Ludington's Red Herring Special Council Meeting, July 1, 2025

[XLFD]

The Ludington Torch was curious as to why the city council on July 1, 2025 was convening in chambers at 6PM, a seemingly last-minute decision made during the June 23 regular meeting, where City Manager Kaitlyn Aldritch initiated the idea to hold a special meeting that focused on the controversial matters that the city introduced by changing their policy in order to keep private marinas from using their facilities in order to discard their fish waste.  In a process that seemed somewhat inorganic and planned beforehand to onlookers, the full council unanimously approved the meeting after minimal considerations.  At that same meeting, a city councilor and Mayor Mark Barnett spent considerably more time discussing this reporter's choice of attire.

From left:  Councilors John Kreinbrink, Kathy Winczewski, City Marina Manager Jim Christensen, City Manager Kaitlyn Aldrich, Mayor Mark Barnett, Councilors Tim Large and Cheri Stibitz

The special meeting's public notice wasn't revealing at all about its purpose, which was loosely given by Councilor John Terzano when asked what the end goal of the meeting would be.  According to the minutes he stated:  "discussion needs to take place regarding the potential of fishermen in private marinas not being able to clean their fish where they dock".   Adding that there was a lot of confusion and that the city's contractor for discarding fish waste was able to provide a cooler and pick up fish for free.  

It's an understandable confusion, given the city's unofficial proposal for criminalizing anybody associated with private marinas who leaves fish waste in refrigerated units at Copeyon Park and Loomis Street fish cleaning stations.  Parks Committee Chairman Councilor Cheri Stibitz laid this edict down at the end of the June 9th meeting, parroted by the city manager immediately after, but not even a simple motion was made to change the ongoing policy. 

CM Aldritch would say that she had the power to make such a 'park' rule, but she overstates her authority.  The charter in section 7.1 subsection 2 requires city action that establishes a criminal penalty where none was before to be done through an ordinance passed by the city council.  Aldritch recognized that limitation to her power back at the March Municipal Marina Board meeting, before usurping the council's authority three months later to make everything totally confusing for all:

Back then, she seems to have recognized that (lawfully) the public fish cleaning facilities could not shut out private marinas, but they could make them pay a fee; presumably, if she wanted to keep it within constitutional law, she would require such fee to be paid by every user of those facilities, not just a class of people that city leaders want to discriminate against-- that class was their free market, private competition, whom they have significant advantages over in operating a marina.

Make no mistake, just like our local Wal-Mart may use whatever means possible to leverage market share away from our local Meijer's (and vice versa), the City of Ludington will do the same in order to stake a larger share of the marina market in Ludington away from those who run them as a for-profit business.  The difference is that it is often in the city's best interest not to be fiscally responsible in managing their marinas, for then they would lose out on boatloads of money from the state's DNR through its illegal conduit, Waterways Commission grants.  

Approximately two dozen people showed up in the audience for this topical special meeting, the largest contingent were charter boat captains, many who had been directly alerted by city officials to attend, others who came because of the chaotic policy that had them wondering whether the activities they were doing every day was now criminal, by fiat of the new city manager who was herself emboldened by a mayor only a few years removed as a no-nonsense police chief that didn't let a law get in the way of a potentially invalid arrest.   

The cooler unit at Copeyon Park (pictured above, one day after this meeting) does not indicate any sort of illegality if you were to put your fish guts into it, nor is there anything around the fish cleaning table; you see basically the same at Stearns Park at the table at the end of Loomis Street.  Ergo, the city does not post the policy announced on June 9th anywhere, is not working towards drafting an ordinance to codify it (none was mentioned in the making at the special meeting), but telling the public at large, and especially these charter boat captains, that there will be criminal consequences if they place any fish waste therein.  At the two public marinas, where their state contracts specifically state that the public shall be able to utilize these facilities on equitable terms, they ban the general public from even getting to the table, erecting a locked cage at the city marina for emphasis. 

