Victorious: We Win

[XLFD]

November 5 , 2012:  I had received confirmation that Attorney Philip Ellison of Outside Legal Counsel had filed a complaint in our local circuit court alleging violations of the Open Meetings Act by the City of Ludington.  That afternoon I met with my daughter Victoria and her mother and discussed the case in detail, and went over some of the issues of the upcoming election that was going to be Victoria's first opportunity to vote.  I gave her the usual advice to vote against the city proposal, and gave her a brief synopsis of the various amendments being considered and why I think they were good or bad.  She was supportive and agreed with me on almost every point.  She left with her mother later that night to stay over at her grandparents in Scottville, her sister stayed in town to go to school the next day.

November 6, 2012:  After walking the kid to school, I meandered over to the Ludington City Hall to vote, I'm kind of glad I did vote early, because I may not have voted later in the day.  On my way to my house, I got a call saying Victoria was unresponsive and was being given CPR, I diverted my course to the hospital.  It all seemed so surreal, seeing her being loaded off the ambulance with a trio of first responders continuing in the process of revival as they wheeled her into the emergency room.  She would never get to vote, she was pronounced dead about an hour later.  Dead, due to what was eventually diagnosed as a cardiac arrest brought on by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart.  The eventual defeat of the city proposal to increase term limits by a 2-1 margin that I worked so hard to achieve, means little to me that day.

So unexpected, so sad, and for awhile, I could think of little else other than Victoria and all those who mourned her passing.  I don't know whether the City Councilors knew why I missed the next meeting, the first one I've missed since the last spring, but I didn't hear anything from them or my former colleagues back at the Ludington Fire Department about the loss, then or since.  My attorney was great over the course, showing great empathy and sympathy while conducting the people's business in moving this litigation forward.  It 's funny, but the people who have been most sympathetic about her death, have been most sympathetic with the problems I have had to deal with in trying to hold the City to account for these violations.

November 12, 2012:  I am contacted by my attorney with information that City Attorney Dick Wilson has offered a deal where the City would NOT admit legal responsibility one way or the other as to whether it violated OMA. However, it would stipulate to enter into a final judgment whereby it will be legally obligated NOT to undertake the challenged procedure ever again.  My attorney says comforting words on the eve of my daughter's funeral and allows me the time I need to make a decision, which I eventually decide is not acceptable in that form.  There is no formal admittance of the law being violated, or any sanction if they violate the OMA in a slightly different manner in the future.

November 13, 2012:  Victoria is laid to rest amid much sorrow.  A later visit to her grave that night with others not allowed at the graveside service, has me silently dedicating to her to keep up the good fight against the bad guys in keeping them accountable and to designate the OMA lawsuit to be in her honor.

December 5, 2012:  By this time, the City is still preparing an answer to my original complaint, and have switched their attorney to their risk management attorneys, particularly Allen VanderLaan.  They are granted an extension to supply this answer.

December 21, 2012:  The complaint answer.pdf arrives and is immediately sent to me by my attorney for review.  We later talk of it in detail.  The City effectively admits they did deliberate and decide the issue in a way contrary to the OMA, which surprises the both of us!  We are temporarily perplexed on how to proceed, and talk about declarative, settlement, and injunctive options; Mr. Ellison being mindful of my directive to keep the cost to taxpayers of this litigation as low as possible while achieving the best result that minimally has them admit responsibility (check) and sanction them if they just so happen to do similar things again.  Something it sounds as if the City does not want to do.

January 11, 2013:  By this time, the City Council has met in closed session with their attorneys and/or their attorneys from Grand Rapids three different times to discuss this case (it is only taxpayer's money, after all) and they have apparently nixed a stipulation and order of dismissal that my attorney has sent them, which apparently met some resistance at the client level:  2013 1-7 proposed stip & order.pdf, they have sent me back their own 'revision':  revision.pdf  which is not acceptable as it lacks any binding language to prevent them from doing it again as well as glosses over the infraction.

January 15, 2013:  With more legal wrangling, the other side reluctantly agrees to a stipulated judgment.  Such a judgment has the force of law, as if a judgment had been made by a court of record, with the only cost being tamer language for the City's press release:  Stipulated Judgment.pdf.  This agreement will not only accomplish the objectives, but keep the attorney fees low.  But I have to go at least a week without talking about it so that I don't jinx the deal!

January 21, 2013:  With some anticipation that the City may back out of the deal, particularly since they mention only that the City Manager will only talk about the OMA suit, the City council meets.  I offer a poignant, but fairly light-hearted tribute to Martin Luther King in my opening speech, but nothing about the OMA.  The Council hears Shay talk about five new amendments to the City's FOIA policy, all of them affecting my hobby of learning about my local government, does more business and finally gets to the agenda point where he discusses the OMA suit.

