At the October 23, 2017 Ludington City Council meeting, it was decided to devote $36,700 to Fishbeck Thompson Carr & Huber (FTCH) engineering company in order to supply engineering services and overlook work that will hopefully alleviate the problem of flooding at the Port of Ludington Municipal Museum (POLMM).  

At that meeting, fellow citizen Dianne Seelhoff and myself both questioned the awarding of the contract to FTCH without any competitive bidding taking place, we also were taken aback at the cost of the engineering portion of what admittedly amounted to switching out a 6 inch diameter pipe leading from the front of the museum going maybe a couple of hundred feet to dump stormwater into Ludington harbor.  I had also mentioned a local engineering firm that had been overlooked for another city project in favor of FTCH even when their bid for the same project was nearly four times lower than FTCH's.  

The council had some discussion about the diversion (stealing) of funds from the local streets budget to do the project, making Councilor Henderson vote no.  But City Manager John Shay said Grand Rapids based FTCH was used because they were already in the area for other projects.  The council accepted that explanation to avoid competitive bidding, which they are obligated by law to do in such situations, and went ahead.

The whole affair left a bad taste in my mouth, just as if I had licked the basement floor at the museum, so I made a FOIA request to the city and asked for "Correspondence (including attachments and enclosures) regarding any sewer problems causing flooding at the Ludington Municipal Museum (formerly old coast guard station) since the City's acquisition of the property.  Such correspondence could be between city officials and either 1) other city officials, 2) Mason County Historical Society members, 3) coast guard officials, or 4) FTCH representatives (aka Fishbeck)

What I discovered was definitive proof that the "City" was not in the dark about the flooding issue at the Old Coast Guard Station by any means, that the city manager had misstated himself in his statements to the public on a couple of different occasions, and that the city manager arranged a no-bid, non-competitive contract with an engineering firm with no consideration of costs.

So as not to overwhelm the reader, I have supplied a mostly chronological revelation of the data, with much of it suppressed due to lack of relevance or redundancy.  The response was mostly in Outlook files, so if your device cannot open those types of files, the most germane parts are translated here for your edification.  

The Ludington Maritime Museum opened earlier in June this year, and the Mason County Historical Society (MCHS) Chairman Rick Plummer had made some contacts with the City and the architect for the POLMM, William Roy of Ludington, regarding several instances of flooding when it rained.

6-18-17  E-mail: Roy to Plummer/Shay: "Throughout the 10 years of being involved with this project I have never seen any water in [the conference room]. I did see traces of water in the Boiler Room along its west wall and around the floor drain. So it was decided to waterproof the west wall of the building and plug the floor drain."

Over the few days, Plummer talked with some notable former coast guard members who stayed at the building over long periods of time.  They notified him that the flooding had been a long term problem that happened regularly as far back as at least the 1980's:

6-19-17 Flooding/pre-existing:  Plummer to Shay:  "I accept the fact that this may be a pre-existing condition that no one knew about. However, in speaking with Todd Reed, who was stationed in the USCG Station in the 1980s, I was informed only today that the Conference Room and the compartment on the East side (where now we have the "Beaconing Beacons" Lighthouse exhibit), used to flood regularly when the water table first rose in those mid-to-late 1980s days. If the Chief's recollection is correct, then the problem may be a long-standing one, even though it wasn't apparent to anyone working on the project in the early design-construction phase. Van's Plumbing, however, reported to me the other day that they saw water in those West rooms during heavy rains while they were working on the project. Currently, we have not experienced any flooding in those East-side compartments, only in the Conference room on the West side..."

6-22-17 Flooding.msg:  , Plummer to Shay:  "At least 3" of water is standing on the deck in the conference room... I understand from several Coastguardsmen who were stationed here that these compartments flooded regularly over the years, certainly following/during almost every major rain since 1986. Both Todd Reed and Wally Taranko confirm this--Wally stating that he has seen a foot and a half of water there at times."

This latter E-mail significantly mentions County Commissioner Wally Taranko as having full knowledge of the flooding problems existing at the building.  Many will recognize him for his four years of service on the Ludington City Council between 2010 and 2013 and his unsuccessful bid to succeed Mayor John Henderson in that role.

Two things you may not know is that during the 2010-2013 period, the city council made several votes regarding the creation of the POLMM, including a resolution of a grant in order to procure money to get signs for the POLMM on his last meeting as a councilor on Dec. 19, 2013 where both he and Councilor Nick Tykoski abstained from voting, without either explaining why they needed to do so (see below).