The meeting format was explained by Mayor Barnett to consist of two parts: a public comment period, followed by a question-and-answer discussion period to field answers from the interested parties.  As the meeting progressed past the comments and questions, it seemed evident that the captains were misled into believing that their input would be measured and constructively considered into formulating city policy that would solve the issues created by city leaders on June 9th.  The city dangled a red herring to get them there, and put it on the hook for some, distracting them from the most important questions.

But it was evident that this meeting would be more of an exhibition of the city showing the size of its boot, and how easily they could use that boot to trample on the fingers, or face, of those who would not accept the city's premises.  This wasn't a problem-solving session, with Captain Ryan Bullard asking the burning question (that I had wanted to ask immediately) about 90 minutes into the two-hour meeting about why Marvin Simons, or any other representative of Huron Tackle Company (HTC) wasn't there.  The city desired to keep their fish-waste hauling contractor (HTC) out of the discussion, because they knew that their participation would break towards the ethics of the audience and work towards solving the underlying problem in a wise way the city didn't want.  

There was no good answer given by officials for this exclusion; the correct answer was that they never considered an invitation to HTC for mitigation that might go against the city's limited and impractical plan to criminalize the use of public facilities by certain members of the public.  Mayor Barnett would reiterate often that the crux of the problem was "capacity".  Yet, presuming more cooler units were spread out amidst the private marinas, the contractor's 'capacity' to pick up an equal or even larger amount of waste from even more sources only exacerbates any city capacity problem.  Ray's Marina owner, Ray Karboske, who originally brought HTC into the area, made this point when he related that HTC preferred having fewer pick-up sites, which made their job easier, and that he was encouraged to take his fish waste over to Copeyon by HTC rather than create another stop for the fish gut hauler.

The Ludington Torch is privy to a transcript of this meeting (part one here) and the city clerk will dutifully put out minutes of the meeting shortly, and these should indicate how this was more of a show of force and the city's willingness to go the next step against private marina owners and those who operate charter boats from those marinas.  As one such captain would say, those public-marina-based captains were conspicuously absent from the meeting, knowing that their so-called public marinas would not only provide for them, but keep out the general public from using their facilities with them.  Ironically, when the state started establishing public marinas about two-thirds of a century ago, they were adamant that it was strictly for recreational watercraft and made a promise that they would not allow commercial enterprises (like charter fishing boats) at their facilities. Surprise, your government lied to us all and now poor taxpayers are paying for the best equipped marinas for the wealthiest boaters, because the money is always there, courtesy of grants from the unlawful Waterways Commission.

Barnett would be quick to gavel side-discussions that chipped away at the city's narrative between his staccato rhythmed mentions of 'capacity' and how it would be best attained by the city's upcoming power play, and no way else.  But the two women who developed this crisis were once again at the forefront of showing the irresponsibility of the city in setting an unreasonable and unconstitutional policy.

City Manager Aldrich:  "We are working on drafting language to create a rule for city-owned fish cleaning stations.  Private marinas will be charged a fee if their users are disposing of waste at our facilities."

City Attorney Ross "Sewage" Hammersley has shown an enormous contempt for basic civil rights in his past lawcraft, it would not be stretch to see him do just what she said.  The 14th Amendment's equal protection clause mandates that states cannot deny any person (entity) within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.  This right is violated whenever a state governmental body or agency grants one class of individuals (general public) the ability to do something that another class (private marina owners or users) may not.

To those paying attention, Jeff Henry and Ray Karboske have strained the city's legal resources and patience in trying to get answers from the state and city about some much more important issues than what happened at this meeting.  This appears to be retaliation, pure and simple, and a sinister way of trying to lure more charter boat businesses away from the private marinas by targeting them and their host with the threat of criminal prosecution for what everyone else can do for free and without such threat.  If this isn't clear enough, the Parks Committee Chairman weighed in with a more direct assertion at the special meeting putting in focus who the city is actually going after.

