slowed down a bit

I apologize to the readers of this publication that the postings
have slowed down a bit of late. I've had a busy April with my
FOIA lawsuit against John Archocosky in the Iron County
Circuit Court.

The present flap has to do with whether or not the Honorable
C. Joseph Schwedler sits on the Circuit Court Bench legally or
not. I have moved to disqualify him from that judicial position
because he has been elected Probate Judge for Iron County,
and his appointment falls outside the methods permitted by
the Michigan Constitution.

For obvious reasons, I will not get into the details, but
there is a public record available to anyone at the Iron
County Courthouse. Since the information there is a part
the public record, I have put that document, asking that
Judge Schwedler be disqualified, on a publicily accessible
web page at:

click_here

Other articles will finally wind their way through the
process here at IronCountyDoings and should appear
next week.

Thanks for your patience.

Bill Vajk
--
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Anonymous Comments

I got another anonymous diatribe last night, on
Friday evening, April 17th, from someone who
apparently has nothing better to do with a
Friday evening. It was a local politico
sock-puppet expounding all the great things
achieved by our illustrious Economic Development
Corporation. I can see where some people might
be convinced that all is marvelous in Iron
County, Michigan, but those folks are easily
misled.

One of my complaints about the Iron County EDC
has been the mission statement.

"To implement strategies that will increase job
opportunity, tax base and quality of life within
the county of Iron."

If the mission statement stuck to "increasing job
opportunities for our residents" I'd be a whole
lot happier. An analysis of the other segments of
the existing mission statement yields some not-so-
very-nice stuff.

First we need to recognize that the Iron County
EDC is 100% government funded, so whatever the EDC
does is the county government doing it. Looking at
what they do to increase the tax base, what we see
is programs that take state money and spend it
locally in order to increase property values in
order to collect more in property taxes. When a
business person improves the facade on their
building, does that improve their sales and profit
pictures? Not when nothing else happens! In fact
a nice looking up to date building is less apt to
draw tourist dollars than a somewhat run down one.

Tourists generally live in regions where all the
buildings they see daily are attractive and up to date.
Why would they come to Iron County to experience the
same things they already have at home? What do we have
that's unique enough to be worth visiting?

The last part of the mission statement is strictly
none of the government's business in the first place.
Where does Iron County get off improving the quality
of life anyway? That's never an appropriate expenditure
of our tax dollars.

Iron County needs only one thing that will accomplish
the entire mission statement, and that is good paying
jobs. Not minimum wage stuff and part time work like
the Call Center, but real, productive jobs paying at
least $50,000 a year with the usual (for the rest of
the USA) fringe benefits. Increased property values
and an improved quality of life will follow naturally.

And contrary to the opinion of our local Economic
Developer, those jobs don't even need to be inside
Iron County! Anywhere that our residents are willing
to commute to a job works just fine. After Niagara
Mill closed it was discovered that about half the
employees live in Dickinson County, and some live
in Florence County. Mrs. Melchiori's stated view
that our economy isn't regional is severely myopic.

As I read down the list that the Julie Melchiori
sock-puppet typed in as an anonymous comment, all
I see is the repetition of the same old story about
all the busy work that the Iron County EDC has
engaged in, while there's no mention of even a
single job that's been created in recent times.

Remember the "Where's the Beef?" commercials on TV
a few years back? I see EDC spending its budget on
all sorts of things, but:

Where's the jobs?

Bill Vajk
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Meeting April 14, 2009 at Bay College West

The Upper Menominee River Entrepreneurs and Inventors
Club is an organization supported by the economic
development organs of three counties, Dickinson in
Michigan, and Florence and Marinette in Wisconsin. I
am pleased to support their endeavors in trying to improve
the economic situation in this part of the world.

Their next meeting is in Iron Mountain on April 14, 2009.
I've scanned in their most current blurb and posted it at:

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/iron-river/e_igrp004.pdf

I am convinced that economics are regional, not local.
Unfortunately for those of us living in Iron County, our
Economic Developer, Julie Melchiori, believes that our
economy stops at the county border and said as much
in a public meeting I was running last summer. It might
be helpful if the local news media played to what Julie
and the Iron County Economic Development
Corporation actually achieved in the last six months
rather than replaying the old story of the Amasa
sawmill that took too long to bring on line and
repeating how wonderful the mostly minimum wage/no
fringe benefits "Call Center" has been for the community.
Aggrandizing the people in various county offices doesn't
do anything to help the situation. It would be far better
for all of us if our other media (that means besides this
publication you're reading right now) were critical of the
continuing failures instead of grasping on to every minor
straw of success that floats by and republishing those
stories again and again.