Tykoski's abstention was undoubtedly because his business was slated to make the signs if the grant was forthcoming, with the usual lack of competitive bidding and marked up rates.  But Taranko's was likely because he was slated to become the next POLMM chairman in just a little over a month.  It is the law in Michigan that if you are a legislator and abstain from a vote, your reasons for doing so must be noted in the public record.  Ludington City Code Sec. 2-72 (1) says it best:  "If a member shall abstain from voting, he or she must enumerate reasons for such abstention which reasons shall be enumerated in the minutes of the governmental body."  

So Councilor Taranko knew of the flooding problem when the City acquired the property and made plans with the MCHS, which then hired him as Chairman of the POLMM up to June 2016, when the museum opened and the flooding began (again), apparently leaving Shay and Plummer in the dark about the issue all these years before that.  It's rather hard to convincingly say that the City was ignorant of any flooding issue with Taranko's experience at the head of city government and the POLMM.

The issue died down for the most part in communications over the next couple of months, with it being limited primarily to Shay dealing with how to cope with the problem by chatting with FTCH engineers in the area, and getting estimates from them in how much their services would cost.  The flooding issue was first publicly announced just before the August 28 LCC meeting, where Shay said:

8-28-2017 LCC minutes:  Shay to LCC:  "The City’s engineer looked into this issue ... there was a meeting with the engineers, the Maritime Museum representatives and the City and a proposal will be made as to how to take care of this situation along with a cost estimate."

Ludington, contrary to Shay's assertions, does not employ a 'city engineer', never has.  

The COL must contract engineers, and lacking an emergency, the council must approve those.  If the scope of the project is above $10,000, competitive bidding should be taking place unless it's unmistakably in the City's best interest not to.  The initial proposal from FTCH for design engineering came in at $13,850, a far cry from what the council would vote for in October, see 9-18-2017 FTCH DesEngProp.pdf.  The proposal included a schematic that William Roy made showing the outlay and likely problems.

The "City Engineer" John Willemin of FTCH described their plan of attack for the problem and later provided John Shay with a new set of figures marked up to the $36,700 agreed to by council.  What was the additional work the engineers did for the extra $23,000?  Effectively bid out for construction contractors and administrate the operation, both actions of which the engineer presumed the COL would do.  We can now expect FTCH to grant their favorite contractor the project with no city oversight on bids-- as if they would do that job anyway given their track record.  He summarizes the probable course of action:

9-25-17 FTCH JohnW Summary.msg:  John W. to  Shay:   "To summarize, the concept in the proposal is to separate the road drainage from the existing structure that the museum drains to, and provide a separate structure and outfall. The existing structure and outfall would remain unchanged and continue to serve the museum building. This was seen as a cleaner way to try to reduce the surge in the structure that the museum is connected to. There is no guarantee that this will eliminate the problem since the existing outfall is submerged now and the lake level is high. However, it should greatly reduce the amount of water seen in that existing manhole and hopefully keep the water level down so that it will not rise above the floor elevation.

Our caveat on the building plumbing is that there are some uncertainties with how everything is connected, so it might be of value to get a plumber involved to do any “detective work” regarding the building drains or if anything else is discovered to be connected to the existing structure. For instance, we are not sure if the Coast Guard Station or other nearby buildings are connected."

Shay writes back some more factoids to Willemin and Plummer that come from further research by city officials looking into drainage:

10-10-17 Shay memo.msg :  "As you can see from the drawing, 1) the catch basin on the south side of the museum; 2) the trench drain on the south side of the museum; 3) the gutters on the west side of the museum; 4) the floor drains in the basement of the museum; and 5) the westernmost catch basin in the road are all connected to an existing manhole located a few feet north of the museum. A storm sewer then runs from this manhole in an easterly direction to an existing manhole located near the northeast corner of the museum. The catch basin along the traffic circle ties into a catch basin further east along the east curb line of South Lakeshore Drive and, together with the gutters on the east side of the museum, are all connected to this manhole near the northeast corner of the museum. From this manhole, a 6” storm sewer runs south and discharges through the seawall into the channel. There is approximately five feet of fall on this storm sewer, as it is about five feet below grade at the northeast manhole and about ten feet below grade at the seawall. The outlet is completely underwater."

Which led up to the October 23, 2017 meeting, where the engineering contract was passed with only Councilor Brandy Henderson's objection and no vote, due to her unease of taking the money for the project from the local street fund.  Perhaps had she known that about 2/3 of the value of the engineering contract was for oversight which the COL should be better suited for, she might have voted more in that vein, or for the lack of any attempt to competitively bid in blatant violation of the city code.

