Friday, September 28, 2012

Iron BOC - 9/25/2012

Chicaugon Lake - Again

The Chicaugon Lake milfoil, use license, boat launch,
enforcement, and camera issues came up again at the
September 25 Iron County Commission open meeting.
At an earlier meeting it was disclosed that a camera
had been placed to capture images of the boat launch
and that no authority had been granted by the county
or Stambaugh Township for the device.

It took a few weeks to bring forth an individual to
assume all political and legal fallout that could result
from the placement of the camera that had been
removed before the September 11 meeting. On the
25th, John Archocosky, former Iron River City
manager and formerly on the County Road
Commission Board, (among other things) and a
lakefront property owner stated that he had, without
authority or support from anyone, installed the camera,
and subsequently removed it. But on Sept 11, Joe
Shubat, a Chicaugon Lake Association member,
informed the County Board that the camera had
been emplaced to discourage vandalism, and he also
stated that it had been removed.

While Archocosky acknowledged that he accepts
full responsibility for the acts, it remains clear that
there's more to this episode than he has stated,
because clearly at least one additional member of the
Lake Association knew all about it, and what two
people know usually rapidly becomes common
knowledge in a small community like the lakefront
property owners.

But then, some of us have witnessed Mr. Archocosky's
antics before. Your humble correspondent believes that
the “idle hands are the devil's workshop” might have
played a role in this episode and we look forward to
more of the same now that Archocosky has “retired.”

Fortunately for all, the events took place on public
property where any expectation of privacy is debatable.

A second issue regarding the current Stambaugh Township
ordinance and enforcement of the ordinance surfaced
during the meeting of the 25th that was well attended by
an estimated 60 citizens. One citizen stated he was filing
a lawsuit regarding the issuance of a complaint by
Stambaugh Township when his vehicle towing a boat
trailer was parked in the public access parking lot
without a requisite showing that township mandated
fees for boat launch had been paid.

The individual, inadvertently or otherwise, apparently
set a trap for township law enforcement by parking a
vehicle with a boat trailer while having left his boat at
home. Township law enforcement presumes, when
seeing a vehicle and trailer in those circumstances, that
an actual boat launch had been made. In this case that
premise was not true.

Unfortunately, for anyone who becomes involved in
any legal action in the Iron County Unified Trial Court,
appearing under these or any similar circumstances
before Judge Schwedler creates a very iffy situation
where trumped-up charges, at least as often as not,
results in a court finding favoring whoever is in the
court's good graces rather than on the actual merits
of the case.

And that, brings us to another issue. Schwedler is
elected only as probate court judge. The Michigan
Supreme Court assigns him the function of overseeing
trials in both a district court and a circuit court setting,
while the real courts of jurisdiction for Iron County
exist in nearby Iron Mountain. This assignment is
periodically made with a termination corresponding
to the election cycle.

The practice finds some authority in a state
constitutional amendment that is subsequently
misappropriated by the Michigan Supreme Court which
repeatedly assigns Schwedler a "temporary"
appointment that constructively becomes permanent.

Iron County Doings urges the state legislature to set a
one election cycle (4 years) term limit for any judge
who accepts an appointment to a "unified trial court"
position anywhere in the state with no possibility of
reelection to any judgeship in Michigan later on[1].

The concentration of judicial power to a single judge in
a county like ours is not good for its citizens, and long
term judgeships of this sort in a small community readily
lend themselves to the careless creation of fiefdoms
lacking appropriate oversight or correction. Lord Acton
was quite correct in his observation that “power corrupts”
and the conventional extensions of the concept are equally
true in this instance.

The fortuitous outcome of the September 25 meeting
relevant to Chicaugon Lake was the dissolution of any prior
agreements about lake use regulations between Iron County
and Stambaugh Township. So long as there are any lake
infection vectors available that cannot be regulated, such
as swimmers, wild animals, waterfowl, and others, there
cannot be a successful elimination of the milfoil pest in our
region.

Part of the price of enjoying the fruits of a world economy,
as we do, is the importation of nuisances that were
previously isolated from our region by the distance alone.
We’ve had plenty of warning throughout history that such
a phenomenon presents a danger to communities where
commerce connects people who, historically, had never
met. The “black death” of the middle ages provided a clear
example as did anthrax outbreaks that resulted in the
burning of entire villages with the scattering of survivors,
and on into the civil war period where “white man”
diseases found a foothold among native Americans.

Milfoil will eventually succumb to newly invented measures,
provided those measures don't create some altogether
new problem for us. The U.S. government expended
significant resources attempting to stop the spread of
the Japanese beetle when that insect first manifested on the
US east coast, but to no avail. Before we expend fortunes
on containing milfoil we might, as a human race that is
dependent on bees as part of the mechanism necessary
to our food supply, concern ourselves with the world
wide die off of the all important bees. I noticed it in my
garden this past summer. Didn’t you? My string beans
and tomatoes were hit by the September frost while still
bearing unfertilized flowers. Someone better find a
working solution for the bee problem, and do it fast.

Cameras indeed. What were you thinking?

Bill Vajk

[1] This would encourage qualified senior lawyers
who are approaching retirement to accept the position
and thus the appointed judge is less likely to have a
personal agenda to enhance their own power and
prestige. In the aging population of the United States
it should prove no difficulty to find suitable
candidates and the citizens of smaller counties
would never be stuck with a less than ideal judge
for long periods. Michigan should also reconsider
requiring the retirement of state judges at age 70 as
human longevity has provided many of us with highly
productive elder years.

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