In the end it is up to us, individually. All that is really
available is self-help and the only idea machine in the
region seems to be, in my opinion, outside of
Iron County in the group I'm referring the reader to
in this article.

For some time I've been an advocate of an exploratory
discussion group that would discover how to go about
recognizing business opportunities that are available to
us without a major capital investment. I'm going to work
towards organizing something like that in the near future.

In the meantime, please attend the April 14th meeting at
6PM at Bay College West in Iron Mountain. Perhaps some of
your hopes and dreams of success can get a jump-start there.

Bill Vajk
--
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Teaser? Not Really.

In the next few weeks this blog will reveal, with direct
evidence, illegal acts of some public officials. While we
have several ready to go, it will take a bit of time to
write them up and have the evidence in hand in a
publishable format.

Please welcome Ben Smith of Iron River as an associate
editor on this web site. The first report on the illegal
doings will come from Ben.

We also welcome reports of illegal activities by pubic
officials from the public. Your name can be part of the
story, or not, as you wish. But clear evidence of the
wrongdoing must be available and you must provide
proof along with the story before it can be published
here. All stories will be verified by us before
publication for the obvious reason that false accusation
could result in being the defendant in a lawsuit.

In between, we will continue with our regular genre.
The first of those has to do with Orwell's 1984 and
our increasingly rapid advance to the point that such
a life becomes very easily possible. Contributions to
and ideas relevant to that story are welcome. Please
feel free to send email to bill.vajk@gmail.com on
the matters discussed here, and any other stories you
think relevant to this venue.

Bill Vajk
--
--
--

Now a Registered Serial Publication

This web site, IronCountyDoings received its
National Serials Data Program registration
as a serial publication. The registration
number will become a permanent fixture on
the web page. That number is ISSN 1947-1475

Bill Vajk
--
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City of Iron River Management Commentary

I decided to memorialize the January 21, 2009,
comments issued by the City of Iron River
City Manager without further comment until
the lawsuit is finally settled. They are
posted here as a matter of record.

The following text is publicly available on
the City of Iron River' web page at this time.

================================================

On December 29th, I was served personally at my home,
with a Summons and Complaint from the Circuit Court
for the County of Iron. Plaintiff, Mr. William J. Vajk,
filed a Freedom of Information request on December 1st
with the City Clerk, requesting 5 different pieces of
information relative to City ordinances, along with
substantial supporting documentation. Following the
City’s FOIA Policy, the staff estimated the costs of
researching, locating, and copying the information
requested. As required in the FOIA Policy, we advised
Mr. Vajk that we believed the information he requested
would cost approximately $60 to try to locate, and
then produce copies. Mr. Vajk responded by complaining
the costs were too high. Much of the supporting
information he was requesting however, required that
it be located and retrieved from the City’s document
storage area, which had been packed away during the
consolidation of the three communities back in 2000.
Keep in mind that at the time of consolidation, the
files from all three communities were simply placed
in unmarked boxes, delivered to 2nd level of the
former City Fire Hall and stacked on the floor.
There were literally thousands of documents deposited
in this fashion to the storage area. Mr. Vajk
apparently believed the City was being unreasonable
in estimating the cost of retrieving the information,
and filed a law suit against me personally. This
matter has now been turned over to Attorney Susan
MacGregor from Marquette who will be representing
the City of Iron River in this litigation.
Apparently Mr. Vajk, who is a land owner but not
a resident of the City, claims this is the first
of “many” such demands and suits he plans against
the City. It is unfortunate that the FOIA law,
that was intended to provide access to our
government, is often abused by some individuals
and ends up costing taxpayers both time and
dollars to satisfy the whims of one or two
individuals who simply have an “axe to grind”.
Hopefully the legal matter will be satisfied
without excessive expenses to our City residents.
====================================================

Posted by Bill Vajk on March 22, 2009
--
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The Death of Yahoo's IronCountyWatch group

It seems that the Iron County Watch discussion group
has finished its run. It existed for about 5 years. I
quit the group some time back in November of 2007
because it was, for me, a waste of time better spent
in other ways. The best responses ever mustered there
were based in what I considered to be ignorant dissent,
the worse were truly vacant hate pieces.

