Meet & Greet Receipt Shows Craft & Graft

[XLFD]

Fourth Ward Councilor Michael Krauch received his seat on the council not from the usual channels of going through the political election process wherein he introduces himself to the people of his city ward, markets himself and his positions to the people of that ward, and then gets a majority of the votes from the people of the ward. 

No; he succeeded Fourth Ward Councilor Wanda Marrison when she resigned her position a little over a couple months before this last general election.  The city charter indicates that the council then had the duty and power to appoint a successor for the position until the next regular election, which few would argue is what we had in November, with local, state and federal seats and proposals being decided at all six city precincts including the fourth ward. 

The few that would argue with the definition of 'regular election' as defined in state law and undefined by local law, assist or inhabit the other six seats of power in the council, not a one that lives or has ever advocated for anyone from the fourth ward in their career.  They couldn't fathom the citizens of the fourth ward 'disenfranchising' their appointee so quickly in a democratic election decided by the will of the people. 

Early on Mr. Krauch understood that problem, unlike the rest of the council and city management who were appointing him while actively  advocating the undemocratic charter amendment to make the city clerk and treasurer appointees rather than elective positions. 

In his September 17, 2014 interview by the council at a special meeting where another candidate was interviewed it was noted:  "As for explaining tough budget decisions that negatively affect his neighbors, he stated that in any agency, there is a finite amount of money, and so you can't please everyone.  You need to be capable of explaining negative impacts to the City, and know that not everyone will be happy." 

In the minutes of that special meeting, his answer to that question was noted:  "He explained that it is important to educate the resident on the issues and demonstrate to the resident the process that was reviewed to come up with the budget decision." and "he would make it a priority to reach out to the 4th Ward community to get to know them."

Typically, the democratic process allows plenty of opportunities for candidates to rub shoulders with their constituents, when they don't they quite often lose.  But as we have noticed, Krauch, who moved here from Illinois less than ten years ago, did not have that experience.  So, true to his word in that matter, he did make the effort to get to know them by a good old-fashioned meet and greet. 

A November 4 COLDNews article available on-line and in the newspaper proper advertised:  "A meet-and-greet with new Ludington Fourth Ward city councilor Mike Krauch is from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22 at Pomorski’s – 1302 S. Madison St. 

Krauch encourages his constituents to take this opportunity to share with him their comments, suggestions and concerns."  In the November 10th meeting minutes it was noted:  "Councilor Krauch mentioned that he has invited the residents of the 4th Ward to a "Meet & Greet" on Saturday, November 22nd from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Pomorski’s Tavern located at 1302 S. Madison Avenue."  Around this time it was put up as a front-page announcement on the city website, and is still there.

At the end of the November 24th meeting he noted that his 'coming out party' where he had some good conversations and a lot of fun and anticipates it will be done regularly in the upcoming year (7:00 into this video).  At that same meeting, the city council packet reflected an interesting charge in the periodic expenditures that was worthy of note. 

A brief explanation is in order.  When the city 'pays its bills' they effectively endorse (either before or after) payment for goods or services with money from the city treasury.  This money is used for the services the city government provides including police and fire services, trash pickup, street repairs, etc. 

Such public money should not be used for private or political purposes, to do so would be unethical and perhaps unlawful.  Consider, would you say it was okay for an incumbent politician (or his appointee) to use public funds indiscriminately for his re-election?

The entry and research into the street gutters of the fourth ward made the editors of the Ludington Torch presume that the City had purchased pricy handouts to be delivered to the residents of the fourth ward that the deliverers could hang on the doors.  We made a FOIA request to the city for the invoice and a copy of the door hanger.  We received the following door hanger:

The hanger itself is consistent with the messages put out in the newspaper, local websites, and Mr. Krauch's announcement at the end of the first November meeting, an informal, unofficial meeting with the man who arguably was the illegitimate fourth ward councilor.  Here was the invoice:

You will note they purchased 500 door hangers and the only initials on the invoice was the unmistakable signature of City Manager John Shay.  Just think: the city would have invested less money on amending and printing 500 ballots for the fourth ward with the two or more candidates names on them this November.  Instead, they used public money to try and sell their illogical, undemocratic, and very un-American position of retaining the city council's choice with nary a vote cast by any fourth ward resident.

More sinister is that there was no official city business being conducted at this 'coming out party', therefore by MCL 750-490a the person who signed off on this marketing purchase was guilty of a misdemeanor as:  "An officer of any governmental agency shall not purchase or cause to be purchased any goods in the name of or on the credit of the governmental agency for any other purpose than for use in the regular course of the official business of the governmental agency."

Epilogue:

At the December 1st meeting of the city council, Krauch described why he voted to renew City Manager Shay's contract with a 1.5% raise: 

"I've only been on the council a few months now,a little bit less than that actually, so I was a resident customer of the city up to that point, and I always had positive customer service experiences any time I had interaction with the city.  I think that's very much a reflection on the quality of leadership the city has, particularly, in the city manager."

I tried to figure out what a "resident customer" is, and even using the power of Google, I couldn't figure this one out.  With his tacit approval of this flagrant misuse of public funds, Krauch's capacity as a district coordinator for MSU Extension should be put under proper  review.

[jfc123]

Have you ever tried to reach out to Brian Calley with any of this info? I know that if he gets it from multiple sources it seems more real. I have on many things.

[XLFD]

My two sided campaign fliers cost less than 7 cents to produce on my copying machine, even though it uses ink like it's going out of style.  Hopefully, this explains the illegitimacy of his appointed term:  Democracy Under Attack Once Again

You should begin to suspect by now that when city officials have a choice between democracy and giving themselves more extra-charter power than they actually have, they always choose the latter.  This wasn't always the case, at one time I think both John Shay and John Henderson were good people trying to do good things for the community and even act within the laws and rules of ethics, but that changed after a couple of years of working together, and a couple of years later, I became XLFD after seeing the corruption set in at many places within the city.