Tiny Tire Tyranny: Ludington Administrators Choose Control and Confiscation over Safety and Legality

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In less than a handful of years in their positions, Ludington City Manager Kaitlyn Aldrich and Police Chief Christopher Jones have earned themselves reputations that should not inspire confidence in the citizens looking for city leaders with integrity and honesty.  We have chronicled many of those lapses, we see it with a growing number of lawsuits against their official actions concerning unlawfully preventing a business from opening while attempting to extort money from them, unethically desecrating their side of a cemetery contract by selling off parts of a family plot, and illegally destroying public records and then illegally shielding emails that would shed light on those destructions. 

This, unfortunately, is just a short list.  The first reading of an ordinance crafted without any meaningful councilor discussion at committee level regarding golf cart and ORV operation amendments is yet another example of authoritarianism.  We are told that it is necessary for the public safety, but this just makes Benjamin Franklin's 250-year-old quote more cogent than ever.  "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."  The ordinance to be considered, when looked at closely and compared to the existing laws, turns out to be less about safety (it's even more dangerous in some respects) and more about control and revenue generation for city hall.

At 46:15 into the May 4th meeting of the Ludington City Council, Councilor Kathy Winczewski read this memo originally from the LPD's top two into the record:

 

Our translation of this memo, noting the authoritarian authors part in transcribing this, is that the existing city code does not have enough control/enforcement mechanisms nor does it offer the city any way to profit from such regulation.  An analysis of the changes it is making into the existing city code shows that it adds several subsections and changes a few others.

While one could say that some of the changes would make operation of golf carts and ORVs safer, the overall effect of the changes seem directed towards the subtly telegraphed profit and control we noticed.  Let's review the changes: 

State law indicates only those with active "valid driving licenses" can operate golf carts, this is superfluous and only added to clarify the poorly stated subsection one of the city code.  Note, while an officer has the power to require you to show a valid DL, drivers have no requirement to have insurance for the golf cart.

This is badly written law.  Section 'a' prohibits people from taking their golf carts into city parks, which hasn't been a prohibition before.  Councilor Stibitz regularly takes her golf cart down to Stearns Outer Drive and parks it there; will she approve this odd restriction?  If carts can go down every other street and avenue in the city that meet requirements, why are park streets off limits?

Section 'b' indicates that sidewalks/pathways are off-limits-- unless permission is granted by an authority.  This violates state law, and public safety, which prohibits being on sidewalks without exception.  City Marina workers regularly use sidewalks, so this is likely why this is added, to give them immunity.  Section 'c' allows an LPD officer to ask an operator for written permission from a business owner whenever he sees a golf cart parking in the business' parking lot or driveway.  

State law (showed underneath the proposed subsection) explicitly prohibits golf carts from operating on city streets in the dark, no exceptions, due to safety concerns.  A city cannot create law that ignores state law without assuming a lot of liability and increasing danger for all street users.  

These five added subsections were left off the original ordinance for good reason.  Fifteen grants a police chief the power to revoke registrations on golf carts on a whim without any kind of due process and gives them latitude to withhold registration.  Sixteen points to a state seatbelt law that specifically exempts golf carts from requiring seat belts, meaning a PD chief cannot require they be used if they are on the cart.  Ironically, cities are allowed to create mandatory safety equipment for golf carts by law, but the city has not done so.  Seventeen is reasonable but very poorly worded, what's wrong with:  "A golf cart shall not be used to carry more persons at one time than the number for which it is designed and equipped to seat.  All shall remain seated when the golf cart is in motion."

Eighteen should be removed in its entirety, as it imposes many more duties on a golf cart operator than is allowed by the vehicle code under the section pertaining to operating golf carts and grants rights specifically disallowed in that section.  Nineteen is just superfluous, a catchall section that allows the city to classify any violation in their favor, as we will discuss after reading twenty and its corresponding entry in the current city code:

Note, the LPD drafters of this ordinance changed violations from being simple civil infractions into "municipal civil infractions", here's why that is an important change for the city in order to profit from violations better than they could before.  According to the Michigan Municipal League, 

"An act which is a civil infraction cannot be a municipal civil infraction. A municipal civil infraction is a civil infraction involving the violation of a municipal ordinance but NOT one of the violations listed above [which includes any violation in the Michigan Vehicle Code designated a civil infraction]."

A (state) civil infraction has fines/fees go primarily towards funding public libraries; a municipal civil infraction has the money go to the city and local court.  The underlying law that provides for golf cart operations in cities and declares what are violations, has those violations set as civil infractions, by law.  The original ordinance passed in Ludington respected that designation, the LPD's rendition is an unlawful money grab.  The five new subsections added as "penalty" at the end of this subsection makes the profit motive very clear, additionally they are incredibly punitive, giving the city an ability to set maximal fees that are five times the rate for regular civil infractions and (at the expense of the accused) allow the city to seek injunctions against a golf cart operator:

Clearly, these penalties arise only because the chief of police has determined that he would unlawfully change these from civil infractions to municipal CIs and financially benefit from charging golf cart operators with violations of a twisted law that says golf carts must follow every traffic rule in the Michigan vehicle code, even those that by their nature, do not apply to golf carts. 

This is tiny tire tyranny and it extends to the changes made in regard to Off-Road Vehicles (ORVs) in the second part of the proposed ordinance.  Many of the changes mirror the silliness of the GC portion, we will only analyze the multiple clerical errors made in the last two subsections (15 and 16), see if you can see some problems before that analysis:

Clerical errors include the 'lettering' of both sections, section 16 has no section (a) or (b), while section 15 has an extra (a) and (b).  That this would not be noticed after first reading and multiple appearances in the public safety committee shows how intellectually active our elected city councilors are in regard to the ordinances that come before them.  

Once again, we see the civil infractions turned into municipal CIs with deeper fines/penalties than the city code allowed for previously, and once again we see the restriction of operating an ORV (or ATV as a subclass) in city parks without permission from the king.  Being that the beach patrol uses an ATV while on duty, we may very well see them chasing down and giving $500 tickets to those using their own to cruise the beach, due to the elitist and punitive nature of these new proposed laws.  

This proposed ordinance is poorly written, but even more poorly thought out.  If the goal of the administrators of the LPD was to promote public safety, they have failed miserably, but they have created a mechanism for them and other city administrators to profit from putting out poorly written and sometimes-unlawful ordinances for approval by a rubber stamp council.

Next Monday night at 6 PM go to the city council meeting and voice your concerns about this attack on our four-small-wheeled friends, driving a golf cart or ATV is optional-- but looking the other way when your city government gets greedy and power-hungry should not be.