Manistee City Manager Thad Taylor's Sad Failures

[XLFD]

Manistee City Manager Thad Taylor is a deceitful, thieving scoundrel. The Manistee community, other than seven city councilors (his employers, who just don't seem to care) is basically aware of this fact and wouldn't mind getting a competent and honest replacement. Those councilors would rather put Manistee's future on the line just to save face for having to admit they chose their manager unwisely and go through the bother of finding a new one.

City watchdog site Real Manistee conducted some research on Taylor's past before being put at the head of Manistee government with a yearly salary of $93,000. The LT has confirmed Taylor's career was very volatile before he was employed by the City of Manistee. Prior to being considered, he had applied and was one of three finalists at Howard City (pop. 1800) for a village manager position a year prior that would have paid $15 per hour with 15 hours guaranteed each week (that's a guaranteed $11,700 per annum). They considered he had had too many red flags in his past to be employable. Manistee councilors looked at that same past along with an extra year of discord at the city he had tried to leave in the lurch, Cedar Springs, and hired him with no reservations at over 8 times the Howard City salary.

Perhaps they should have noticed that Taylor was terminated as CM of Alpena in April 2012, with the adjectives divisive and distracted following the decision, along with sundry rumors about what caused the issues. Alpena prospered after his departure. He was hired at Cedar Springs in September 2012, and his two plus year tenure was not without legitimate controversy, with Taylor alternate-job-seeking on the side early on and their council narrowly defeating a special vote to terminate his contract, before he was snatched up by Manistee. His replacement at Cedar Springs was dubbed very competent and given a pay raise within six months.

The field is being littered with a lot more red flags regarding how Thad Taylor is acting as Manistee's chief executive, and this is being noted by websites like Real Manistee and those who are paying attention.  The Manistee City Council is propping up this failed and unethical individual.

Taylor's inability to follow Michigan's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has led the City into a couple of lawsuits. One sought disclosure of a police report and a use-of-force report dealing with the killing of Lee Pat Milks by Manistee Public Safety Officer Doug Vansickle, both of which were completely denied a week after the shooting. No legal exemption was used, but a 19th Circuit Court totally avoiding multiple rules of court conduct, including the installation of a retired judge without notifying both parties and a bogus preliminary hearing. This is currently in the Michigan Court of Appeals and should be reversed.

The second lawsuit involves the city manager and his secretary using an illegal fee scheme in order to prevent the release of public records.  Thad and his secretary have refused to take my money when I have made it a contingency for them to itemize what it was for.  A motion for summary disposition made by the City's attorney will go in front of the 19th Circuit Court's David Thompson on Monday August 27 (unless he runs away from this lawsuit too).

In any fair court, this motion would be laughed out of the courtroom since the City's answer to my complaint denied 48 of my assertions as untrue, without explanation. For a motion of summary disposition to succeed the facts need to be uncontested by both parties.

Now they can avoid explanation on their answer to the complaint, but they also effectively waived changing any of the facts in their motion's statement of the facts. Incredibly they weaved their corrupt city manager's version of the truth from three sworn affidavits into their unproven arguments, rather than putting these forth as 'alternative' facts to mine. When you accept false premises in your arguments, you can prove anything; that's what lawyer Gretchen Olsen did here.

This article ends with my response to their motion. But please review the motion and its support brief here, along with all of the contested facts in their answer to the complaint:

COMM4SD.pdf

COMM4SDBrief1.pdf

COMM4SDBrief2.pdf

COMAnsw1.pdf

COMAnsw2.pdf

But the real funny parts, if you could overlook the unamusing amount of power and status illogically entrusted to Thad Taylor, are in his affidavits. When you take a look at the three affidavits that Thad Taylor had notarized by his executive secretary Cindy Lokovich, who is also accused of wrongdoing in the lawsuit, you see a litany of untruths. The first has ten paragraphs; here are the outright, provable acts in defiance of city FOIA policy and state law, presented unapologetically as the way he rolls:

5, 6: Taylor never claimed any exemptions in his response, not even the amended response, nor does he claim any lawful exemption here, or a lawful reason why a supervisor rather than clerk wasn't used to redact information he never claimed, yet he wants to charge supervisor labor for redaction.
7. Taylor does not justify why a thumbdrive was needed for inspection of the records, nor the CD. Additionally, he fails to justify the high cost of either.
8. Taylor throws in a $6.70 cost of mailing when electronic transmission or inspection is asked for.
9. Taylor charges for paper copies when none is required, since there are no exemptions claimed.
10. Taylor says the 'amended fee estimate' was in compliance, yet never says anything about the 'original fee estimate', since there wasn't any included in the response.  But he can't admit he did this boneheaded act.  

Affidavit 2 and 3 repeat the idea that paper copies needed to be made for non-exempt records on file, and unreasonable figures for the amount of time it takes City employees to compile those records and their pay rate.  With nary a reason of why that posed an unreasonably high cost to the city, a required component of when a public body can charge labor costs. 

