Ludington City Council July 11, 2022: Culls, Consultants, and Compasses

[XLFD]

The agenda packet for the July 11, 2022 regular meeting of the Ludington City Council wasn't ambitious as far as the quantity of actions, but it was ambitious on the extent of their intended actions. 

Before getting to their business, two councilors led a presentation in celebration of winning a 'Michigan Green Communities Challenge' silver award.  The award is part of an annual program that serves as a guide to help communities measure their progress towards sustainability.  Sustainability is a progressive catchword without a lot of real meaning other than when you score high you're likely on your way to a socialist Utopia.  In the MGCC it includes the following:  

-- Incorporate sustainability, energy use, green building standards, and/or climate metrics into capital improvements planning.

-- Begin implementing climate mitigation and adaptation measures in capital improvement projects.

-- Pass a policy or resolution affirming the community’s commitment to equity as a key component of sustainability and the municipality’s mission, work, or actions.

-- Require an environmental justice assessment for any new municipal policies or infrastructure projects.

-- Set goal for greenhouse gas neutrality by 2030 or earlier in all municipal operations.

-- Perform a climate vulnerability assessment that considers health and equity impacts.

-- Develop a hazard mitigation plan with climate projections included.

-- Achieve green building certifications for at least 75% of municipal buildings.

-- Adopt decarbonization targets for municipal operations and facilities.

-- Meet the decarbonization target set for the municipal vehicle fleet.

-- Use brownfield clean-up and redevelopment processes to further community sustainability goals.

-- Update zoning ordinances to require low impact design techniques in all new and redevelopment projects.

-- Adopt policies that require Electric Vehicle infrastructure or EV-ready infrastructure in any new private development or significant redevelopment project.

As you can see, getting a gold award in this challenge would require a high cost and commitment towards the even higher costs of the 'green new deal'.  Councilors Winczewski and Stibitz acknowledged a lot of city employees and contractors (invited to and present at the meeting) who got them to the silver level at this meeting with a hint that they will be dedicated to improving their silver status.  Their goals appear to go beyond what our current city charter allows for and emphasizes.

In the first public comment, Annette Quillan would pose logistics questions to the council as regards to food trucks operating at the beach as is being debated (the hidden reason for the West End Slab's construction?) and the 'equity' for the establishments already present.  Loren Brenowitz would speak favorably of the "deer cull petition" submitted to the council and hoped the council would heed it (she spoke for a deer cull last September before the council); she would thank the council for moving forward during her later comment.

  I followed and finished up the comments, wondering about what the council was going to spend its tax hike money on, how they have lost their ethical compass, and briefly introduced a new scandal wherein a connected developer received $600,000 to improve their private property in the understanding that they would develop it, but instead they now want to sell the property-- at a large profit thanks to all of those taxpayer-funded improvements.

XLFD: (5:40 in) "Last two meetings I asked this council for an accounting as to why they needed to actively and intentionally raise property taxes in order to collect $140,000 more from their constituents who are suffering from double digit inflation in their food, gas and energy purchases.  One might as well ask muggers why they need the contents of your wallet more than you do, because the muggers will give you the same derisive look as this council collectively did when they bleed you of your hard-earned cash.  The muggers may at least give you a reason why they need your money or they just might punch you in the gut before they throw your empty wallet back at you; this council chose the latter.  

Our city leaders are acting without an ethical compass to guide them.  They surreptitiously hire a firefighter convicted of eight felonies over the course of his twentysomething years of life.  This council defends the hiring while at the same time approving of the LPD's escalated and unlawful arrest of one of Councilor Johnson's neighbors, not once but twice, caught on camera both times.  When the school resource officer undeniably lied repeatedly on a search warrant affidavit, this council, the school district and the LPD fail to police their own and allow such outrages to go forth in the future.  

Another outrage: Councilor Joe Lenius' daughter, Kelly Parker, who also served as Councilor Brandy Miller's administrative assistant in the chamber of commerce, created an LLC and purchased a downtown property.  She sought favor through the council late in 2020 for a Brownfield grant application extension without that conflict of interest being admitted to by either former councilor or entered into the minutes, even after I pointed out their error and Mr. Foster admitted the extension would provide additional funding to the Parkers over the original $46,000-- it grew to $600,000.  A couple months later the Parkers went before the Planning Commission and sought approval for building 5 townhouses at the site, construction beginning in the spring of 2021.

Apparently, they got the $600,000 grant because the old gas station was razed and the contamination issues were mitigated.  We now see that the Parkers are trying to flip the property, newly improved by our tax dollars, to some other potential developer for what will surely be a big profit for them.  At the same time they found an extra $200,000 from somewhere to buy property across the street with designs to do something very similar.   My local government condones this because it's ethical compass is broken.  (END Comment)

As usual, the assembled officials did not bother once again to tell me why they needed the $140,000 or debate why the taxpayers were put on the hook to upgrade private property just so it could be flipped for the benefit of a well-connected speculator.  I'll explain more in a future article where I'm not limited by minutes and/or medium. 

As if to prove that city officials lacked a moral compass their first real action of the night involved moving $400,000 from the general fund to help finance the Cartier Park Bathhouse project, which we saw would cost over $1.1 million.  When one adds up the $400K to the $400K already set aside by the campground's enterprise fund, there is still a shortfall approaching $400K, but this wasn't detailed in official's comments or in the packet.  That additional $140K per year we all need to pay will help make our guests at the Cartier Park Campground have the two ritziest bathhouses in the county.

