Ludington Officials: Tenants Demand Paying for Government Officials to Invade Their Privacy-- Wrong!

[XLFD]

"We're from the government, and we want to charge you a bundle of money in order to do something you don't want to be done."  

Unfortunately, you never hear that truthful admission even from those officials you think are speaking squarely with you, instead they say they are trying to help all of the people who are clamoring for a necessary service, but it's just one of their new and inventive ways to take your money via taxes or fees and work against you instead.  At the February 12, 2024, meeting of the Ludington City Council they adopted Ordinance 530-24 which would expand the rental inspection program (RIP) to cover housing units in Ludington that normally receive regular inspections from other units of government to make sure that their units are habitable and up to the International Property Maintenance Code.  The RIP before this allows such units to not have to go through the intrusive city procedure as they figured the feds can do it just as well.

If you wonder why the city would need to inspect units that already pass rigorous federal inspections, the reason is fairly obvious.  In their redundancy, they earn a lot of extra money for doing nothing other than invade the privacy of tenants at double the rate they're used to.  The money they charge the housing authority for these surplus inspections are added to their rents in one way or another.

But Councilor John Terzano tells us that the people in these housing units want more government agents doing something that many reasonable people would think is a violation of their Fourth Amendment right to be secure in their homes, and pay for the privilege to have their right taken from them, as stated by him at the meeting when prompted by the newest councilor:

Councilor Jeanne Oakes:  (45:45 in) "Have we had any input from those facilities on this?"

Councilor Terzano:  "We've had complaints by tenants that, you know, where they reported violations or whatever, and... they weren't taken care of."

Nobody (not even the present RIP inspector) refuted the claim, but I wondered at the time, that what he said was so unbelievable that I needed to check it out, and so I did shortly after the meeting.  This was a lot like when Scottville City Manager Jimmy Newkirk was claiming that tenants throughout his city were clamoring for rental inspections, making multiple complaints, when in actuality only one address had complained over the years he was there and it was suspiciously close to when they hired the new city official, but actually didn't.  The Ludington Torch wrote:

"At last night's meeting, around 45-46 minutes into the meeting, Councilor John Terzano mentioned that there had been complaints made to the city by tenants from Pineway and/or other rental facilities which weren't covered by the city's rental inspection purview until last night's ordinance was passed.  

Through the FOIA could you supply me with electronic copies of the last two documented complaints registered with the city and its officers from such facilities that were exempt from city rental inspections."

We asked for documented complaints to cover all the ways the city would receive such a complaint, because either complainers would send an email or letter to city hall (and have a written complaint) or call or come in to voice their complaint to a city official who would document the issue(s) and push it over to the building/rental inspector if they weren't him.  These documented cases could then be brought before committees and the council to establish a basis for expanding the RIP to cover a tenant of such a property that would bother city hall than the proper overseer of their apartment's inspections.  As expected, Councilor Terzano's declaration was unfounded:

If the city doesn't document the tenant complaints that supposedly made them decide that some tenants will have to be stripped of their dignity by both city and federal agent home invasions, how do we expect our redundant inspection to be done with the same competency? 

As the rental inspection expansion in Scottville, this was done strictly to find a new way to grab even more money for a useless government service nobody outside of city hall wants.

[Willy]

This rental idea is spreading. A family member of mine owns property in Hamlin Twp. and received a survey from the Twp. asking for their opinion on rental units and also if they had property that was being used as rental. Watch out Hamlin Twp. because it appears your property is being targeted for establishing a rental registration and inspection program.

Terzano doesn't appear to be in the best of health.

Olson and Howard are lying in the memo they sent you. Whenever a telephone complaint is received it is written down in one form or another by the person receiving the call. Then it is passed on to the person charged with investigating the complaint.

If there had been any telephone complaint there would be, at a minimum, an address and information about the nature of the complaint. The inspector would then have to log in their time regarding any type of investigation regarding that complaint. So the CIty, again, is spreading BS.

[XLFD]

I've known a few people from over at Pineway over the years and are they always happy with everything?  No, but it's usually because maintenance isn't quick enough or management upsets them in some way, nothing big.  When they hear about their place being inspected, they generally know that if it doesn't pass inspection, it's because of their poor housekeeping or that they have done something wrong, because management knows the standards and does their part to maintain them. 

Thus, if any city official heard some chatter from these areas, they might presume they're complaining about errata is some cry out for help when it's just someone saying it's taken over a week for maintenance to come over and check out their slow-draining sink.  It then becomes a 'city hall legend' that Pineway sinks have bad drainage and their people won't fix it.  Nobody phones city hall, nobody collars a councilor and demands to have the city come in and add another layer of inspections because it'll make everything work right again.  But they will tell the city attorney they heard something on the phone, but never wrote it down to document it, even when that is standing policy.  It is BS, and it would probably have been better for them if they didn't try to pass the BS onto me.