Openly Disobeying the Open Meetings Act, pt. 3: No Posted Notices

[XLFD]

I like to think of myself as somewhat knowledgable about what is going on around Ludington, particularly in the City Hall and the plethora of public servants that hang around there and thereabouts holding public meetings, publishing their minutes and making their public decisions in accordance with the laws of our land.  That's why it struck me as odd that I didn't know a thing about a meeting of the City Council where they had a goal-making objective on September 19, 2012 until the first meeting of October, nearly three weeks afterwards, when I noticed it on the agenda of that meeting.

Knowing that when a public body schedules a public meeting to discuss issues they have to abide by the Open Meetings Act, a set of rules to promote open and transparent government, much like the FOIA. Section 3  of the OMA, defines the intent: "All meetings of a public body shall be open to the public... "All decisions of a public body shall be made at a meeting open to the public."..."A person shall be permitted to address a meeting of a public body", etc.  But I was a bit worried that section 5, which explains how to serve notice on the public for a special meeting may not have been followed, leading to a sparsely attended meeting where they can make unpopular decisions.

Supporting my fears was the lack of any agenda or any meeting minutes of this Sept. 19 meeting posted on the City website, they aren't found in the regular meeting minutes (though they duplicate the 9-10-12 meeting)

Nor was this inlcuded in any other section including where it should be in the special meeting minutes:

And there is not an agenda in either the regular or the special agendas, but these aren't compulsory by the OMA.  This is still the case to this day.   No mention of this meeting was ever made, to my knowledge by the local paper or radio stations, which I found to be odd, since I later found out the council accomplished more in this meeting than the majority of their regular meetings.  I was curious at this point, however, on whether they let the public know about this meeting as accorded by the OMA.

So I sent a FOIA request, including the usual parameters asking for:  "Any E-mail (or other method of notice) sent out to media outlets or any others by the City of Ludington regarding the Goal-setting meeting that occurred on September 19, 2012, include the actual posted notice posted at the City Hall for this meeting."

I got the following reply back:  Response to Rotta's FOIA Request 10-09-12.pdf which included a copy of the 9-13-2012 COLDNews which did have a notice for this meeting:

Also included was a mention of it at the 9-10-2012 meeting by the Mayor, and a look at the 24:00 mark of this video shows there was mention of it.  The mayor failed to note that it was open to the public, but he wasn't statutorily mandated to do so.  

So, a notice was put in the paper for one day on page A7, and the Mayor mentioned it in passing at a meeting nine days beforehand, and an E-mail was sent to the usual elected officials who sit up at their exalted perch.  Was that enough?  No.

MCL 15.264: The following provisions shall apply with respect to public notice of meetings:

(b) A public notice for a public body shall always be posted at its principal office and any other locations considered appropriate by the public body.

I specifically asked for "the actual posted notice posted at the City Hall for this meeting." in my FOIA request, but this was not included.  "Shall always" is quite specific, this needed to be posted at the City Hall.  The statement by the Mayor and the newspaper ad, which failed to include all bits of information that a posted notice should contain, are insufficient for satisfying the "posted notice" aspect of the OMA.

Back in April, 2012 when they were going to have a special meeting in order to make a special consideration for the library's construction, they also failed to post such notice in a timely manner, as I found out this May through a FOIA request.  They cancelled that meeting, so it never was a problem except to legal purists.  But this meeting, they held and I was fortunate enough to get the minutes from this meeting, which are still not contained in the City's website.

Violating the OMA willfully can subject the violator to misdemeanor charges  or  civil liability of $500 plus costs.   But the City keeps doing it, such as in this case  openly-disobeying-2, at almost all Downtown Development Authority (DLB) meetings, and most famously, when they did so and cost the City taxpayers $250,000 in the Jack Byers' settlement.  Violations of the FOIA and the OMA are almost routine for the current crop of Ludington politicians.  But here's the minutes of that meeting: