Scottville City Commission, December 16, 2024: Barrister Bashing

[XLFD]

Whenever this reporter travels to neighboring jurisdictions to visit their boards and commissions, I generally restrict myself to listening, figuring that the last thing their citizens and officials would want is some outsider coming around and telling them how their township, city, or school should be operated.  The problem is that it often becomes painfully obvious over the course of reviewing several meetings that some public bodies/officials need a course correction to make them more cost-effective, accountable, and/or transparent.  

On December 16th, I traveled to Scottville to attend their city commission meeting, and afterwards, their city's school board meeting.  Due to meeting compression that occurs near Christmas, I had to miss Ludington's school board meeting, but not their city council meeting, rescheduled for next Monday.  While I remained mute at the MCC School Board meeting with nothing substantial on the agenda, I was pleased that the last meeting of longstanding members Jim Schulte and John Warner did not have any brewing controversy, featuring a report by their athletic director after a pretty successful fall season, and the unveiling of a giant portrait of the Old Junior High School, when it was in less disrepair.  

A mere one block north from city hall, the old junior high school is looking at possibly a couple hundred thousand dollars of renovations in the future, if grants fall in place, but the interesting action tonight would take place one block south of city hall, at the senior citizen center where the city commission was holding a meeting at 6 PM.  

The commission had changed over the last two weeks, with the agenda packet alerting us to the fact that both Eric Thue and Renee Jensen had resigned over that interim.  Meanwhile, two modest colored paper placards with the names of two new commissioner chosen at the last meeting to fill two other vacancies, Bobbiann Wallager and Marci Spencer, were on the commission's table in front of each.  

Jensen had the highest vote total in citywide elections for full terms just one month ago, but the dysfunctional last meeting convinced her that the commission was not for her.  While she would couch her resignation letter by thanking the voters and saying what she was doing was the best for her, Thue would be more direct and not be as diplomatic:

I was not impressed by the prior meeting at all either, and so when it came time to comment, I directed my attention to the city attorney, who effectively did a terrible job.  The interesting thing is that for the first time I can remember, Attorney Mark Nettleton wasn't there, being replaced by another Mika Myers attorney who remained nameless throughout this meeting.  I doubt it was because of Nettleton's history of legal errors, but I didn't have to feel too bad about criticizing him right to his face right before Christmas.  

XLFD:  "Two more commissioners down and this time they were the best ones.  When I try to analyze why this happened, I can only come up with two words:  legal malpractice.  At just the last meeting, I saw the city's legal counsel falter on three different topics.  An employment contract drafted and/or reviewed by the city attorney was offered to the new city manager that backdated his employment date to before that meeting.  Backdating should not be used in such contracts as that.

The commission was allowed to vote on a motion to suspend compensation of commissioners, an act which is against the city charter section 6.9:  "The salary of any elective officer shall not be increased or decreased from the day he is elected until the end of the term of office for which he was elected."  To respect that charter, the motion should be annulled, payment should be made to the commissioners, but there is nothing stopping them, or a poorly performing city attorney, from donating their pay back to the city coffers.

But the big error was when it came time to select two commissioners out of four that were in the running.  The commission was misled to think that one of the spots was a four-year term, but a competent legal advisor would see that the charter in section 6.6 showed that commission appointees only serve up to the next general election, meaning both appointments ended in November 2026.  Your attorney sat there and let this commission disenfranchise two candidates on the shaky ground that they hadn't mentioned which of the two equal spots they wanted in their application.  Shouldn't have happened."  [END comment]

I garnered some unexpected applause from some in the audience of about twenty, including Mr. Thue.  But then the unfinished business of the meeting started after hearing only from the clerk on reports.  The repair money requested of Nordlund and Associates by the City for severing their water main earlier this year had still not been answered, so the commission voted to have the attorney draft a sterner letter to the engineering company.  

In new business, they would officially notice the vacancies of Thue and Jensen, install Jamie Daws onto the Scottville Board of Review, and appoint Kayleen Moffitt to the planning commission without any issue.  City Manager Clarence Goodlein persuaded the commission to accept Utility Financial Solutions $37,500 bid for a water and sewer rate study over Endeavor Utility Solutions (whose bid was not discussed or in the packet).  Goodlein would stress that not having such a study done would put the city further behind in figuring out what they need to charge for both utilities in the future to remain financially solvent in those areas.  

The big discussion among commissioners was when they tried to fit that additional expense into a budget that was already seeing a deficit of around $150,000 to $199,000 looking at them if not unchanged.  Resolution 24-23 (p. 9 in the packet) did a budget amendment to add the rate study expense to the water and sewer funds.  

During discussion of these two items, officials talked about the city's status and sources of savings or revenue they could find.  Goodlein would suggest that the contract with Safebuilt for rental inspection and other zoning enforcement should be at the top of the list.  He recounted how Safebuilt contracts worked, indicating other cities had did the same with them, and that the $60,000 annual contract they had with the service does not get anything back for the city, as the fees for rental inspections go to that company, not the city.  He figured that they may be able to get similar services from neighboring jurisdictions at a greatly reduced overall price.

This reminded me that former City Manager Jimmy Newkirk and former Mayor Marcy Spencer were strong supporters of hiring Safebuilt last year.  I went in front of the commission and excoriated them for raising fees by over 800% for landlords and tenants, and for outsourcing this service to a company with a bad track record and a questionable representative.  Commissioners moved to seek a replacement option for this service, as due to the contract the city needs to give three month's notice and show they can still provide the service.  Most citizens would agree that rental inspection services are something they can easily sacrifice to keep Scottville solvent.