Councilor Cheri Stibitz:  "We know certain marinas are using Copeyon and Loomis stations without contributing a dime.  That's going to stop."

Combined with her June 9th rant against private marinas, the most prolific and important businesses in her jurisdiction (Fourth Ward), Stibitz makes it clear that this is what is going to be targeted by the city in the near future.  When the city had a much more noticeable problem with fish waste last year, marina owners were not the bugbears, if anybody was, it was HTC not keeping up with the volume.  Now that one marina's owners are challenging the very source of funding for the city's marina excesses, the city directly fights back and attempts to make charter boat captains at these private marinas align against them, at least in principle.  It's not the individual anglers catching fish that caused this problem according to Stibitz, it's those who own private marinas.   

The narrative doesn't appear to have worked on those assembled.  One senses that the private sector captains and marina owners are more united than ever against what sounds like bad future policy coming from their elected representatives, who seem to be working against their constituents.  The city's only voice of moderation this evening would come from First Ward Councilor John Kreinbrink, who thought outside the refrigerated box, believing the issue would be best solved municipally through grinders, and treating fish waste using methods that would remove the mercury therein (such as this) at wastewater treatment plants.  

But that's not vindictive enough for the rest of the officials, which included the City's Marina Manager Jim Christensen, and will not be part of the upcoming city legislation.  Were they less obsessive and retributive, city leaders might consider a more responsible and fairer approach, like Councilor Kreinbrink considered, which also recognizes that many in the public who don't regularly fish (like myself) have the right to be upset that effectively the general fund is being used for the HTC contract, when the obvious way to pay for the service is as a user fee.  

This isn't a novel idea, private marinas used to charge a set fee (typically $1 on the honor system) for each fish gutted and disposed at their stations.  One can imagine that this would still happen, except that public marinas and fish cleaning stations came in and changed the dynamics when they didn't charge for this service, as the taxpayers would ultimately foot the bill.  Private marinas could no longer charge for the service in order to stay competitive, but they needed to retain the service for convenience of those who docked there.  

The loss of revenue and the cost of overhead were significant stressors when hundreds or even thousands of fish were cleaned and disposed of at these private marinas without recompense every day of operation.  If one loves local businesses, ones that have to compete with government 'businesses' in an unfair playing field, one should see that the logical and fair solution is to invoke user fees again and any city ordinance or resolution should set what those fees per fish are and tie them to the actual cost to the taxpayer of the service, not single out a class of individuals for ridiculous criminal prosecution for using what is a free service for all others.  

[Jefferson F. Henry]

 

XL, thank you for laying out what so many of us have felt but couldn’t fully document: that this city’s current fish waste policy is not about public service, but about control — and retaliation.

You captured what the city won’t admit:

• That no ordinance has changed.

• That no due process was followed.

• And that threats of criminal enforcement are being wielded against people — like Ray Karboske and Bobby Wing — who’ve served this community for decades, often without pay.

Your reporting fills in what the public record won’t say out loud: this was about silencing the private sector at the very moment it started asking serious questions about public money, state grants, and government-run competition.

We may not agree on every approach, but we stand fully behind your effort to hold power accountable and protect what’s left of fair play in Ludington.

— Jefferson Henry 

[XLFD]

Thanks for your affirmation and analysis, Jefferson.  We both seek the same objectives in our government: truth fairness, transparency, accountability, adaptability, etc.  What we get from our local and state agencies, fronted by questionable legal arguments purported by their associated attorneys, is a defense of the indefensible, and refutations of reasonable goals that should be embraced by them.  

I do think we both apply the approach that we think will get us closer to our objectives, which is the main reason why I have moved from mostly diplomatic methods during the Miller/Foster years (2019-2022) back to mostly scorched earth methods that were needed back during the Shay/Chief Barnett years (2008-2018) in order to get results.  Barnett isn't one who folds when he knows he has the losing hand, and he'll take the rest of city hall with him on the way to ruin.