The Ludington City Council heard a 2023 report from the Fire Department, and they approved an amendment to public comment policy. Also approved was the appointment of Deputy County Administrator Kaitlyn Szczypka to the Downtown Ludington Board, and a change was approved to the Cartier Park bathhouse project. All of this occurred during the Council meeting on May 6.
Public Comment Amendment
The approval pertaining to public comment policy in Council meetings was an amendment which only allows public comment to be heard from an individual who is present at the meeting, or a stand-in speaker to speak for that individual if he or she cannot make it to the meeting.
What this means is that letters sent to the Council will not be read aloud by the Council, and must be read in-person by the citizen wishing to participate in public comment, or in-person by a stand-in speaker for the citizen wishing to participate.
The amending of public comment policy to only permit in-person public comment by the writer of the comment, or a stand-in speaker, was approved. The Council consulted a document, The Rules of Conduct for Public Comment at City Council Meetings. And the document was explained by City Attorney Ross Hammersley.
Councilor Wally Cain disagreed with his fellow councilors, saying, “in the last 12 Council meetings, not including tonight, we read 11 public comments. I believe that we should read public comments, that the citizens need to be heard and if they are not present then we should read it. And I think if there is a lot of public comment that needs to be read, I think there is a reason for that, because the public needs to be heard. So, I am voting against this new policy.”
He added that, last year, a lot of public comment was read aloud by the Council about a marijuana ordinance and paid parking at Stearns Park.
Councilor Jack Bulger said that at those specific meetings, concerning Stearns and the marijuana ordinance, that the Council read aloud a number of letters of public comments for people who then made their public comment in person in those same meetings.
“So, we kind of doubled up on the amount of time taken before public comment. Additionally, I don’t think it’s appropriate to force our mayor or city manager to read comments that contain ad hominem attacks against our police chief or city attorney,” said Bulger.
Bulger then said that the safest way to go about it is to not read any aloud, “that way everyone is being treated the same way.”
And Councilor Cheri Stibitz said that the Council is not discouraging citizens to send letters in their absence. By pointing to section six of the Rules, she read that citizens can still submit public comments and their comment will be added to the meeting packet. She said that it is an opportunity to have all citizens be treated fairly.
Councilor Kathy Winczewski agreed with Stibitz and Bulger, saying, “the idea that people’s inflections and their body language is really important when they are reading their own writing. So, I think it’s important that the mayor or city manager doesn’t try to interpret the body language and inflection, it’s hard to do.”
To which Cain said, “we [the Council] will read the comments, but we will not read them verbally. So, the audience here, the audience at home, will not hear those comments.” Cain added that, “if we [the Council] want to address the situation where people both write a public comment and then come to the podium and read that same public comment or a different one, then, if we believe that that’s a problem then let’s address that problem.”
And furthermore, he said that if one falls ill very close to a meeting date it will behoove one to find a stand-in speaker. And he added, “most comments are respectful. Let’s not let the few dictate the fact that we’re not going to read the comments because they might be disrespectful.”
To which Bulger said, “our phone numbers and our email addresses are on the city’s website. It’s not that we’re discouraging people from communicating with us, it’s that we’re taking a step to have an orderly process.”
Hammersley said that citizens who could not attend can access public comments included in the meeting packets, and they can access the packets on the city’s website.
Then Mayor Barnett said, “I think that it’s important that we not get lost in this idea that this is not an issue of trying to get rid of transparency. In fact if you look at it, it really is being more transparent. We’re creating a public permanent record of what was being communicated to the Council in written form. When they come up and come in, in-person and offer their public comment, it is documented on video to see what was said, in the context of which it was said.”
Fire Report
There are 23 members in the Fire Department, among them are firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
In the year of 2023 they had done just under 800 service responses, which were fire and medical related. There were 123 fire responses, and there were 583 medical responses.
“These services for fire calls are structure fires, smell of gas, smell of smoke. Maybe a cat in a tree or something fun like that, we’ll put something like that under fire service responses,” said Fire Chief John Henderson.
Among these calls, 12 were power line calls, 10 were structure fires, and four were motor vehicle fires. While three were for cooking fires, and two for watercraft fires, one of which was a watercraft explosion.
And there were 72 service calls involving vehicle accident responses.
“As for training, we do a lot of it. Last year we did our rope rescue. We did our first half which was, how to tie knots, how to do simple rescues, how to rappel off buildings. And coming up we have about ten members who are ready to rappel off the water tower,” said Henderson.
Further training that they have done is ice rescues, a refresher on hazardous materials, and high and low angle rescues.
They are also preparing for Ludington High School’s football season. And they did a walkthrough on the Life Emergency Medical Services ambulance, in case the EMTs need some firefighters in a situation. Members have been recertified in CPR, and CPR training is offered to the public by the Department.
There is a Rescue Task Force, which is joint training with Ludington Police Department. In addition to this, there were 12 fire members who actually went and did the LPD’s two-hour training class.
“We have helmets and vests that if we ever needed to support PD anywhere that’s needed. But not only is it the equipment, we are training together as well,” said Henderson.
The Department does community outreach programs such as station tours and school visits. And they do site visits, such as to the S.S. Badger and FloraCraft to see what is in those facilities.
They also do community service events, such as the Lake Jump, Love Ludington Street Party, and Dadfest at Cornerstone Baptist Church. They did community services for 19 events last year.
And finally, two new members are coming into the Department. And they are to soon have their ceremonies.
Bathhouse Project
There are two changes that were approved for the north building site of the Cartier Park Bathhouse Project, and two changes were approved for the south building site.
In the north, the first change was to flatten the slope to 1:5, and to install a new structure. And the second change is to install a four inch deep stone apron.
“So basically, these are both for taking water away from the building. And the south building site needs a four inch deep and four inch wide stone apron around the building, and also to flatten the slope to 1:8,” said Winczewski.
The total cost for the four changes is $8,750. Winczewski said that this is only change order number two on the project, and that they still have a remaining $6,511.90 to meet the targeted cost for the project.
City Manager Report
Ludington City Manager Mitch Foster reported to the Council that he attended the Small Town Rural Development Conference at Crystal Mountain, having a number of creative ideas come from that.
He also reported that the Lake Jump for the K9 program raised $34,116.62.
And Barnett added that there have been 5 ribbon cutting ceremonies for new businesses since April 1.
Gus Maker
Chairman Chris Nicholas of Gus Maker was present at the meeting. He informed the Council that there are 268 teams currently registered for the basketball tournament. And he expects that they will be meeting last year’s numbers.
He said that they are about eight to 10 volunteers from having their registration filled for volunteers. Nicholas was present wearing a mascot costume of a big basketball.
“We officially have a mascot, this is Gus Ludington, to visit the kids in the schools and out in the community,” said Nicholas.
