Scottville's Fake Newsletter

[XLFD]

City leaders in Scottville have developed an image problem over the course of the last eight months, many would say it is well deserved if they have been following along.  To combat this, the city hall office staff has decided to prepare regular newsletters in order to inform the public about what's happening.  One of these was prepared about two weeks ago and sent to the citizens of Scottville.  Apparently, they had received some positive feedback from the first newsletter sent out earlier this year.  Here's an interesting portion of it:

In these three paragraphs, one can see why Scottville city leadership has an image problem, and why this website has received more reports of City Manager Jimmy Newkirk lying to citizens about relevant topics than we have about PM Township Supervisor Jerry Bleau doing the same.  The latter ethically-challenged administrator at least has the wisdom to not put his prevarications on paper.  Here, Jimmy Newkirk not only does that, but sends it out to everyone, thinking that they will trust him.

The first thing to note in his letter is that he effectively time-stamps when it was written by indicating that the commission will vote on the Brownfield Plan on June 12, in the future.  It was never established at the meeting why cleanup of the site contamination would make the construction impossible, when that is actually a fairly small part of the cost.  As usual, he fails to recognize that the citizens of Scottville and other relevant taxing authorities will be paying for this incrementally over the next two decades, making potential shortfalls in their budgets, but that's to be expected.

Going to the prior paragraph he tells a variety of whoppers in talking about boat launch parking fees.  He says there is NOW a $5 fee for parking, but that parking fee was not established until the June 12th meeting, so he is broadcasting that the fix was in for that vote.  He states it was discussed by the commission over the last year, but that business or even discussion never happened according to the minutes and agendas of the meetings.  It was only mentioned in the first meeting this year, when we were told it was being discussed in a standing committee, not the city commission.

He emphasizes:  "Our site was the ONLY site in Mason or Lake County that didn't charge a fee."  I would have him note that Sutton's Landing (on the PM River even) has a boat launch with free parking:

And the boat launch at the foot of the Pere Marquette cross, owned by a private entity interested in preserving this monument and its free use by the public:

I'm sure there are plenty of other boat launch facilities in this county, and Lake County that don't charge to park, but this double refutation in PM Township should go to show that City Manager Newkirk either hasn't done his research or just doesn't care about truth.  Let's not forget, Newkirk had parking fee signs erected over a week before the 'resolution' creating the fee was passed on June 12th.  Most city managers would know that a resolution cannot establish a civil infraction where fines or fees need to be paid, only ordinances can do that.

In Scottville, you can tell that the fix is in even before any action is taken by the commission, and it's not just with boat launching fees.  When they ran an ad for a replacement commissioner in Rob Alway's media effort, Scottville citizens were given until June 8th to submit applications, and since this newsletter was meant to be received before the June 12th meeting, it is unlikely that the application process was closed when this was sent out.  Nevertheless, the newsletter indicates that Randy Wyman is a city commissioner the week before June 12th and that he already had a city email:  

Randy Wyman did not become a city commissioner until he was selected by the commission and given the oath on June 12th.  With all the foregone conclusions and inaccurate information on this latest newsletter, city staff must be following some lessons from Commissioner Alway's playbook.

[Willy]

You have to give them some credit. They got the name of the city they live in right. Most of the information that is put out by the City of Scottville will be completely absorbed and believed by the citizens unless they have access to the truth. When I first saw the title of this topic the first thing I thought was that you were referring to Always news media, MCP.

[XLFD]

Alway's effort is a bit more ambitious, being Mason County's fake news, not just Scottville's.  Getting newsletters to the hundreds of households in the jurisdiction of Scottville isn't a cheap effort with publication, processing and mailing fees being paid for by the taxpayer, one would hope it could be clear from anything that might be considered propaganda and politics and be purely factual and informative.  Failure.

I'm sure that Clowncilor Alway encouraged this effort as a way for the COS to command-the-narrative as you say to the general public, and most who read the newsletter and put their trust in city hall will gobble this data up and maybe even save it for future reference.  This may be a bigger group than those who read through it and recognize the inaccuracies and self-promoting (or even our Scottville contingent on the LT). 

Yet the biggest set of folks in Scottville will pitch this after a quick glance over it.  Ideally, we want them to become critical thinkers, but this will not occur usually until it becomes personal for them or their family.  Telling them that the city clowncil just illegally raised their property taxes or that Dollar General just got a payment plan from the city for $30,000+ a year for the next 22 years and that they instituted a fine/fee for boat launch parking by means of a simple resolution rather than by ordinance-- all at the same June 12th meeting-- should have them at the gates of city hall with pitchforks and torches at the next meeting. 

Until we start seeing this happen, Scottville will spiral down into irrelevancy.