One of those requests was for a 9 page police report it took over a half hour to compile, the other was for the last year's FOIA responses the City made (material that they need to have available to the public by law, but told me a secretary needed to work 90-105 minutes to complete and show me).  In a highly fraudulent move, each new FOIA response claimed the unlawful amount of fees they estimated in the previous responses were somehow a legal and mounting debt, even when the documents have never been produced.

I look forward this coming Monday to look over at Thad Taylor sitting with Attorney Gretchen Olsen and hearing the judge either deny the City's motion (and prepare for the trial I eagerly anticipate) or accept it using some sort of jurisprudence unrecognizable in the realm of law so that I can once again take them to the appeals court and let them see what an incompetent circuit court operates out of Manistee, and what a scurrilous city manager Thad Taylor is.

What follows is my response brief, it addresses mainly the issue that the Motion of Summary Disposition is a waste of time when so many disputes over facts are prevalent.  If this was a fair court, they would likely see in the written record that the City's side is wanting, and judge the facts presented to them rationally and fairly.  

PLAINTIFF’S RESPONSE IN OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND REQUEST FOR TRIAL

I Introduction

This brief is responsive to the motion for summary disposition filed by defendant City of Manistee hereafter, COM) filed on August 6, 2018. This response will indicate why plaintiff Tom Rotta (hereafter, ROTTA) believes there are numerous issues of fact still unresolved and numerous issues that require relief on his part, and therefore that ruling on summary disposition would be impossible under either of the grounds that the COM suggests. ROTTA asserts the most efficient way to resolve these issues would be to go to trial, not accept the fake facts and the flawed conclusions derived therefrom introduced in the COM's arguments in their brief.

II Standard of Review

A motion for summary disposition must necessarily fail if the defendants, as the moving party, do not establish the absence of any genuine issue of material fact or if the plaintiff, as the opposing party, establishes that there is a genuine triable issue. Lyons v. New Mass Media, Inc., 390 Mass. 51, 453 N.E.2d 451 (1983). In other words, if any material fact is disputed, summary judgment must be denied.

In reviewing a motion for summary disposition brought pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(10), we consider “the affidavits, pleadings, depositions, admissions, and documentary evidence filed in the action or submitted by the parties in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion.” Haliw v Sterling Heights, 464 Mich 297, 302; 627 NW2d 581 (2001). )

The party moving for summary disposition has the burden of showing that there is no genuine issue of material fact (see MCR 2.116(C)(10)).

III. Statement of Facts

ROTTA stands by all assertions, claims and exhibits proffered to this court in his complaint in the allegations and four counts of FOIA-related violations he believes the COM has made. In the COM's answer to the complaint, there was no less than 48 paragraphs that they answered by saying the paragraph was "denied as untrue" with or without the appellation of "...in the form and manner stated." They did not offer an alternative fact set with those denials, just straight denials.
In their motion, they have provided no new set of facts in their "statement of facts", only referring to their answer (COM motion Exhibit B). There is no attempt to 'square the circle' with the 48 disputed paragraphs to come to the truth.

Later on they use three sworn affidavits by the COM city manager, Thad Taylor, as the basis for their own set of deceitful and false facts in trying to make a consistent legal argument. It is unclear why these affidavits were not used to make a basis in their statement of facts, unless the COM is trying to protect Thad Taylor from perjury charges at a later date.

Most of the paragraphs the COM denied as untrue (12, 16, 17, 18, 21, 26, 30, 32, 34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 43, 50-56, 58-61, 63-71, 75, 78-83, 88, 89, 90. 92-95) are never addressed, and some of the attempts seem woefully unacceptable to a party that has the burden of proof in this motion to show that there is no material fact in issue, and the eventual burden of proof to establish that the required fee they charged complies with its publicly available procedures and guidelines and those in MCL 15.234 (MCL 15.240a(4)).

IV Arguments

A. There are many issues of fact existent that require resolution, thereby MCR 2.116(C)(10) must fail and a trying of fact must be considered as the appropriate act of this court.

Plaintiff could list each of the 48 paragraphs in dispute and address each, but it should suffice for purpose of this brief to look at one of the major disputes in detail, and include a few others that are definitely at issue between parties. Paragraph 12 of the complaint states the FOIA response for #18-04 lacked a 'Fee estimation worksheet' and any justification for fees, the answer denied this as untrue.

The response was sent via E-mail, it included a .pdf file with the response which this court could easily use to determine that the worksheet was never sent with it by either opening either the sender's or receiver's appropriate E-mail in court and noting its absence. E-mails serve as a failsafe record of what exactly was sent and received. The remaining document (COM's Exhibit D), has no justification for a $246 charge anywhere in that E-mail and .pdf file.

