Ludington City Council Meeting, March 24, 2025: Hungry, Hungry, Hypocrites

[XLFD]

Legal issues from both a Ludington citizen and a Ludington business would supersede the agenda items for the Monday evening meeting of the Ludington City Council on March 24th.  The planned absence of City Attorney Ross "Sewage Hammersley did not make the legal controversies disappear from discussion, although city officials did not take part.

The agenda packet, showing no major activity, was made even lighter by the council when they amended out any discussion over the hazy smoking ordinance still undergoing its nth revision in committee as the council has made the process more habit-forming and unhealthier than an unfiltered Camel.  

The public comment period started with Mayor Mark Barnett reading the usual rules and with me sauntering up to the podium to be the first speaker, as City Manager Kaitlyn Aldritch, readied the timer he warned:

"Before you start, I'd like to review the last meeting where I stopped you midsentence and I'm asking for your comments, certainly let your conscience be your guide, and treat each other with some degree of decorum and I would ask that when you talk about people, address them the way that you would want to be addressed, so thank you."

While I definitely would not refer to the corrupt people in my comments the same way that I would want to be addressed ("The Most Exalted Emperor of South Ludington" is my preference, for future reference, Mayor Marx), my prepared comment was jam-packed with "raw sewage", my nickname for the aforementioned absent attorney.  The impact of dropping his sobriquet in my comment would be minimized without him there to appreciate it, so I showed that I could restrain myself-- even though I'd do my best to say his name as "Raw-sss" instead of Ross.  I've used the nickname enough this year already for our officials to complete it for me in their little minds.

XLFD: (7:15 in) "Back on February 10th, I made a FOIA appeal to this council claiming that I was overcharged in three different ways for a simple FOIA request for the city's 2024 credit card transaction statements.  FOIA Coordinator Raw-sss wrote a ten-page opinion and took about 15 minutes of your time, but he never addressed what I had appealed and at best affirmed my claims.  The cost estimation worksheet I received showed it would take two hours of a clerk's time to retrieve the records.  Two hours to locate and fetch a file of credit card statements?  Hardly, and Raw-sss admitted that in his defense, saying that the two hours would be done copying the records instead.  The worksheet has a section for that; he claimed nothing in his response, which was supposed to be a good faith estimate of the actual costs involved.  If we are to believe it would take two hours to scan about 100 pages, then our clerks with the best duplication equipment around can only scan one page ever 70 seconds or so.  I'd fire a clerk that had such abysmal productivity.  

Then I was told there was no exemptions in the records but that I would be charged for a clerk removing exemptions from the transaction statement.  You accomplices who supposedly represent the people in your respective wards, bought that BS, just like you bought the last illicit fee, charging me twice for the clerk's fringe benefits.  The FOIA law doesn't allow for either charge, effectively meaning that twice again Raw-sss is committing public extortion and should be facing two more misdemeanors rather than publicly extorting the city right in front of its nose by asking for $16,000 just for FOIA expenses in the payment of the bills section. 

If you read Raw-sss's latest employment agreement in the 12-23-24 meeting packet, we find that they will bill the city monthly and expect to be paid within 6 days after the meeting their bill was submitted. 

My next FOIA request will be records to find out how Ross Sewage robbed from the people of Ludington to get a one-month bill for FOIA services up to $16,000, when his paralegal, who does the majority of the work, only gets paid $75. 

You certainly have a criminal lawyer in Raw-sss.  Please enjoy another FOIA fee lawsuit, you've earned it with your apathy about transparency.  [END comment]

At this point, my process server Jeff Henry hand delivered my FOIA fee lawsuit (the COMPLAINT) to the city clerk, as the mayor would relate that he appreciated my courtesy in my comment.  I hope His Honor remembers my civility the next time he interrupts me mid-sentence, as he admitted prior to my comment.

Mr. Henry would follow with his ultimate quest to put the director of the state DNR, Ron Olson, in a courtroom to answer a few questions regarding the Waterways Commission, as was determined by the Mason County 51st Circuit Court and effectively moved around and appealed by the state's attorney general office defending against such open discussion from a very secretive DNR who wants to portray Waterways as just an advisory board-- if you just ignore all those decades where it was making final decisions and doling out money to Ludington's public marinas and other projects. 

Henry would make the mistake in believing that the City of Ludington would want to support his efforts to get Olson to Mason County to answer some tough questions, but the problem is that officials want the status quo of having their marinas subsidized by the state whenever they pick up the phone and cry about their solvency.  Witness that at this very meeting, they would consider the application of a Waterways Grant for $1.5 million to add to their own $500,000 for a $2 million dock replacement project for Harbor View Marina's A-dock.  