As he reads off the news, spinning it as an 'emergency' situation, an unintentional act, expresses his displeasure at the whistleblower, to the amens of the usual City Hall apologists (Mayor Henderson, Councilors Castonia and Holman), I once again am involved in a surreal situation.  It seems comical to me how public servants, who have over 70 years of experience in their official capacity at their level, can deviate so easily from the truth to defend their breaking of the law, and decide publicly that the real villain in this ordeal was the person who brought this illegal scheme to the light of day.

The meeting ends, I get congratulated by a citizen for my earlier speech, and left the building.  Councilor Marrison comes out, halts me, and hands me the City's news release.  I thank her for her act, since it's near zero degrees.  I put some stuff up about the events, put out my own news release to local media.  And go to sleep after 2:00 AM.

January 22, 2013:  I woke up this morning, early.  The previous night, I had made no connection between the lawsuit's conclusion and my earlier pledge to Victoria, made 10 weeks ago.  I had not imbibed, injected, popped, or smoked anything.  I've not had any unexplained visions of her, nor of any other supernatural phenomena.  But I woke as from a dream, mostly unremembered, but definitely of Victoria, and definitely a good feeling.  It may be that my subconscious had brought this to the forefront in my dreams and that it was a normal dream, but it was as if she took some time out of her enjoying the afterlife to congratulate me.  I also had a fairly recent song imprint itself indelibly on my conscious.  A song she liked, a song that some of her friends would use to corrupt her name into the refrain's memorable (we will be) Victorious.  Incredibly, in recalling the song, I looked up the lyrics, and had them speak to me:  in this very case:

Keep us all dumbed down and hope that We will never see the truth around... With all the green belts wrapped around our minds And endless red tape to keep the truth confined They will not force us They will stop degrading us They will not control us We will be victorious.

We will be, and continue to be, Victorious, God willing.

[AQUAMAN]

And to the Victors, goes the spoils of war/legal entanglements? When anyone says/lies to deceive the public about their true intentions and actions, their false prophet excuses for breaking the law, their finger-pointing tactics and verbal attacks to achieve a warped agenda, then to, they shall, eventually, FALL. JUSTICE MUST PREVAIL, lest it be strained and long awaited. Congrats on a WIN, one of MANY AHEAD in the battle for Truth and Justice!

[XLFD]

As the lawsuit says, I put up $150 of my own money up front and risked the possible expenses of a competent attorney if my suit was to be deemed as frivolous.  The only thing frivolous in this case was the City running up the costs by paying their lawyers a lot of hours, courtesy of the taxpayers, so that they didn't have as much egg on their face.  Their legal fees, involving several lawyers was likely a lot higher than the $4650 my side spent-- just to achieve a press release featuring more spin than a troupe of Sufi dancers.

[AQUAMAN]

And to THINK, if the LDN could have articled a response if you LOST, then the article would have expanded and be resoundingly BITTER and VICIOUS on XLFD, would it not?  This ALONE is an EXPOSE on the LIES that the LDN makes upon the public everyday in it's SPIN on the TRUTH and it's non-existent responsibility of chronicling the TRUTH to the Public 6 times a week! Anyone else agree? Or is it just more funk? Think about it!!

[XLFD]

Aquaman, typically when the outcome of a court case like this is decided in a place with the press around, their first response would be to interview the victor(s), particularly if they were going to be leaving.  If you check out the 1-21-2013 meeting at the end, Patti Klevorn goes up to the mayor, and I saunter off into the ice chest outdoors, unmolested by anyone except Councilor Marrison who gives me a press release.  Nevertheless, I have grown used to accepting the slings and arrows the so-called journalists of the COLDNews directs my way every two weeks as a 'badgering of honor'.  And were pleased that they at least got my laugh line at the end of their article, and that they did not rake me over the coals as harshly as at other times:

[Marty Redman]

Re: the article above second page lower left paragraph.  Slim Shaydy says there have been other emergencies where he had to act prior to a council meeting and then says a "scheme" on which he could do the same thing here but not get the councilors OK.  Does this scare you, that this is how things are done, is this what they learned from this?  This should be looked into and reported on, because this is wack.

[XLFD]

I'm already on it!  Thanks for the reminder.

[Dave]

Technically in this case its hail to the victor but I think this will still work.....

[XLFD]

'Victors' still works if you include me, my daughter, my attorney, and all the taxpayers that lose money when their public servants do no-bid contracts with their established cronies under the radar.  Are you trying to spike the football, Dave, LOL?