MCL 15.234(1) says: "A public body may charge a fee... if it has established, makes publicly available, and follows procedures and guidelines to implement this section as described in subsection (4)." Subsection 4 continues: "A public body's procedures and guidelines shall include the use of a standard form for detailed itemization of any fee amount in its responses to written requests under this act. The detailed itemization shall clearly list and explain the allowable charges for each of the 6 fee components listed under subsection (1) that compose the total fee used for estimating or charging purposes."

Instead of admitting negligence or mistake in not including an itemized worksheet in his response, City Manager Thad Taylor avoids the issue in his affidavit concerning response #18-04, only saying in paragraph 10 that the 'amended' estimate was made in compliance with their policy. The COM's brief is counter-factual in that on p. 4 it says the COM 'reduced the amount to $120.65'. when they had only introduced that legitimized fee at that point, as they included a worksheet, still replete with false charges. The FOIA does not allow the public body to ask for $246 without justifying each and every part of that fee in their response.

The unlawfully introduced worksheet made after ROTTA appealed the worksheet-free response, had within it multiple charges that were inapplicable. ROTTA asked for either inspection or electronic files as the manner in which he wanted the records. The COM wanted to charge mailing fees that were inapplicable for either, in the amended response and Taylor's first affidavit (Exhibit G) he does not justify why this charge is enacted for inspection.

The COM wanted to charge over $45 for separating exempt information out when no exemptions were ever declared in the response. Taylor's first motion affidavit finally says "redaction of LEIN information", but there is no exemption of 'LEIN information' found in FOIA (see MCL 15. 243).

The COM wanted to charge $17.99 for a thumb drive and $2.50 for a CD, Taylor eventually claims in his first affidavit that this was the 'actual and most reasonable economical cost of these items', yet never states why these need to be used for inspection of the records, nor justifies this cost. One would have to believe that the COM uses many recordable CDs in their ordinary operations, why would they spend $2.50 per CD when they could spend $.30 per recordable CD at the local Meijer? Or $.40 per recordable DVD which can hold as much data as many jump drives, but costs much less than $17.99.

Now certainly, it would be an interesting exercise to ask for the City's invoices of their latest recordable CD purchases via the FOIA and find this $2.50 figure is in error, but who knows how many hundreds of dollars they would charge for that FOIA, given their contempt for that law.

B. The relief sought by plaintiff in their claim is in accordance with the law and the facts of this controversy, thereby MCR 2.116(C)(8) must fail and a trying of fact must be considered as the appropriate act of this court.

With the allegations and the four counts made in the complaint, combined with relief found in MCL 15.240a, claims exist where relief can be granted, and these are found in the relief requested section of the complaint.

"A court that determines the public body required a fee that exceeds the amount permitted under its publicly available procedures and guidelines or section 4 shall reduce the fee to a permissible amount" MCL 15.240a(4).
"If the court determines in an action commenced under this section that the public body has arbitrarily and capriciously violated this act by charging an excessive fee, the court shall order the public body to pay a civil fine of $500.00, which shall be deposited in the general fund of the state treasury. The court may also award, in addition to any actual or compensatory damages, punitive damages in the amount of $500.00 to the person seeking the fee reduction." MCL 15.240a(7).

The court is further encouraged to address the fraud and public extortion charges inherent in the actions performed by the COM city manager and his executive secretary, Cynthia Lokovich, in preparing these FOIA responses and not allowing the use of an itemized receipt for the FOIA requestor who tries to pay the fraudulent fees imposed as ransom to get public records.
Additionally, it should be noted that the COM manager's usage of his executive secretary (who is among those individual officers accused of wrongdoing in this lawsuit) to notarize his affidavits, may be a violation of MCL 55.291(7), which prohibits a notary public from notarizing when a conflict of interest may result.

V Request for Relief

Wherefore, Plaintiff Tom Rotta respectfully submits that the Defendant's Motion for Summary Deposition is defective on grounds and should be dismissed by this court. In addition, a trial should go forth to accurately determine the dozens of unresolved issues of fact, with deference to the actual record and credible testimony of those involved, and the merits of the issues of law based on the court's determinations. Furthermore, that any relief sought in the original complaint and all other relief that is warranted and just be granted to the plaintiff as permitted by law.

[AQUAMAN]

Haven't got time to view it all, but it's truly SAD and Stupid of city officials elected with the Very Best Interests of the People of Manistee to carry on like this, time for several recalls I'd say. But who are the people? We're nothing these days, just "complainers", not people that look blindly away and basically, be misinformed by media and their given media COL/Manistee CM's releases, sad.

[Willy]

Thanks for posting this information X. It seems that Ludington is not an isolated setting for a rogue City Manager. City Councils need to exercise extreme caution when hiring these Managers since they can be a huge problem for the citizens who cannot do a thing to get rid of them.