Much like the state, the City of Ludington has been confused about what sort of group the Waterways Commission is.  This recent Recreation Plan supplement has the WC assist in funding the City Marina construction and setting slip rates and other guidelines:

This is also confirmed in their current general FAQs:

But setting slip rates and funding marinas are government function showing the WC has power and a purse of its own.  All of the state's current websites you can find claiming the WC is just advisory (like here and here) are concerning because recent claims by the AG defending the WC claim they are operational, as they seem to be with all of the authority they throw around.  Our city officials should be curious as to what is the truth, but they see the truth as an obstacle in getting free money from the state filtering down from a supposedly advisory group, as they have for five decades.

Chuck Sobanski finished out the public comment with making light of the efforts at chicken and smoking ordinances and called for more attention to blight in the city, especially in his area.  Chuck needs to be reminded that the Unified Development Ordinance passed in November made it easier for the City to fight blight and that asking your already overstepping government to use their oft-abusive power against your fellow citizens who may be struggling to meet their monthly bills (or is on the city's s&*#-list) shows that his self-proclaimed and humored title of Fourth Ward mayor is fully aligned with city objectives.  In the video, you will see him shaking the hands of all the city official before the meeting, but you don't see his warm embrace of Mayor Marx before that.  The blight topic will be going through the Buildings & Licenses committee next month. 

A public hearing for applying for another grant from the DNR Trust Fund for the Jaycee's Mini-golf area was held.  They are seeking a $350,300 grant from the trust fund with an equal match of their own to make the area more ADA compliant and be able to serve as a covered meeting place near the beach.  Mr. Henry would ask about the commitments between the City and the Jaycees, who lease the lot from the city, and was told they have agreements between them that will last for at least a couple decades.  Rather than later in the meeting, they would approve the application easily.

They would approve three budget amendments for 2025 involving Cartier Park, the LPD (SCBA purchases), and a benefits adjustment for an employee; Aldritch explained it would not affect the overall solvency of the budget.  They would approve the August 16th Suds on the Shore event and a June 21 (Blodgett Park) and September 13 (Rotary Park) "Love Out Loud" block party sponsored by Living Word Church.  

As for the Waterways grant, First Ward Councilor John Kreinbrink asked good questions about this because he appears to understand the reality that the marinas are not even close to acting like enterprise funds.  Kreinbrink understands that if you run an enterprise fund, they need to be self-sufficient on their own earnings, rather than rely on subsidies.  Harbor View is owned by the state and leased by the city for operating, it also allows the state to dump more money into it, money that isn't from profits made by the City in their 5 years of operating HVM, which supposedly are at least $500,000.  All of the private marinas in town have to pay taxes on their property and on their gas, yet somehow, they are able to survive amidst the unfair competitive advantages the two public marinas have, the primary one being the ability to ask and receive $1.5 million grants from the state.

Kreinbrink would be alone and be the only one to vote against approving the application; he should be representing the Fourth Ward, because their representative, Cheryl Stibitz, is missing in action for many of the main businesses in her area.  I would give my own take on the topic during my second comment which even without a warning, was naturally clear of nicknames:

XLFD: (59:30 in)  "You guys really must be proud of yourself, declaring war on multiple small businesses in the community, private enterprises that predated your historically poor efforts of administrating marinas, by asking for a cool $1.5 million gift from the state to maintain the Harbor View money pit, propping up your so-called public marinas made for the yachts of the wealthy built on the backs of the needy, and your own private sector competition.  But it's not much of a competition when you have $1.5 million handouts from a rich Uncle Michigan whenever you ask for it.

In the paying of the bills, you approved a credit card charge of $76 for an order from Hungry Howie's to feed the Zoning Board of Appeals for what appears to be a meeting of theirs on February 18th, where they had no old or new business and only one public hearing. 

Did the city manager approve this credit card charge?  Does the council recognize why this charge is incredibly corrupt especially when you consider that Hungry Howie's is owned by Patrick Patterson and his wife Melissa Reed is a ZBA official who seems to have approved of this mismanagement of public funds in order for her family to prosper on what is effectively unlawful government welfare?  

This is why the city's credit card records are needed to be made public, to root out this continued pattern of crime done on each of your watches; but as most of you have proven, you have been asleep on your watch while city officials continue their corrupt behavior right in front of you.  Step up or step down. [END comment]

When city officials are so numbed by corruption that they can't even figure out why a city official using the city's credit (i.e. our public funds), for what is already an unlawful purchase, for her and her family's own personal gain, they are not serving the public.  To the contrary, they are undeserving of the public, especially when this council takes a special vote to raise their taxes by hundreds of thousands of dollars each of the last two summers.  

Aldritch would ignore this act of corruption and focus only on the city attorney fees I mentioned and displayed in my first comment, saying 64 minutes in that it was a coding error by the clerks for two months of attorney fees.  She said it has since been corrected on the books.  

Kaitlyn, if it's been corrected on the books, why did it come before the Finance Committee meeting in the hour before this meeting without them making the correction on their bills and be approved unanimously at this meeting as presented without any corrections in the packet?  Why are we paying for two months when that would be impossible given the City Attorney Agreement, where billing is monthly, and they are paid within 6 days of the meeting they are approved by council?  Why don't you address Hungry Howie-gate?

