Ludington City Council Meeting, December 17, 2018: Eight Days Before Christmas the Council Gave to Us

[XLFD]

The council meeting had several items of interest on it, there was an additional item added on of note, but when all was said and done, this was little more than a pat-yourself-on-the-back party for city officials, where the regular order of business had a common theme to it.  I have chosen to recap it by those themes using the first eight stanzas of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" as a way to coordinate them, with apologies to those who prefer the chronological or theme approach.

December 17th, 2018 Ludington City Council meeting from Mason County District Library on Vimeo.

(Eight) Mayor's a Milking (Their Last Night)

The testimonials to Mayor Holman's last night as acting mayor turned maudlin at the end of the meeting, but it actually pervaded the whole meeting in one form or another.  It had all the elements of "A Christmas Carol" with past Mayor Henderson and City Manager Shay feting the current mayor's unspecified accomplishments as an official, along with accolades from the current councilors and the incoming mayor, Steve Miller.   Not to mention John Shay, John Terzano

The last half hour of the meeting featured the mayor in one form or another going over presentations and testimonials either to her or to the other two retiring councilors, with just one blip made by Erica Karmeisool (1:27:30) in the second public comment who actually talked of public business after sincerely apologizing for interrupting the party mood by bringing up the marijuana issue again, politely correcting the city attorney's use of the city code earlier.  She ran out of time, but did a fine job of proving her point, despite the mayor's desire to get to the cake.

Seven Councilor's Optin' Out

The big item of business this evening was the city council's vote on whether to opt out of recreational marijuana retail businesses.  One would think that a council featuring a longtime owner of a party store, another longtime owner of a bar bearing her last name, and a prominent member of a Chamber of Commerce, the DDA, and the Ludington Convention and Visitors Bureau (LCVB) who has helped develop and promote a variety of alcohol-centered events (Brrrewfest, Octoberfest, etc.) would have a serious discussion over the potential of marijuana businesses in the city limits.

The discussion began at 20:00 into the meeting, where public comments on the issue were sought.  Lisa Dibble spoke up first about the accessibility of medical marijuana (MM)for her ailments.  Even if you are against recreational marijuana (RM), you would be mistaken if having access to MM is not important to discuss for needy, card-holding patients.  The mayor suffixed Dibble's comments (after telling her a couple of times that her time was up) with a rather blunt statement that tonight's discussion was only on RM.  

Carolyn Cater once again spoke about the various dangers of RM as she did at the last meeting.  She brought up dangers to the unborn, personal health, and to society as a whole.  Erica Karmeisool urged the council to do nothing at this time, and keep the door open for the various businesses.  Surprisingly, that ended the public comment.

City Attorney Richard Wilson went over a circuitous batch of legalities propping up the decision to vote to opt out, conceding that investors looking to establish a RM business would likely not invest those dollars in Ludington.  He couldn't answer a councilor's question of what the City was protecting itself from by opting out(36:15 in).  Interim City Manager (ICM) Steve Brock urged passage due to all of the unknowns.  Councilor Winczewski promoted a wait and see approach-- after saying she would vote not to do that by opting out.  Mayor Holman then read a letter into the record urging the council to opt out.  I cannot recall this ever being done before at a meeting.  

Councilor Miller suggested a revisit of the opt out within a brief time after the state issues its guidelines, and this and the original motion was voted for unanimously without any other meaningful deliberation.

Six Holding Firm

Before the council voted on 3% pay raises for the clerk and treasurer, ICM Brock made an impassioned plea (to be looked at later) to keep the pay raises for the city clerk rather than reduce it down to only 3%.   Despite his emotional plea, only Councilor Wally Cain decided that a discredited and incomplete compensation study should apply to one official.  Six others did not take ICM Brock's recommendation.

Five Million Bucks

Five bidders bid on the Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) modifications needed and the lowest was $20.6 million, a bit higher than what they originally projected due to changing conditions.  The city agreed to issue bonds to recover $23.5 million, where about $4.2 million has already been spent.  The low bid, and other fees adding up to $2.5 million extra, pushed the figure back up to over $23 million.  The resolution authorized $5 million worth of bonds to be issued.  

Left out in the approval of this resolution is how the city will recover the additional debt, though Wilson discusses that sewer rates will need to be reevaluated.  Guess who will be having even bigger increases in their water bills?  That includes you too Scottville and other townships that use our WWTP.  Even with this, the main constructions have been pared down somewhat, and other reductions of the scope are being considered (out of the public's eye, of course).  The resolution passed unanimously.

