Revisionist History: Court Voids May 3 Charter Revision Vote Due to Ludington's City Council's Failure to Follow Law

[XLFD]

This afternoon, the weather outside the Lake County Courthouse was frightful, but the court decision inside was delightful.  Honorable Judge Mark Wickens, serving as 51st Circuit Court Judge, listened to arguments from Ludington City Attorney Ross Hammersley and from Ludington citizen Tom Rotta before he came to a conclusion in a quo warranto case at a hearing that would decide the fate of a local election proposal. 

The court found that Ludington's City Council had failed to fulfill statutory requirements in regard to fixing the costs of a charter revision and rate of compensation for the charter revision committee, that the error led to the electorate not knowing anything of the costs of said revision and that the error materially affected the outcome of the May 3rd election.  As a result, Plaintiff Rotta was afforded relief permitted under the filing of his quo warranto complaint, some of which are sweeping.

The order will indicate that the charter revision question on the May 3rd ballot which passed will be declared void, effectively meaning that the voters never approved the measure.  This has the additional effect of voiding the election of the nine members of the Charter Revision Committee who can only serve if the proposal to revise passed.  The decision will also grant the plaintiff his court costs and disbursements for prosecuting the issue.

Despite the City of Ludington having this civil action in their grill since mid-May, they have pushed forward without a care and have had Charter Revision Committee meetings twice a month, have hired special charter attorneys, and paid out some of the other expenses they successfully hid in this year's budget.  

The City of Ludington is likely to try one of three paths.  They may appeal the case to the Michigan Court of Appeals which may be unlikely to reverse the trial court on the main point while leading to additional charges to the taxpayers if they push forward with the committee declared unlawful.  They may try another election in 2023 where they do it correctly.  Or they may just give it up and use the knowledge they've garnered over the last 7 months to offer suggestions on simple charter amendments to offer up to the electors.  

When prodded for a comment Rotta offered:  "Today's decision is a victory for democracy and representative government.  A voter who cannot fully understand a ballot question has been disenfranchised as surely as if they weren't allowed to vote; perhaps more since they may be deceived into voting for something they would otherwise vote against if they knew all the facts.  It's regrettable that the city has decided to go forward with continuing to spend money on this endeavor when their preparations for the May election was obviously deficient and this result that happened today in Baldwin was likely to happen."

To better understand the points that Mr. Rotta used to his advantage today we offer the brief he submitted in response to the defendant's motion for summary disposition, where he also asked the court for summary disposition (but on his behalf).  In full disclosure, the author of this article is closely related to the plaintiff (response quo).

[Freedom Seeker]

Wow! Unbelievable, almost except it is the City of Ludington, so their mismanagement of the law is becoming believably expected. I guess Barnett is not in a repentant mood, or maybe he was invited in to pray over the proceedings. It makes sense now, to me, why LDN hasn't reported. The COL is stunned at the ruling and they wanted to have an illegal closed session at the next Council meeting so they could discuss pending settlement which they do not have. Thanks X for the answer. Wish there were more anal retentives in the peanut gallery and at least a couple in the COL who could think and stand up for what is right.

[XLFD]

Mark Barnett has chaired the CRC all of this year until he resigned the day before the judge voided the election question; I don't see him being reasonable in trying to keep the CRC alive and relevant this year, nor do I see Councilor Moonbeam's husband, the new CRC chairman for a day, giving up the hope of keeping his wife on the council for life.

The other side may be stalling for time at this point.  Their attorney, Ross Hammersley, made it known that he's requesting a transcript before he writes an order for the 12-16-2022 hearing, so by the time that is ready, the scheduled time for the CRC's first meeting of 2023 will likely have passed.  The city hasn't cancelled the meetings, so I'm thinking that the other side is either considering a motion for reconsideration or an appeal and they can stretch that time out. 

Had I been an actual attorney, I would have been given the task of drawing up Judge Wickens' order and this is one of the problems of winning a case when you have filed without using a lawyer, pro se.  I would have had that order drawn up and served yesterday, and he would have had 7 days to offer changes that were consistent with the ruling.  I won in court, but I haven't yet won the cupcake.