Mayor Henderson: A Preview of What Never Happened Over Twelve Years

[XLFD]

 

A week before the election of 2001, the Ludington Daily News  (10-26-2001 COLDNews) put out an article that interviewed both mayor candidates for the city, challenger John Henderson and incumbent Carol Pomorski and got their positions on issues and what they were primed to do if they won the election.  Along the left side of this article, is Mayor John Henderson's responses at that time with his visions and policies-to-come.  After retiring due to term limits at the end of this year (after unsuccessfully trying to extend such limit at the end of last year), let's take a look back and see how his vision then compared to what his record actually is.

After Pomorski tells of her initiative for the city to get the old Coast Guard Station (which only became a reality in Henderson's twelfth year), Henderson explains he wants to make the council's agenda more understandable and public-friendly. 

His actions have been to make advisory committees the norm for doing the public's business, and to make the agenda available to the public via the newspaper the weekend before the meeting.  The last ten years, the city's budget has been presented late and without the proper public notice, as dictated by the city charter, Ludington's constitution. 

Furthermore, when any citizen voices alternate visions or criticisms to the city at these meetings, the mayor is the first to limit their speech and defend bad behavior by city officers. 

His partnerships with corporations are well known, but his 'tree replacement' partnership with citizens never materialized to my knowledge.  A city-sponsored youth center and waterfront walkway extending to Copeyon Park have also been topics that have not seen any progress during his dozen years.

The lifeguard program was a controversial addition to the budgets until they were taken out in 2009 without any resistance from the mayor, to be replaced by the beach patrol in 2011, a year after three people died at Stearn's Park.  His initial arguments for the lifeguards forgotten, he has said the beach patrol promotes beach safety better without any elaboration.  It obviously, is not.

Henderson notes his accomplishments in his years as a county commissioner, which amounted to being a mediator for use of an ice rink at the fairgrounds, which doesn't really seem like a big deal, because it isn't.  The ice rinks at WSCC now get the action.

He then explains how he saved money by keeping ambulances twice as long, mileage-wise.  This shows that the mayor did at one time have some fiscal conservatism, and may have been the best accomplishment in either of his two positions.  This policy was later negated when the ambulance services were contracted out to Life EMS. 

And so his positive accomplishments as a commissioner, his legacy at the county, is effectively nothing.  Will that assessment be made by history of his accomplishments as mayor of Ludington?  It very well might.

The mayor never was successful in getting one theme for the downtown, which may have been a good thing.  He was successful at getting more events into the downtown area, but these have come at a cost to the local taxpayers-- a DDA(DLB) millage and increase of tax-increment financing amounting to over $120,000 a year used to throw these festivals. 

Public money is used to buy liquor from one DLB member, insurance from another DLB member, light-up glassware from another DLB member, etc., to be sold to the public for profit which never made it back to the public coffers.  That may help certain people in the downtown, but it's at the expense of double-dipping into the other taxpayers pockets. 

His signage (envisioned before Nick and Heather were in town) never materialized, the walkway was never developed or talked about seriously, his end-of-the-school-year festival was unheard of ever again by the public. 

 

While a grocery store did appear downtown, albeit an upscale one more designed for the haves than the have-nots, his efforts to get a historical district for East Ludington Avenue was tried for years and failed due to the continued resistance to the concept from those who would have to suffer this extra level of needless bureaucracy.  The middle-ground approach was not ever seriously applied to this latest waste of effort to wrest property rights from people who have made East Ludington Avenue the historically preserved place it is. 

Henderson was vocal back in 2001, but silent throughout his terms about the waterfront walkway extending to Fourth Ward's Copeyon Park, even when Dowland Street was redone and the Washington Bridge was rebuilt, necessary parts of it.  Was this an acquired stance once the leaders of Lake Michigan Carferry and several other waterfront owners objected to the encroachments on their property that would need to take place?  

Nor did the concept of tiered development kick in, as the condo projects that kicked in during Henderson's early years (Pier Point, One Ludington Place. etc.) failed to meet such standards. 

Mayor Henderson has scheduled council meetings at the high school, but hasn't done so since early 2008, a reflection perhaps of his trend away from listening to people that aren't already empowered.  He did manage to get his daughter Brandy involved in local politics, giving her a much needed (and mostly covert) assist in many agencies he was 'partnered' with.  To my knowledge, she's been the only direct beneficiary so far of his 'outreach' to students, as the youngest person attending a city council meeting (that I don't bring) has typically been out of school for more than twelve years (except for when Foster School visits).  