Four Chamber Events

The local Chamber of Commerce asked for City approval to hold four different 2019 events in Ludington, using city resources to help these annual events (Gus Macker, Aglow on the Avenue, Ludington Offshore Classic, Gold Coast Art Fair).  These were approved unanimously, even though Councilor Henderson/Miller should have appropriately 'opted-out' of voting due to her conflict of interest in being the veep of the chamber.  It's an easy step, Brandy, just say that you need to abstain from voting on the issue because you are the vice president of the chamber.

Three Departures

Seeing an out-of-touch mayor and two council-appointed councilors leave should be a cause of celebration, but instead their unspecified accomplishments were celebrated, and their departure was seen (by officials at least) as a bad thing.  Fourth Ward Councilor Carol Pomorski, who had to miss her last meeting as mayor back in 2001, already had accolades and a key to the city from her previous 16 years as mayor or councilor, but she got a new pin for filling in for a half of a year.  It's sad that her legacy may now focus on the former bar-owner's unjustified vote to opt out when almost 2/3 of the Fourth Ward voted for RM.

Wally Cain received a key to the city and other goodies because the city like him (more than his constituents did).  Thanks for costing the City of Ludington an extra thousand bucks or so by contesting your loss in the election, and for being tone deaf to every citizen that came before the council.

Kaye Holman was a likable enough figure in her demeanor as mayor, but (at least over the last dozen years) she has not stood for anything that wasn't initiated by someone else at city hall.  And despite how many times she says that she is approachable and will respond to citizens who ask her things, I have yet to be approached after numerous attempts via the mail or E-mail.  Not that it would matter anyway, her mind has already been muddled into drone status by her long stint as councilor/mayor.

Two Pay Raises

The council agreed to both pay raises to the city clerk and treasurer, but before the clerk's salary was okayed, ICM Brock spoke (at 17:30 in) from his tax-fueled heart:  

"I still believe that the correct amount for the clerk is $66,571 and I thought we agreed upon that the basis for this remains the same, the responsibilities as indicated in the charter, modern day workload, and other responsibilities well beyond that originally envisioned in the charter, and comparable salaries to peers doing comparable work. This number is not even to the average salary of those positions (that's $71,212) and I hope the erroneous comments from the last city council meeting did not influence your consideration. Similar reasons I've heard for reducing the number include: "too much money at one time", and while this may feel true, and I agree it should have been adjusted all along, it wasn't. But that doesn't seem like reason to not to the right thing now. I've been asked: "Is it sustainable?", I've responded that it is, and I showed it in the budget. If the bottom should fall out for some reason and the economy fail over the next year or two, you can always freeze the salary through this ordinance process. I've heard and read that the next city manager should have the opportunity to impact on this and the rest of the compensation study, and I agree with that, but again this number only gets partway to the average, and I think we all agree that the job performance is well above average. I fear that if this doesn't get done now, it won't happen later.
When we agreed that I would do this job for Ludington, I committed to keep the train rolling down the track and not just keep the chair warm. There was reference made to 19+ things going on that needed attention, and I believe that this is one of those things and therefore I respectfully and strongly recommend that this ordinance be put back to the original amount of $66, 571 for 2019. Thank you."

As author of the so-called "erroneous comments" at the last meeting, ICM Brock fails to suggest why his facts and figure supplant mine, other than by the fact that he's ICM Brock and I'm not.  He had a week for building a refutation, he could have gotten other documents from Mark Nottley, compensation study charlatan, but he came with nothing other than a concept of 'fairness', which doesn't address why other positions wouldn't be getting such raises.  He doesn't include anything corroborating his views in his comments and nothing in the council packet to support himself.  

The City Council showed a little backbone I never knew existed, in supporting their own salary-- all except Councilor Wally "tax and spend" Cain.

