will expand on that story in later articles.

This night, the school board would be put on notice that they are being upgraded from being just a bunch of haughty elitists into being a pack of corrupt public officials.  One wouldn't have thought that had someone filmed this meeting and edited out the public comment; one might even have thought these officials were efficient and professional.  

Allison Helminski, a LASD PE teacher, spoke first and expressed concerns about the security of the middle/high school and noted that if one is compromised, the other becomes that way because of their shared hallways in this secondary school mall.  She was hopeful for other security measures at LASD schools too, like having metal detectors and a better backpack policy.  

I went next and made what amounts to a declaration of war-- not against the school board itself-- but against the corruption and darkness that has crept into their actions and public policies.  The Foster school transaction illustrates their overall acceptance of non-transparency, rejection of established board policy., and negligence of consistency in their property transactions.

XLFD:  "At the last meeting, I noted the board was preparing to review the sale of the Foster School property without allowing any members of the public to review it.  This was a conscious effort by the district to conduct themselves in this secretive way, witnessed by the fact that they did not post an agenda for the committee meeting where it would have been supposedly reviewed, did not include that review in the board packet you received, and did not supply the information required to be made public on the agenda by section 3700 of your policy manual at the last meeting where this board-- without meaningful discussion and public notification-- decided to take an absurd offer of less than 10% of what the value of the Foster School property was assessed at, in selling to a limited liability company who organized earlier this year.

Throughout the summer and fall, I have come to board meetings to express my disapproval with a board policy that did not respect the state and local health departments which strongly recommended face coverings in Ludington schools; as you know, a simple majority of this board enacted a mandate that required students to wear masks.  I marked that tone deafness as either elitism or inclinations toward tyranny by despotic members of this board.  After seeing the board accept a token pittance less than 10% of Foster School's value at the last meeting before they could formally introduce the offer or developer to the public, I have gravitated away from perceptions of elitism and tyranny; I now view this board as corrupt.

I came to this conclusion after reviewing the sale of the Lakeview property by this board during this spring.  You received 6 offers, the largest being from locally-owned Gibson Custom Homes at $240K, the median bid was $193K, but Gibson's offer was 20% higher than all the others.  The board first reviewed these 6 bids starting in March, and six board meetings later, they accepted an amended bid for the $240K amount from one of the people who originally bid $195K.  That process was not competitive bidding as advertised, that process was pure favoritism, pure corruption, but it wasn't nearly as bad as bringing a ludicrous bid of less than 10% of the value of a property to one meeting and approving it sight unseen from the public and marketing it as if it was one of the greatest bargains of all time.  This board needs to explain itself and its actions instead of constantly patting themselves on the back."

As expected, during, after, and since the meeting, I have not received any kind of answer to their questionable actions.  This is precisely how corrupt officials act; they cannot supply you with a good answer that doesn't implicate themself more than what they already have, so they ignore you, expecting you to go away.  That may work for others, but it only makes me more clingy and more likely to dig deeper.  

The board would discuss and then pass their ten actions in this meeting, they effectively:

- Authorized the new superintendent as of 1-1-2021, Kyle Corlett, to sign documents and to do electronic transfers for the district.

- Affirmed the votes made by members Reed and Snyder during their 'unauthorized period of service', also reappointed them to their committees and positions.

- Approved payment of $837K to the elementary bond's construction manager.

- Hired Caryn Elam officially as the Child Nutrition Program Director.

- Approved various changes in their board policy w/o discussion

- Approved initiatory steps of the process for two bonds (Tech and Building)

- Approved an Emergency Operations Plan 

Following the latter, Scott Foster of the board, mentioned that he was cognizant of social media posts that asked about whether the security 'boots' would be used in the new elementary and taken from the other abandoned schools.  He led a discussion and noted a security assessment of the new school would be conducted on 12-11-21 and also advocated for an 'emergency operations' committee to meet regularly, be represented by various groups (like teachers, the board, law enforcement) and discuss LASD school security issues.   

The meeting would proceed and end congenially, Interim Superintendent Peg Mathis was thanked for her service during a difficult time.  While I expected my questions to be ignored, I found it more surprising that the board totally ignored mentioning anything about Christmas or had anything seasonally appropriate in the boardroom other than the red and green ink on their agenda.  With all of the masks being worn (only Foster and I went without), one would have thought it was Halloween season instead.  

[Willy]

Another terrific post X. I especially like your comment:

"As expected, during, after, and since the meeting, I have not received any kind of answer to their questionable actions. This is precisely how corrupt officials act; they cannot supply you with a good answer that doesn't implicate themself more than what they already have, so they ignore you, expecting you to go away. That may work for others, but it only makes me more clingy and more likely to dig deeper. "

When one considers the Foster deal you have to wonder, where in the World can someone purchase a sturdy, well maintained, functional, safe building along with 1 1/2 city blocks for only $20,000. You couldn't even find that kind of deal in Detroit where the real estate market has crashed.

"Since April 2009, DPS [Detroit Public Schools] has sold 25 buildings for nearly $10.9 million and leased buildings for $1.9 million annually, according to Roberts."

That's around $440,000 per building. Even Detroit's school district is smarter than the boobs running the LASD.

[XLFD]

Thanks for the feedback.  The LASD Board is making the same mistake as the city clowncil in Scottville has made over the last year; the same mistake that Ludington City Hallers made one decade ago.  They ignored their own corruption pointed out to them, which is a dead giveaway that they are completely corrupted.  And so they have to deal with someone willing to take the time to get their organization back on track and actually doing their duties as proscribed, not caving into their own venal interests or outside interest groups.

Historic, well-kept Foster School and its block and a half of property sold for 1/22 of what an average Detroit School sells for.  Just so they can tear it down and have some GR couple come in with a LLC created this year and seek government subsidies to build another soulless 'missing middle' complex.  The biggest gall was from the school board trying to tell us what a great deal it was.  Like Hell it is.