Scottville in June 2024: Clarity at City, Schism at School

[XLFD]

As Ludington councilors were donning their Hee Haw hats and spoofing themselves on Monday to usher out the old city manager, a couple of important meetings with more serious public officials was happening in Scottville with the city commission and school board meeting (seen below) going on.

At the Scottville Senior Center, the Scottville Commission met at 6 PM, and due to this reporter's early attendance and comment in Ludington, I arrived about 25 minutes late to the proceedings.  About 16 people looked in as the commission discussed relevant land issues with Jeff Barnett, the representative of the Stallion Mill.  As one can see from the agenda packet, this was the third item on the new business and over the next 15 minutes, we saw good clarity for Scottville's future by the words of their new city manager, Clarence Goodlein. 

Typically, in Scottville over the last few years it has almost seemed as if the city has lacked direction, with a small coup from other officials happening to oust modestly experienced Courtney Magaluk from the city manager job and the installation of SPD Chief Matt Murphy as an interim with the full COVID experience happening a couple months later.  This may have lessened the pool of talent available for city managers when the council had three finalists (none with city manager experience) and settled on one that had helped ran a campground with the state DNR, Jimmy Newkirk.

Newkirk's anger and dishonesty issues seem to have caught up with him this year as the embattled administrator resigned in April while reportedly under investigation by the MSP for mishandling funds entrusted to him.  Our own cursory investigation at the Ludington Torch indicates that these allegations appear to have some merit but seem to be no worse than what the City of Ludington allows for their officers (which doesn't make it right).  After Mayor Marcy Spencer's brief and uneventful reign as acting city manager, they hired Goodlein, picking him over another experienced city manager (James Van Ess) and this appears to have been one of the commissions better decisions.

                Stallion Mill Development (in gray) showing the easement under consideration in relation to the alley, streets

Goodlein, with absolute deference to businessman Barnett and city departments, outlined how he thought the potential transfer of property should be made.  This would involve full reviews by the SFD, SPD, DPW, EMS and other relevant parties of whether this was a sound reuse of the property, whether emergency vehicles could operate with the proposed realignments, and all other issues that may come with the change.  

It was obvious that Goodlein had investigated the matter himself and came up with a process that had served him well through his decades of experience and did so in an empathetic but apolitical manner that any other county officer could learn from.  The commission (five-strong, with Eric Thue absent and Al Deering retired) moved to take Goodlein's advice and do so expediently, with the goal of being able to make a decision on the issue at the next meeting with all parties feeling good about it.  

They then acted to extend the rental rehabilitation process to the end of the year, an item added to the agenda and then showed they added another item, a closed session (under section 8(h) of the Open Meetings Act) to discuss the city attorney's written opinion.  These closed sessions being made without any reference to anything other than some nebulous opinion of the city attorney need to stop if the city commission wants to be looked at as anything other than a joke, whatever competence their city manager shows in open session.  

Though this reporter was not available for the rest of the meeting due to the closed session coming at a time allowing for travel to the school board meeting, the city commission would accomplish a couple of other things after coming out of closed session, the main item by selecting Deering's replacement, Renee Jensen, and a resolution to do the end-of-the-fiscal-year budget amendments.  Unlike the City of Ludington, they operate on the idea that such amendments cannot come after the fiscal year is finished.  

School Board of Mason County Central, June 24th

MCC's Board also is at the end of their fiscal year, and they were already in session when I arrived before their scheduled meeting at 7 PM.  If you look at their main website, their Facebook page, and other presences, they never mention that their meeting started at 6:45 PM instead with a separate meeting on the budget, approving the last amendments for the 2023/2024 budget, and release of the 2024/25 budget (seen here).

Apparently, the school had put the notice for this meeting in the weekend edition of the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews), but it wasn't at their official website, in violation of section 5(4) of the Open Meetings Act.  As the agenda makes clear that this budget banquet was a public meeting for conducting school business, they effectively prove their infraction.  It may not come as that big of a surprise that I would comment twice at the 7 PM meeting about two items dealing with transparency and accountability.  