And an Interim City Manager Blowin' Off Steam

But that wasn't the end of Steve Brock's prepared statements showing that he wants to grinch more money for salaries from you or discredit the man who has called him "Lyin Steve Brock".  But first I include my first and only comment of the night made early in the meeting, for reference:

XLFD:  (4:00 in):  "A couple of years back, I came before the council repeatedly with concerns about why Ludington and Mason County was always at the top of the list of cities and counties with children that had elevated levels of lead in their blood each year, much higher than Flint's. Every block of every street that was torn up in the Fourth Ward in 2017 seemed to have lead goosenecks leading from the water main to the individual houses. I collected some of those discarded pipes, steeped them in Ludington tap water for six hours and sent the water away to be tested for lead content, and the readings were off the charts. Councilor Krauch said we had the best tasting, best quality water around, Councilor Winczewski tried to say that the lead pipes were harmless when she wasn't telling us that you could still buy lead fixtures from Lowe's. The empirical data showed otherwise.

But the City's best defense against the hundred year old problem of lead in the city's pipelines came from Mayor Kaye Holman, who took the proffered challenge of drinking from a skull and crossbone marked water bottle with yellowed water [remove bottle] allegedly from a steeped lead pipe. She drank it in front of everyone gathered at a May 2017 council meeting saying if there's anything in here that hurts me, I'll haunt him. Fortunately, for both of us, it was harmless food coloring and bottled water, not the actual stuff I sent to Grand Rapids for testing. I only hope that when she becomes a regular citizen again that she has the same courage to join forces with me to get the City to be transparent about the lead in their water system and how to best prevent the detrimental effects of lead exposure on our kids.

I appreciate two things the City did from our previous meeting. They executed a fair raise in the salaries of city officials rather than giving out the inequitable hikes they planned just for certain administrative workers. They also revealed a plan to establish priorities in sidewalk construction, by looking to fill in the gaps that exist on Tinkham Avenue by the lakeshore. For over two dozen years, Oriole Field has been a major parking area for Gus Macker, but it has been insanely dangerous for pedestrians walking to and from the event on Tinkham Avenue, especially since the detour always unwisely directs extra traffic through the area. Thanks for solving both of these problems."

For me, it was a rather gracious speech thanking the council for doing certain things right and memorializing one of the outgoing mayor's braver moments.  But it had enough for Lyin' Steve to engage in some last minute deliberate and uncorroborated misrepresentations at the end of the meeting, when I had no opportunity to cleanse the blemished record he played at 78 rpms.

(1:33:40 in):  "A couple of clean-up items. I couldn't let people leave here tonight thinking that you have lead in your water, you don't. There were some lead goosenecks that were removed, Flint, other places that have lead in their pipes. If you treat the water properly, there is no leaching of lead into your water, and we always treat the water properly, so that's not a problem. I'm not sure what bath that speaker was soaking that lead gooseneck in to release the lead, but that would be easy enough to do if you do not have the proper chemicals in.
And secondly, last meeting there was reference made to a salary for a city manager in Hudsonville was errant, it was $67,000 that was reported at the meeting, I verified it is the actual amount that's in the compensation study, $110,000. He probably looked at one source, the city manager there is paid out of several sources in the budget. Thank you."

Lyin' Steve indicates that other places have the problem of lead in their pipes, but Ludington is one of those places.  As stated, I have seen over a dozen lead goosenecks throughout the Fourth Ward, many laying directly from where they came from the ground, servicing residences.  The City's utility maintenance supervisor has indicated there are a lot more, and John Shay has admitted that some of our older water mains have lead in the connections and seals between pipes.  We have gotten nearly a million from the state just to alleviate those problems on North James.  

Lyin' Steve can put his money where his mouth is.  We can use any of the pipes I and others have collected in those neighborhoods from 2017, then, under observation from both sides, steep them in Ludington tap water for six hours (like I did), send them to Grand Rapids for testing, and see whether the reading are many hundreds or thousands of parts per billion like my initial sending was.  15 ppb is the action level of lead in your water.  I'll pay for the testing, but I will require double that amount back from Lyin' Steve when he loses the bet.  We have negative ions in our pipe that will react with the lead in these pipes, the most ominous being the chlorine they treat the water with,

Same thing with the Hudsonville city manager study, I provided links to their budget, that shows the wages of that city manager for 2017/2018 is exactly what I said it was.  Lyin' Steve apparently wants to throw in fringe benefits that would take the salary up around $40,000 to the point he wants.  However, if you consider the fringe benefits of our city manager when he left, his wage topped $160,000 easily. 

Lyin' Steve throws his 'facts' out without any justification, because he lacks any reliable verification.  I hope the city council is wising up to that, as they go one more week without publicly releasing their compensation study to the public for review and critique.

[Freedom Seeker]

... And a potridge in a wholestreet.