Garth Lemire would lead off the comment period by asking the commission to consider looking at other area's water and sewer rate studies in order to figure out proper rates, mentioning thatPM township had recently did the same.  Verily, the township contracted in August with Stantec for a ten year study at around $45,000.  

I had the floor next, and the first thing I did was compliment Lemire on his point and let them know that Ludington did their study recently (in 2023) and that since the water/sewer for each of these jurisdictions come from the same source (Ludington), it would be a good idea to consult with those other agencies.

                                     Ludington's Feb 2023 rate study finding (UFS typically only does 5 year projections)

I then had an "I told you so" moment by asking them who was it that came in front of the commission last year to tell them that the Safebuilt contract was a big mistake, while pointing at myself.  I then went into my prepared statement, extending that "I told you so" moment to a couple minutes:

XLFD:  "Let me offer you another cost-saving idea.  In October of 2022, City Manager Newkirk, one month before he conspired to halt all meetings of the commission in that November, an unethical act he later admitted to, strongly suggested hiring the Mika Myers law firm out of Grand Rapids over the Curcio Law firm from Nunica. 

Firm founder Nick Curcio offered his own services at $185 per hour, he graduated magna cum laude from Notre Dame Law School (ranked 20th in law schools) and had a proven and successfully history in municipal law.  Mika Myers offered Mark Nettleton at $325 per hour, he graduated from University of Detroit Mercy Law School (ranked 136 in law schools) and according to his online bio "thrives on helping local governments in Michigan navigate the complexities and nuances of municipal law".  

The choice at the time was very clear to me, you would have saved $140 each hour for legal services and had a top graduate of a respected law school who created his own respected law firm with a shorter drive had you chosen Nick Curcio.  If you add up all of the city attorney fees paid out in that 25-month span and reduce it by $140 per hour charged, you will have savings nearing $100,000, which is significant, and that's assuming Curcio would charge as many hours claimed by Mr. Nettleton.  Look back at the ledgers in the decades you had Tracy Thompson in that position and see what a great deal he was in comparison.  Newkirk not only gave you this financial quagmire through scandal, he gave you Nettleton."  [END comment]

The hiring of the Mika Myers firm happened at about the same time I had settled my court case with the City of Scottville, so they might not have thought my legal advice to them was sound, but Newkirk somehow convinced them without any effort that inferior services should cost $140 more per hour.  If you look at the last monthly charges that Mika Myers has charged you find the following amounts for the last four months:  $9815, $2413, $8649, $16,007.  They were even larger the rest of the year, those were averaging over $10,000 a month.  

When you're a city of 1300 people without any outstanding legal issues, you wouldn't expect to pay over $120,000 a year for an attorney drafting ordinances, resolutions, and attending meetings.  He's even bad at that; this is from the bottom end of the resolution passed at this meeting where he failed to edit out "Flushing" (where he 'borrowed' the resolution form from) and put "Scottville" in its place:

Thompson provided great legal service from nearby Ludington, and I expect his cost this year would have been under $20,000 easily for the City of Scottville.  If the City could get someone similar in temperament, they could save $100K there and save $65,000 by dropping the Safebuilt contract and go back to having the SPD do code enforcement.  Financial emergency averted.

[woodsman]

  So you say "the last thing officials would want is some outsider coming around and telling them how their township, city, or school should be operated", very true. But the people paying the bill AKA tax payers of Townships, Cities and Schools are no more welcome than you are when it comes presenting ideas of any kind....  Quick Draw McGraw said it best,  

"We will do the 'thin'in' around here and don't you forget it!" 

[stump]

I was surprised with the number of citizens in the audience. Are they coming because they are interested in what is going on in their town or for a comedy show? It just never ends , who's next to apply and who's quitting ?

[XLFD]

I may have to ask that question to the next crowd that shows up, unfortunately I'm often in a hurry to get to  the school board meeting.  It has been a change from a year ago when I would go to chambers at city hall and see nobody other than a couple of city officials who would give their report and usually leave. 

Lately it has not been surprising for the Scottville Senior Citizen Center (their new venue) to have a couple dozen people or Standing Room Only (about twice that).  Frankly, those past meetings often had a lot more controversial issues than what I've seen since this spring, when they went over to the SSCS.  My guess is that the citizens are more comfortable with the venue; at city hall their chambers can barely fit twenty citizens, and then it's very cramped and close.

[woodsman]

   Remember when they meet at the Optimist Building for a few meetings years ago?  Hundred or more people there to complain and complain they did and the commissioners voted against the crowd whatever the subject was and pretty soon the crowds dwindled and meeting back at city hall began.  This group at Senior Center is holding on for a long time way more than the normal few meetings and then often finding Monday night football more entertaining, but the refs on the game listen to you about the same way COS commissioners does.  Would bet COS commissioners are ready to get back to the ole city hall and reduce the amount of critics but open spacers may just be why people come, just more comfortable, 

[Willy]

Your not an outsider X. Scottville is your old stomping ground. Anyone who pays State and County taxes has a say in whatever goes on in any local community. We're all connected thru the tax money we contribute. I don't live in Detroit or Houghton but my tax dollars are sent there.