At that regular meeting, the agenda (not available online due to the current philosophy of the school district) had the full slate of trustees pass a consent agenda and had a discussion over meeting dates for the next school year led by Board President Jim Schulte, before opening the floor for public comment, where Trustee Darrell Storvik was recognized first.

Storvik, who is a pastor in the community, offered a prepared statement telling the parents that have been showing up in force lately that many of them were misguided and spreading false innuendos, among other things that seemed likely to suppress comments from the public.  This is a tactic that has been used in recent months to distract people from what the Ludington City Council has been up to by pointing their fingers at the messenger(s) making public comments unfavorable to the public body's actions or inactions.  

MCC parents take heart, they are hearing you and this is their version of stuffing cotton in their ears.  Retired MCC teacher and school alumni Scott Dumas would go next and relay his own heroic saga of trying to save a bell with a long history in the district so that it could have a long future.  While restoration of the massive bell would take $2000 or less and the school had indicated an interest in helping out, Dumas would relate the difficulty he has had with getting the superintendent to help out for over a year; there would be some interaction during his presentation with the superintendent claiming alternate facts in the case.  

While this may sort itself out, it does look like another indication of the superintendent's character and effectiveness that reinforce what the parents had been saying of late.  Roxanne Scheid, a mother of four with three at MCC, expressed her displeasure over the negativity and disrespectfulness of the school board over the last few meetings, and challenged the board to be more respectful, effectively turning Storvik's comment back at him.  Jamie Healy would echo this view, noting that she hasn't gotten any replies back from her emails to the board, nor any of that respect.

I would follow and finish up the first comment period with my own challenge to the board to follow their bylaw philosophy rather than keeping everybody in the dark until game day:

XLFD:   "The spirit of board policy 9120 is not being followed by the board, and they have the power to instruct the superintendent to implement it.  That policy in relevant part:

"The Board of Education believes that all reasonable means should be employed to keep the public informed on matters of importance regarding District policies, finances, programs, personnel, and operations."

Policy 166 indicates the agenda should be delivered to board members so as to provide time for the study of the agenda, generally four days prior to the regular meeting.  

This district has a website that has pages that show board meeting minutes but not meeting agendas and the documents that trustees get in advance of the meeting.  In realizing the words set in policy 9120 that all reasonable means should be employed to keep the public informed about all aspects of the district, why isn't this school district publishing agenda packets on its website where any interested party could see those records?  Why can't they do that action four days before the actual meeting, as in policy 166?  

Ludington Schools do this, as do both cities in the county, the county government itself, and most larger townships.  What is stopping you from doing that and having the people you serve come here each meeting without a clue as to what will be going on?  Are you able to make the connection that your lack of transparency and accountability with the folks may have led to three rejected bond proposals?  [END comment].  

This is not an unreasonable request, and this dog will not release his teeth on this topic until they decide to live up to their own philosophy.  Margaret Greiner asked the board a question on the same topic in regard to how the board paid their bills (is it before the board approves them, or after).  Bill Kerans reminded those assembled that the senior center millage was up for renewal on the August ballot, but only after another parent raised a question about how recent  changes in Title 9 will affect school policy, being concerned about girls having to be in the same locker rooms and compete with biological males.  

Storvik would later echo her concerns and state that there were only two genders but offered no direction as to how the school board would act to lessen her concerns before the August 1 deadline when the new doctrines go into effect for the upcoming school year.  The principals would give their reports, most dealing with end-of-the-year activities at their school and Superintendent Mount would give a brief report on the importance of attendance and per-pupil rates.  