Face it: city council meetings are not interesting when the agenda has already been set, the issues are raised two days in advance in a newspaper with decreasing circulation,  and the council passes policy without any discussion.  It ain't rocket science to conclude that the mayor  knows that the committees he made, the notices to the public he delays or fails to make according to charter, and the lack of critical discussion shown by the council in 95%+ of the issues contributes to the public's malaise.  Not to mention the disdain ridicule many of the public suffers when they bring salient issues up that goes against their opinion.

As already noted, the youth center and the end-of-school festival have been ignored over the tenure of the mayor.  Incoming mayor, Ryan Cox, has not yet unveiled such an ambitious agenda for youths or otherwise, probably noticing the fact that the previous mayor of a dozen years had fallen so short of his goals annunciated during the course of his initial election. 

Adding up all of the progress he made on his accomplishments made during his only contested election, we get that Mayor Henderson has brought more events to the downtown area and was in office when Best Choice Foods established itself downtown.  That's pretty paltry when compared to all the accomplishments he never became involved in, but promised during the election.

After a year, he further elaborated on his goals, and how he had evaluated what he had accomplished during his first year (12-31-2002 COLDNews ).  Though he/Ludington had made some minor accomplishments in that first year on minor goals, much of what he had set forth to do was still unfinished. 

The full time fire chief and code enforcer has not materialized, we have actually lost a full time assessor and building inspector in the interim, which has made the other goal of code enforcement go backward.  Plans to work on the city's sidewalks have went in reverse, more new constructions are neglecting sidewalks than having sidewalks be constructed thereon.  But at least he didn't get himself drunk and drive his car into the muck.

By almost all metrics, the twelve years of disappointment over the lack of achieving concrete goals or progress has been ignored by the "Henderson Legacy Group" which consists of the mayor, his family, and those that benefitted from his 'partnerships', which includes only fellow city officials and powerful business leaders.  Will history show that the city was poorly managed and ethically suspicious throughout these dozen years, or conform to the myth that this group puts forth? 

Check out the companion piece to this in the Ludington Torch:  mayor-john-henderson-of-ludington-a-leap-back

[AQUAMAN]

Myth and reality are easy to misinterpret when one faction holds all the local media in the palm of their hands, and too many sheeple believe everything they read. The Mayor repeatedly stated that having $22K/yr. lifeguard program was a waste of money, and not in line with other neighboring ports. He replaced them with a $50K/yr. program of beach patrols and overpriced safety devices. I guess had it been a local that drowned, perhaps a city officials' daughter/son, then and only then, would we have seen the reinstatement of the lifeguards. As for making city council meetings more user-friendly and easier to understand, I think we all know where the Mayor truly stood on those issues. Sadly, only the citizens with praise for his cronyism type leadership were welcomed, anyone disagreeing with his regime, sadly, were thrown to the wolves, and made to feel inferior. Nice recap on the truth X, most citizens probably will only know the other side of the coin now.

[XLFD]

I think most of the ordinary people of this community see through the smoke and mirrors that the mayor has tried to push through the last month at the last council meeting, and with his egocentric interviews with the COLDNews and the MCP.  The last half of his tenure has been a disaster, where he ignores the needs of the community, advocates raising fees and taxes for the locals and homeowners, and serves as an apologist for his fellow officials who have done their community wrong.  Not to mention the neglect he has shown for the city's basic services and for fiscal responsibility.

Last year, this was evident in the failure of the city proposal by a two to one margin.  The proposal was strictly for extending term limits from three to five for the office of mayor, and was pushed by the mayor's family and close friends.  The people I talk with (outside of the community love-ins at the city council meetings) are so glad we are past the Henderson era.  But be careful-- he will still be a force with the DLB/DDA and will continue to influence the direction of the city by having the ear of his neighbor, City Manager John Shay. 

[Willy]

I'm glad you brought up the sidewalk situation. It is truly mind boggling that the City has ignored the safety of the children who are forced to walk in the street  to school because there are no sidewalks. Why the City has not required these missing sidewalks to be installed is beyond me. What can be more important than the safety of the children? Very nice work X.

[XLFD]

He stressed sidewalks during his first year and set it as a goal, even put some extra funds into sidewalks.  Ryan Cox has intimated that he may go the same route.  But Henderson then abandoned the cause by the end of his first term, and even though our code mandates sidewalks to be put in on new constructions, a lot of new constructions have taken place, and the sidewalks that should have went in, have not been poured.  Much of this happened even before the City dropped the full-time Building Inspector and Assessor positions.

[AQUAMAN]

Not to worry, what we had before in a building inspector, in John Healey, was another yes man like Shay anyhow. He and I crossed paths due to him intruding into my business on several occasions. His attempts at clever manipulations failed anyhow in the end, irregardless of his bosses orders to the contrary. Long ago, but not forgotten. Same as the Larry Tondu preceding Healey, dead end.