Ludington City Council Meeting, August 10, 2026: Control Panels

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"Almighty God, we come before you tonight thankful for our community and the trust that is placed in our leaders.  We ask that you guide our city commissioners to always remember that they are the voice of the people.  Give them the wisdom to truly listen to the needs the hopes and concerns of every resident that they represent.  Help them Lord to lead with humility, keeping the well-being of the whole community above all personal interests.  Father, grant them the courage to make decisions that bring fairness, unity, and opportunity to every neighborhood.  And Father, may their actions reflect the diverse voices of our citizens and honor the public trust that is given to them.  In your holy name we pray.  Amen."  -- Invocation by Former three-term Councilor Pete Engblade, August 10, 2026

We highlight the invocation of the August 10, 2026 meeting of the Ludington City Council (agenda packet here), primarily because it's not typical of the usual invocations we've heard over the last three years, which all have seemed to put their focus only on city officials and their corporation, not on the people who they supposedly serve and their concerns about what they perceive as an out-of-touch city council that continues to grab their wealth and their basic rights.  Engblade's invocation also nicely contrasts with what city officials would be discussing for over an hour and illustrate that all of the governmental empathy he urged towards the people is a concept foreign to the thinking of those making decisions for the city.  

Earlier this summer, this reporter was walking down at the beach and noticed that it seemed to be a favorite haunt for the golf cart riding set, seeing four distinct golf carts cruise the outer drive of G-Park, all within a period of ten minutes.  It seemed a natural match with the drive having a 15-mph speed limit and preferable in many ways to idling through the park polluting the air with an internal combustion engine.  But after this meeting, the city council passed a law/ordinance that made such a trivial trip on the beach strip a violation of the city code potentially subjecting the violator to a $500 ticket (see p. 17-24 of the ordinance).  

This is clearly stated in the ordinance, but even Councilor Cheri Stibitz, who regularly drives her own University of Michigan themed golf cart through this area and parks there, doesn't believe that.  In previous iterations of this ordinance, which has been modified over the year, Stibitz had been assured that her conduct would not be a violation of the law.  She was lied to by the city adminis-traitors and her fellow councilors in the public safety committee.  While it's highly unlikely that the City's beach patrol or LPD would dare ticket this councilor who is running as the favorite for mayor, once any other person is ticketed for doing what she will still be doing, it will be the lighting of political dynamite.

The 90-minute meeting would dispense with unanimously passing this ordinance in only a couple of minutes, without any significant discussion.  When one compares this ordinance with the prior ordinance, it clearly establishes further restrictions on one's rights to operate golf carts in the city and emphasizes a penalty structure that works in the City's favor.  Those changes and additions definitely do not improve the golf cart community's life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness, nor is there any obvious benefit to the rest of the public.  This is one example of the council's failure to live up to Reverend Engblade's invocation.  

Other than approving the shutting down of a section of South James Street for Brill to celebrate their 80-year anniversary (and rebranding) on the afternoon of September 16th, city officials had the first reading of an ordinance that would change the zoning character of the 1.5 blocks of 'Foster School' property.  It seems that the council's passing of the ultra-controlling Ludington Uniform Development Ordinance (LUDO) to replace its own zoning code, organically produced specifically for the city over the decades, had led to a situation where developers would have to jump through more hoops, making the property less attractive for development. 

 

The LUDO as passed and maintained by this council is awfully controlling in nature, as per the whims of city administration and council, so they have created an ordinance to suspend some of its controlling nature by creating an overlay district, one that would circumvent many of the problems created by their own making.  The main topic of this meeting involved discussions by the officials on the dais, with input from multiple members of the planning commission (LPC) and Heather Tykoski, who administrates those issues for the city.

Thus, the majority of the meeting was a bunch of city officials well-versed in planning matters telling us how they would best control development in the city.  One couldn't help but smirk and laugh when they were inferring that they were the experts in making the city attractive to developers, while they simultaneously are being sued by the developers of AndyS' Restaurant for inexpertly keeping them from opening while announcing they were attempting extortion against the developer for a public works project.  

Reverend Engblade would have heard these prideful officials repeatedly tell us why they were best at overseeing the development of the Foster School property, without mentioning how the corporate welfare they offered the last would-be developer just wasn't enough-- they did mention along the way that had someone not blocked them from giving away another unlawful subsidy to that developer, they might have not had to do this overlay.  Humbly serving the community is the opposite of what they have did through the years involving this property.  The haughtiness of Councilor John Terzano and Ms. Tykoski was palpable throughout the discussions, and no other official would temper their passions for governmental power.

In the original public comment, Daniel Jensen and Annette Quillan brought forth a lot of good questions about how the city was to approach that property and asked for some transparency.  Their polite questions were never answered directly in the discussions, and that is not surprising, since this property has had the council discussing it in closed session for hours, without them telling the public what they were actually discussing.  It will not be a surprising revelation that they are secretly collaborating with a potential developer like they did with the first one, a would-be developer who got the property at 10% of what it was worth with a pledge of getting as much corporate welfare from the city as possible.  

Beth Elliot, the odd-woman-out of the mayor race, indicated in her comment that the primary reason she sought the title was to move Ludington towards accepting marijuana dispensaries.  LPC Commissioners Melissa Reed and Patrick O'Hare would argue for the overlay and master plan respectively.  Chamber Economic Development Director Kristi Zimmerman would also enthusiastically support the overlay and the plan to have dense amounts of people in that area would be great for the housing issues the county currently has.

At the last comment period, it was mostly a repeat performance of the first.  Jensen would have another poignant comment about the Foster properties, and why the original zoning designation would have been preferrable and how they should abide by the county treasurer's recommendation to not pass an overlay until after the property is sold at auction (which would not happen before the next meeting).  Zimmerman, O'Hare, and Reed would encourage action on the overlay at the next meeting-- as would City Attorney Richard Wilson at the end of the meeting, correcting City Manager Kaitlyn Aldrich at the same time, who indirectly answered a couple of questions posed by Jensen.

The comments by the LPC members and Zimmerman, along with all of the deliberations among the city officials in the body of this meeting, clearly shows that they are geared towards making the overlay before the auction, and cherish the ability to control the development as much as possible, rather than to maximize the price at auction or the taxable value of the property after any development.  The council and the LPC has set themselves up as control panels, rather than government entities looking out for the well-being of the community.  That's why they let city-friendly Zimmerman ramble on well after the bell, and quiet Jensen before he can finish his last sentence.