The action items were dominated by the budget with seven action approving separate parts and then the approval of Prairie Farms and Gorton Foods being their milk and food providers, both offering the low bids.  One of the few times in recent years they actually were part of approving contracts, even if not directly.  They additionally approved a trip to Wisconsin by the cross-country team for a competition happening there and settled on a date for the July organizational meeting.

The final public comments were caught in the video below courtesy of Scottville Connections, they included Becky Gerhardt introducing herself as the president of the MCCEA whose collective bargaining agreement was scheduled (and later) approved by the board.  Scott Dumas, keeping somewhat to theme by admonishing the board/superintendent for not paying closer attention to details of what in the district, noting that facilities seemed to be poorly upkept at times in comparison to other districts. 

Trustee Oscar Davila would later defend this by saying that he always does what he can and expects others to do the same when he is using MCC facilities. Roxanne Scheid and Margaret Greiner would chime in before that asking questions about how the grounds are normally kept and whether there was a budget item for it. 

Ryan Graham would thank Storvik for sharing his opinion earlier, reminding them that President Schulte said at the last meeting that opinions don't matter and then noted the talk on student attendance being important for the school, but that the president had missed four straight meetings in the winter when he wintered in nicer climes.  Four straight unexcused absences can get you fired from the Scottville City Commission, as we found out with Al Deering (fun fact:  Deering was instrumental in getting Mount to be superintendent two decades ago).  I would run anchor 34 minutes into the video:

XLFD:  "I expect to see agenda packets uploaded for public review on the district's website before the next meeting, and I thank you in advance, but before that could you help me square a circle.  I recently requested through FOIA the invoices received by the school for janitorial work provided by the contractor Northern Floor Services.  Superintendent Mount provided twelve invoices from Northern for the 2022/23 school year that asked for $45,216 each for a grand total of around $542,000.  

A problem arose when I compared it to the check register for the school.  13 payments to Northern made that school year, all but two over $56,000, not a one for $45,216 and these added up to around $740,000, or $198,000 over what Northern requested from the school in all of its invoices.  There is definitely school ledger legerdemain going on here and so the question to ask is who is cleaning up a cool $198,000 over what was invoiced and the checks that were written.  I would hope that the school administrators would at least get a 50/50 cut for the potential trouble they could get into.

In comparison, back before Ludington schools consolidated their elementary schools and had 7 school buildings to clean, about 2100 students to clean up after, they spent under $500,000 adjusted for inflation to early 2022 dollars for janitor services.    MCC had only 6 buildings, around 1200 students, and spent $740,000.  While LASD spends $238 per student for janitor work over a school year, MCC spends $616 per student.  Grossly inefficient to go with apparent corrupt accounting practices.  Thanks in advance for clearing this up."  [END comment]

I was fortunate in that Financial administrator Kris Courtland Willick was present and able to explain why I may have been mistaken.  She explained that NFC also provided IT services for the school and that the extra amount was about $200,000.  While I had to say that such a practice was odd, I took her words for what they worth at the moment, because I'm not used to the two-way communication at such meetings. 

The problem was that the collection of invoices I received from a recent FOIA request wasn't all I requested.  I also asked for the contract between NFC and the school (and not just for janitorial services), as you can see, there is no such contract in the responsive documents Northern Floor Company.  I also asked for competitive bids supplied to the board for this massive sized contract but was told that the board was kept out of the loop for the selection of this company, as Mount felt this was a purely administrative act of approving a 3/4 of million dollar contract. 

Ergo, there was no competitive bids, this was granted to a crony cleaner and one can only guess where all that dirty money went.  Ludington schools approve such contracts and look at competitive bids in the process.  Their bylaws are almost the same as Scottville's.  It operates in a transparent way, with board packets available to all.  This is what parents are learning about their school under Superintendent Jeff Mount.

And how did the MCC School Board reward Mount at the end of the meeting for keeping them and the general public in the dark?  They renewed the superintendent contract after coming out of closed session.  It becomes evident that even the good Pastor Storvik has embraced the darkness.