The councilors would consider the four petition papers submitted with over 5 dozen citizens signing in support of a deer cull, but they would not commit to having armed professionals coming in to shoot them.  Later on they would signal that they were copacetic to the idea when they approved of $55,000 for three years of deer culling when they approved American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocations with that figure.  Frankly, I can't see where killing deer is one of the seven possible uses of ARPA funds, but it should make for an interesting debate at later meetings.  

Other than a couple of appointments (to the MERS annual meeting and the DDA) the only other action at the meeting was the first reading of an ordinance to hire a consulting firm for two years in order to create a Unified Development Ordinance (UDO).  Our city officials undoubtedly want such an ordinance so that they can check another box or two and get all that much closer to earning gold in their progressive objectives.  They're willing to spend a lot of your gold that too many are so willing to give in order to spend $54K just to help write an ordinance.  I addressed that and the deer cull issue in my final comment:

XLFD: (47:35 in)  "I find it bizarre that city leaders are wanting to spend at least $54,000 in hiring a consultant from the metro Detroit area to draft a Unified Development Ordinance for our city.  Don't we have enough smart residents familiar with the area and enough template UDO models from other cities to figure this out ourselves?  Maybe we can experience the same amount of growth Detroit has experienced over the last seven decades with this group's help (*sarcasm*).

Last month you heard from a lot of citizens wanting the city to buy our guns, this month you have petitions from more citizens asking the city to buy hired guns to thin out the herd.  Isn't local government fun?  How wasteful it seems to me to spend $20,000 per year to bring in deer cull 'experts' to kill a dozen deer if they're lucky, when we have so many locals willing to pay their own big bucks to the state each year just to go out and shoot deer themselves. 

Culling operation by firearms in the city limits would be limited by state law to Cartier Park, so if you live south of Ludington Avenue you won't see any results from an expensive deer cull.  But frankly, you won't see any lasting results in the north of town either as deer culls by themselves will not cure the problem." [END comment]

It's a shame that our city officials leave their common sense at the door when it comes time to making policy, but one official contacted me afterwards and expressed appreciation for my words on the deer cull.  

I actually had a hard act to follow when I made my comment.  A local defender of liberty named Tim Jensen stepped up to the podium at the 46:20 mark of the meeting and let the council know about how he felt of the deer cull, the Second Amendment, and other things, before tossing a small stack of papers unceremoniously onto the dais in front of the mayor (where it slid down), then walked out while asking whether they believed in God because he holds everybody accountable. 

As if on cue, I appeared before them within seconds.  

[Willy]

Thanks for the report X. If there was any doubt that the left is here and is trying to manipulate your way of life, that has been laid to rest. This Council has come out of the closet and has exposed it's intention to  go along with the  new Agenda 2030. That sure sounds very familiar. This forum had discussions about similar ideas that were being considered back a few years when X posted a topic about LIAA coming into the community to influence how the Master Plan would be altered to reflect Leftists doctrine and Agenda 21. We now have the new and more radical Agenda 2030, specifically goal number 11, which Ludington's leaders will be more than eager to implement. This global approach to local issues is not how to run small cities like Ludington. Who will really be in control. Not the citizens themselves.

Youtube and other paltforms have blocked and eliminated any negative information about Agenda 2030. There are only glowing praises for this totalitarian push to create a global government to rule over and control the World's societies. They mask this Marxism and 1984 style thinking by dressing it up with glowing propaganda on what a paradise they will be creating while removing your freedoms and liberties. We are in dangerous times.

[XLFD]

One needs only take a look at the recent direction of the City of Ludington to see that they are advancing willingly towards 'Agenda 2030', yet I think only a handful know that's happening and willfully complying.  Creating their own Brownfield Authority while allowing the Parkers to game the system, sneakily trying to alter the city charter to make it easier to pursue Agenda 2030 concepts, using GR consultants to make a unified development ordinance which will undoubtedly address equity/climate change/sustainability, etc. show this trend is led by city hall staff.  

The question I have is are our city leaders true believers in the faith or are they just following the path to get additional funding from grants and state agencies that are geared up by the administrative state to push for those goals?  

[Freedom Seeker]

Wow! Whoa! Lake Lady, I get a kick out of your "baby-face, Man-boy" and other colorful descriptions. You say it as I would like to, and believe this is the new schooling of the MPA (master's in public administration), coupled with the MML (Michigan Municipal League) and the unions to make golden parachutes for its employees over the citizens struggling to make ends meet. Mitch is good at his job of making more tax base and is in same bed as DDA to grow Ludington at the expense of the taxpayer. The DDA really runs Ludington with greedy narassistic administrator whose head is so far up their own asses that they can neither see the citizens or stand their presence.

[XLFD]

I think we are pretty much on the same page, LL, and a lot of folks I talk with on the side, some that are not all that familiar with the overall mechanics of all things, see issues too.  This includes our 'regulars' here, like Freedom Seeker, Willy, and Aquaman.  

I also still view the mild-mannered city manager as a good man, but the swamp is in ascendance in Ludington and at the state level and so his talents are being used to further their murky ends.  As you say, we need to have quality candidates run at all levels who realize what the true functions of state and local government should be so that administrators can reflect those values in their administrations.

Since there doesn't seem to be any shake up at the city council this year due to elections, and minimal inroads at the state level at best, I fear that Mitch Foster will fall even more and may be irreparably tainted by corruption before the next election cycle in 2024.