On the twelve day of Xmas interim manager said to me:. 12 no lead goosenecks.

On the eleventh day of Xmas the 2nd ward councilor said to me.  Let the water run and run.

On the tenth day of Xmas Wally Cain said:. Give them all huge raises cept those that really work.

On the ninth day of Xmas chairman veep Henderson Miller said we have no conflicting interest heeere.

On the eight day of Xmas Venzke chimed in:. We need more gild siiignage.

On the 7th day of Xmas John Shay came back and said:. Keep Rotta away.

On the sixth day of Xmas:. Another John  said, let me bully him up.

On the fifth day of Xmas five more minutes read:. Rotta lied first.

On the fourth day of Xmas no one said:.  We have $50 mil in debt  

On the third day of Xmas Kaye Holman sang:. You're a pain in the aaaass.

On the second day of Xmas everyone said:. Our water rates keep going up.

And on the first day of Xmas the council finally said:. Expect more of da same.

[XLFD]

And a Happy City Hallidays to one and all.  Ho, ho, ho (no reference to any three city workers in particular).

[AQUAMAN]

You know, at this time of year, Thanksgiving/Christmas, I'd like to concentrate on Holiday rest and cheer for the taxing last 12 months of the year of worries, & fianancial stress that we all endured as a normal part of life. Instead, I get to witness again the escalating increasing taxing of worries that this city gov't. pushes on us to finish the year out. It's been recurring and ever more worrisome the last 10 years with much more taxing, fees, rates, ordinances, 40 year bond issues, infrastructure decays, neglect of duty, ignoring city charters, laws, and codes, and the list grows exponentially with time. And what do I get to witness again at year's end? The egotistical and narcissist individuals that make it all possible and continue it like it's a joke on the public. Keys to the City, framed plaques of achievements, medals and medallions of good work, praise and pats on the backs galore, large increased pay raises, raising repair contracts for WWTP 25% in a quick vote for $5 Million more, public shows of clapping and cheer, and it's seems so undeserving and a joke imho. I guess I must be getting too old and weary to take it, but, it sure doesn't seem like the way normality should be progressing for our home town nowadays. Btw, I love the FS post of the 12 days of Xmas, sure was a new take on that for us to view and digest, incredible thinking and true, thanks.

[Freedom Seeker]

Aquaman, I'm sorry my poor attempt at a song was so dismal. I just get no hope from the city council, and am sickened by the patting on the backs. And only what seems to be more lies from even the new interim manager, he did not show proof of that high of a clerks salary. (Not that our clerk doesn't work hard. I believe she is overworked with so much turmoil and changes and new ordinances at the flick of a hand nowadays). But we need to slow down the craziness. The rest of the council either have self-interest for business promotion or to keep their own chamber job or they willingly or ignorantly stick their head in the snow and sand to enjoy the "fame."

I hope the debt wakes them up, but youth and marketers strength is not in budget keeping. A holy and merry Christmas to you if we can forget the city neglect for awhile! I hope our new councilors and mayor give us free-thinking and hope for the people of the city in the new year because we need to take care of the city first. We've been on a little economical high for the past eight years and we blew it during the time Shay was getting paid high wages... Not taking care of infrastructure and an ego fight to always prove himself right and Rotta wrong. Even Holman has admitted neglect in recent interviews on the radio....but didn't do anything about it all the while... she was bucking a stronger force, still there bullying his agenda to make things pretty for the business and tourists without infrastructure and financial accountability to the people of the city, imho.

[AQUAMAN]

FS, never apologize for your strengths and assets that you donate to this forum. My comment was absolutely a compliment, as always for you, thanks.

[Freedom Seeker]

Thanks again, Aquaman! Still it is overall sad for everyone that we have realities like the 12 days or 8 days, like XLFD wrote. I do believe in positive thinking but I don't think that overlooking the duties of our city leaders and pretending we don't have these problems is right either. And maybe above all I despise how the city doesn't hear anyone who speaks against their happy story or answer reasonably and how they have bullied up on XLFD when he had uncovered conflict of interest in bid contracts with Tykoski's and the façade grants to the Maclean's. I'm beginning to wonder how involved Henderson had been in this. Didn't his daughter live in that building? I've recently heard some old-timers say how crooked Henderson was. That what we saw is just the surface that he has been pushing his agenda and his "team" for years. Look at the debt it has got us into and what do we really have to show?  An overcrowded downtown and a West end improvement.