What we have is a council and city hall full of hungry, hungry hypocrites, who with one possible exception, the principled John Kreinbrink, are working against the people's interest.  

[Freedom Seeker]

Unbelievable RAW-sss charging $16,000. Sixteen thousand dollars of taxpayer money and sub-contracting for $75 an hour? Thank you X for standing up for this corruption. Did I read that right ?  I hope a Righteous judge sees where the COL are blinded to their corruption and are exploiting the citizens.  Outrageous.  RAW--sss typifies what gives attornies and our legal system a bad reputation.

Best of luck to Jefferson Henry and thank you for fighting the crazy broken treaties.

[XLFD]

One would think that if city clerical staff is:

1) not bringing attorney invoices in timely to be paid,

2) miscoding the monthly retainer as FOIA costs not once but twice,

3) taking two hours to locate and fetch credit card statements for the last year, and/or

4) taking over 70 seconds to scan each page of those statements,

that the review of their job performance would be unacceptable.  This type of productivity and competency would not be tolerated in the private sector, and the weak cog would be replaced upon review.  

Since the productivity and competency issues are not being considered as problems, this becomes more of an administrative weakness.  At the same time, it makes the council look bad as they blithely accept that they are embracing inefficiency and wasting public resources while hiding that fact and other public records behind a paywall.  

This mirrors the same problems with the city-managed marinas.  Millions of free dollars from the state within the last four years, potentially $1.5 million more in this grant they're applying for, and they market themselves as enterprise funds without blushing.  The loans from the city, the dozens of state grants, with millions rolling in from an agency that shouldn't have any power or discretionary funds, all disprove that assertion.  But it proves that there is no incentive to the city to manage these marinas with any degree of fiscal responsibility as we know that term.  The problem is they all know what they are doing, and they keep doing it because they know they can keep getting away with it.

[Freedom Seeker]

I'm confused by your reply, X. Of those 4 things you enumerated, are they actual or hypothetical action or somewhere in between due to clerical error?

Do you know how much Hammersley has been paid this year on top of his salary or retainer? No one in COL.probably cares as long as Hammersley can try to achieve their goal of breaking you and your local DOGE-like actions in hometown. I hope ROSS'' action of unreasonable FOIA fees blows all the way to Traverse City and finds karma. By the look of some of his interests up there he seems like the young lawyer that can be corrupted not to stand up for law.

The COL.is using You as the BADGUY for all their problems (not wanting to abide by FOIA laws in this case) and have been for years because you ask for public records and accountability.

Your last line "The problem is they all know what they are doing, and they keep doing it because they know they can keep getting away with it" quote from you is so true and until there is accountability, the COL will keep hiding behind lawyers and racking up the legal bills and dump them on the taxpayer.

What a shame. If the COL spent half of what they do in legal fees defending their wrongdoing, and put it toward the homeless, every homeless person in Ludington might be housed.

[XLFD]

The first two items actually happened at this meeting, the monthly retainer for the CA was miscoded as FOIA related expenses, and as the CA agreement would not allow for two month periods of payment, the CA either billed for two months or the city was about one month tardy in paying the first.  

I would say there is a fair chance both items were likely created more by Raw-sss and his clerk than the Ludington clerks.  The second two items are the CA's 'good faith' estimation of how long it would take clerks to either retrieve or scan in one year's worth of credit card statements.  I've seen Ludington clerks in action, and they seem fairly competent with their stuff, I have seen their scanning/copy equipment get through a 20 page stack of papers in under 20 seconds, I wish I could afford one.  Ergo, the four items are the lies and delusions of Raw-sss as he tries to block FOIA requests using the only thing that seems to work: paywalls.

Raw-sss is getting paid a monthly retainer of $8000 ($96,000 annually) and gets paid his hourly rate of $300/hour when he is engaged in other tasks not covered, like FOIA, crafting new ordinances, defending/prosecuting in the local courts, etc.  His errors that lead to lawsuits by me and others probably have cost the city at least an additional $20,000 per year on average.  I thought Raw-sss was an OK guy at first, but I'm to the point with him that I would welcome Richard Wilson back as a more principled barrister.

[Freedom Seeker]

Thanks for explaining that, X. Not only does $96k salary a year seem like public extortion for Hammersley's lack of knowledge and ethics (for a second job) Hammersley's "ponzi" scheme of making $225 an hour ($300-$75 which he pays his paralegal, if i understand correctly) should say it all of his true "public' service. Makes me sick.

You're right. Wilson was maybe not an angel, but a lesser devil, in comparison. Sad. And my thought is that the COL CC and mayor are so intent on destroying the ethical and legal truth that you freely give every every other week that they are blinded to what is right, just and fair. Wake up Mayor and City Council of Ludington!

[Willy]

Thanks X, for your time and effort. We both know nothing's going to change until the numbskulls voting for this bunch of losers start paying attention and use their voting rights to rescue the City from these corrupt politicians.