Scottville City Clowncil Meeting, July 6, 2021: A Slice of Lemmings

[XLFD]

The 1500th regular meeting of the Scottville City Commission didn't have any indication about its significance rather than a mention of it on the agenda.  The meeting itself won't be noted for the business conducted at it.  The three featured actions on the agenda amounted to an update on how they were going to spend the $5000 gifted them from Arch Staffing to spend on playground equipment, an uncontested request to have chickens by Brittany Powers, and the resignation of Commissioner Brian Benyo.

The lack of significant and controversial content made the meeting last about twenty minutes, enough time to let City Manager Jimmy Newkirk remark that the shipping costs of the company being used for equipment were prohibitive, making him look at a Wisconsin company where they would be able to cut down on shipping costs and perhaps gain extra purchases.  One would have hoped that Newkirk, new to the city management business, concentrated on more than one company in the first place and made his research available in the agenda packet. 

He would also mention the Scottville 10 & 31 Celebration would be taking place on August 6 & 7.  The event would feature some of the traditional parts of the Harvest Festival, with a couple of beauty pageants between 6-9 PM on August 6th, and an ox roast during the next day's lunch hours sandwiched between a car show on Main Street and a rubber duck race at Riverside Park.  Those hoping for the good old days with rides and a carnival look to Scottville will not have to wait long, as the Western Michigan Fair will open its midway a few miles down US 10 three days later.  

Going down US 10 the other way, you may catch sight of Brittany Powers' proposed clutch (see diagram above) of four chickens that was approved by the council without any issue.  As the City of Scottville is working on a chicken ordinance that would have owners pay $35 a year for registering their 1-6 chickens with the city, it would be a good idea for getting your chicken request in before that takes effect if you have thought about that idea and are in the city limits.

Brian Benyo retired from the clowncil just a little over two years since he was appointed by his peers to replace Leon Begue.   Benyo benefitted from the city clerk not doing her job last year in notifying the public about what to do if they wanted to run in the upcoming election in keeping the job he is now retiring from because he has sold his house and is moving out of town. 

The City will be looking for Benyo's replacement immediately, if you want to cut through the corruption at Scottville City Hall contact the office staff with a letter of intent adding a little about yourself.  If you think the city commission is doing great things, please get sober first and read our Scottville articles in the Ludington Torch.  Your city needs to get its corrupt officials under control before you can even think of future prosperity.

My public comment, which was tonight's only public comment, came at the end of the meeting and discussed the City's continuing difficulty with the Open Meetings Act (OMA) and a new term I borrowed from Mr. Benyo's retirement letter, found in the packet.  The city clerk and even the city attorney might take issue with my OMA viewpoint seeing that they believe posting the agenda on their city hall board and document section of their website fulfills their notice duty, but they will soon be reading a legal document that disputes its legitimacy.  Here's what I said-- almost since I was cut off mid-sentence in my last paragraph for taking three minutes-- but first a picture of Commissioner Benyo drifting down the river:

XLFD:  "On December 7, 2020 this commission voted to hold 2021 meetings at 6:30 PM on the first and third Mondays of the month.  Tonight is the first Tuesday of the month, not a regular meeting night.  As such, this is what the Open Meetings Act calls a rescheduled regular meeting, where a public notice needs to be posted at least 18 hours before the meeting at both the principal office of the public body, which is city hall, and on a portion of the city website that is fully accessible to the public.  Neither of those public notices have been posted.

The Open Meetings Act states that a meeting of a public body shall not be held unless public notice is given.  This is not a legitimate meeting.  This is one more reason why many of your citizens call this the city clowncil, you just can't seem to get things done properly and lawfully.  Be prepared to reenact everything you did at this meeting.

I was wanting to encourage former Clowncilor Benyo to reconsider his resignation tonight, but the clowncil once again put the public comment period at the end of the meeting, in repugnance to the clear procedures outlined in the city charter.  I can read between the lines of his resignation letter which indicates among other things, that he is concerned about people acting like lemmings in impeding progress in Scottville. 

For those ignorant of that term, a lemming is a person who seemingly does not possess any form of individual thought, and instead, mindlessly follows the behaviors and actions of others he identifies with.   The dishonest Scottville City Hall staff and this clowncil fit that definition completely, so in the future, out of deference to the retiring Mr. Benyo, I will refer to city officials collectively as a slice of lemmings.  

While most citizens of Scottville likely hope that the city's lemmings follow Mr. Benyo into an early retirement and allow honorable people to take their place and hold all those who embezzled money from the city coffers to account, this is unlikely to happen as the remaining slice of lemmings are more interested in protecting 'their own' and their own private gains at the public's expense. 

Mayor Lemming says the city charter is optional, so meeting procedures, deadlines for budgets, required election notices, etc. are violated without an issue from the other lemmings.   Mayor Lemming decides to mute the public comments at zoom meetings then later throws someone out of a meeting for no reason, every other lemming does not see a problem, police chief Lemming follows her off the proverbial cliff.  

These issues and more will be addressed, and when they are, many of the lemmings I see before me will rue the day that they could have followed Brian Benyo.  Thank you."

Chief Murphy was not at this meeting, nor was Treasurer Shafer, but those officials sitting around the tables at the optimist building did their best to avert their eyes away from me when I spoke, nor was their any cockiness in the clowncilor's final statements, mostly about the departing Benyo.  One could look at his resignation as a natural result of his finding greener pastures outside of the city, or one could look at it as a direct result of him not wanting to be associated with the corrupted commission he has found himself on.  

I prefer to believe the latter simply because of the language he used in his departure, which have probably not ever been used before in a resignation letter (drum-beaters, flame stokers and lemmings).  He was aware that the tympanic music was about to start, the heat was going to grow even more, and those officials who mindlessly allowed the laws and charter sections to be violated with impunity would be pushed to the edge of the cliff.