But Shay never seems to follow the rules and the city council loves their Teflon John for that very reason.  So let him covertly talk with engineers that know they will get the project without competition being involved, and thus let them set their own invoices accordingly.  Let Shay dub this FTCH engineer our city engineer and allow him to do administrative and oversight work that Shay's office should properly be doing themselves, and give them $23,000 more for the bother.  And assuredly let him create his own narrative as he did at this October 23 council meeting, with Commissioner/Councilor/POLMM Chairman Wally Taranko sitting in attendance:

10-23-17 LCC minutes:  John Shay to LCC:  "The City of Ludington had not been aware of any flooding issue up until [June 2017, when the museum opened]."

Oh really.

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Not surprised that it was an ongoing problem.

Not surprised by the difference in 2 prices for survey from FTCH.

Not surprised (most of) council approved it.

Not surprised Shay and council deceived.  Or that we have to pay from taxes and poor roads.

Surprised Shay still has his job.

The ultimate deception of John Shay is that he has the city council believing he is indispensable and a great problem solver, whereas his conduct is actually indefensible and he's more of a great problem salver.

Excellent work again X. In my opinion this water problem will never be solved until the foundation is exposed, water proofed, back filled with pea stone with drain tiles at the base of the wall below the level of the floor in order to catch and divert the ground water into the drain tiles which can then be emptied into a sump pump system. The problem here is that this is not rain water alone, it is ground water that is ever present under any property located near the lake. Many of the houses just up the street from the Coast Guard Station have a continually flooding condition beneath their foundations. If you have ever dug a hole in the sand near the beach and it continually fills with water then you know what this is all about. The City of New Orleans has the same problem in many of it's locations. That is why cemeteries there bury the deceased above ground.

An interesting and plausible theory, Willy, and one that may look very good in hindsight if increasing the storm water pipe's width fails to correct the issue.  Can you find me an informative link or two that would back your hypothesis and solution? 

It would probably cheaper to fill in the basement or partial fill and raise the building. When basement walls are under water to begin with trying to water proof them might be hard to do.   Running a sump pump 24 -7 is ridiculous.

Was the former Coast Guard Station inspected by a commercial building inspector?  One who works for the buyer. Some one who is familiar with the problems of buildings along the lake?

If not why not?

And if there was an inspection, what is in the report?

The bottom line is it comes down to due diligence. 

And how did the city get involved in the Maritime Museum anyway? 

Does the law firm that should have been advising the city have any liability in this? 

Is the city manager guilty of malfeasance?  

The taxpayers of Ludington don't need this shit piled on to the debt load we are already carrying.

It isn't an engineering problem, it is a lack of common sense problem.

If an inspection took place by a commercial building inspector (CBI) it would not have fallen under my FOIA request if they noticed no flooding conditions or potentials.  William Roy's statements (the architect hired by the MCHS, not the COL) indicate flooding happened over the ten years, one subcontractor of his, Van's Plumbing, saw it directly and worked to control the issue.  With experts and others like that working on the project, ones that you would believe deal with properties abutting swamps and lakes, you might consider bypassing the hiring of a CBI.

The agency at fault here is the U.S. Coast Guard for not informing the buyer of the problem unless they did tell the City and that information was suppressed by the City in order not to kill the sale. This is a very doable fix. It's a very common problem. The reason it's so expensive is that, I believe, the estimate includes the installation of a new French drain system after water proofing the exterior walls. On a residential house this could cost up to $10,000. There are interior and exterior variations on french drain installations. If this was my building my preference would be to install and exterior drain to prevent any water from getting into the basement wall.  The Coast Guard station being a much larger building, I can see why the cost would be so high. Since the City now owns the building it seems that the only thing to do is fix the problem permanently in order to protect the investment.  There should be a bid process as X states because there are many variations on how to correct this problem. Some cheaper than  others. But it must be done correctly or the problem will keep coming back. Below is a picture representing the water table of land near a water source such as Lake Michigan. As can be seen the closer to the Lake a building is  located such as the Musem, the closer the water table is to the surface. During dry weather the water table can remain stable but may rise when Lake levels rise or the ground is soaked by rain.

While  they are designing their fix I hope that they take into consideration that the unbuilt area east and south of the Loomis Street fish cleaning station is slated to be paved over for parking. Part of the West End Scheme.  

I also heard that this area was used at one time was a city dump.  They might also want to be advised of this if they plan on installing a French drain. Or is that why there has been no talk of this?

Also another poor call by John Shay okaying the installation of under capacity sludge pits for the water treatment plant. He was advised that they would soon be obsolete but he okayed building them undersized, they could have been used as a drain the water instead Shay & the council went the cheap route.  I imagine that the pits will have to be rebuilt sooner than their life expediency once the upgrades to the water treatment plant are completed. 

If you look in the storm drain on the corner of Rath and Melendy you'll see the water is almost to the top of the grate. Either the lake is real high not allowing the water to drain or that storm drain in need of a cleaning. The museum storm drain is not the only drain problem in town.

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