I looked in on the group the only way a non-member could,
at the top page that gives the mission statement, the
size of the membership, and the number of posts by month.
The final record I have was from March 3, 2009 when there
were 182 members (down from a long term stable membership
of 183). By March 9th there were 27 postings for the month
which is slightly over 3 per day. The group, unless I was
a member and posting there, never did very well with the
usual level of participation resulting between 2 and 3
posts a day with a national election cycle peak of more
than 8 per day during September of 2008. I guess it is
possible to excite a few folks in Iron County after all.

The good news is that I saved an older posting I was
directed to while I was still a member. It was posted
on November 28, 2005 by the alias

"gustlehtin" .

It was signed at the bottom by "Poor Richard."

"Poor Richard's Almanac" was published in colonial
America by Ben Franklin.

I was told that the original of this piece, that has
an date of February 1996, was distributed around the
region by someone slipping copies into mailboxes in
Iron County. The main villain in the piece is
John Archocosky, currently the City Manager of
Iron River.

It was a tad on the offensive side, that is to
say--it was a severely critical piece, so I hesitate
to post it to a public page in my name. I would put
it on an angelfire web page, but the difficulty
there is that at the first "terms of service"
complaint from anyone, Lycos/angelfire kills the
web page. I am not going to sacrifice any of
those pages I've had up for several years now.

If you'd like this Poor Richard piece I'll be
glad to email it on request. I will ignore random
unidetifiable email addresses. I'll have to know
who you are before I'll send it to you as an HTML
file.

As far as the death of IronCountyWatch goes, it
was poorly managed and I am told that someone
posted a bunch of naked porn pictures there,
causing the owners to pull the plug on it.

Please note that the long term membership had
been stable for at least a couple of years so
far as I could tell looking at the stats page.
So it seems likely to me that someone who took
exception to the contents of the group wrecked
it on purpose. One of the issues that caused it
to almost be killed off a few years back was an
explicit discussion about homosexuality. In fact
the mission statement was modified at that time
to include the following statement:

"You will notice the yahoo chat icon...use it for
issues that don't really belong here, to talk to
other members, those issues being the
"homosexuality issue" as one of them."

What became the IronCountyIndependent was spun
off at at that time as a place where all discussions
were permitted. So it seems very strange to me that
that web page became a bastion of fundamental
Christian discussions.

These events lend validity to my decision to keep
a greater degree of control over the several blogs
I offer to the community. It doesn't take many
warped minds to wreck a good thing, and heaven
knows we have our share of them in the county,
with a goodly representation of them in political
offices in Iron County.

Well written emailed articles will find a home
here. I'll post them even if I disagree with them,
but I reserve the right to reply.

Bill Vajk
--
--
--

About Patriotism

I've had a number of concerns about WLUC TV6's
management of the public blog they've created
to allow people to voice their opinions. Here
are "the rules" at the top of their page:

"Below, you will find letters to TV6. They could be
anything from a story written by you which we were
unable to cover, to comment or complaint about a
story TV6 has done.

"Readers will also have the option to comment on
the letters that are posted.

"We will not post any letters written under an
anonymous name. Also, the letters should contain
no profanity or personal attacks."

They can make up any rules they want to. And they
have, but there's some sort of other agenda they
play with that isn't state or obvious. Here's an
example of what I mean. Take a look at:

http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=272355

That's a story by a Vietnam era veteran, wheelchair
bound from his service to our country. He went to
some local athletic events and the team disrespected
the national anthem and the salute to the flag. He
objected to their coach, and he's objecting in writing
on their web page.

WLUC posted personal attacks and dissent, but nothing
supporting the veteran's viewpoint. I sent something
supportive but otherwise neutral, and it was rejected.

Their statement that "Readers will also have the option
to comment on the letters that are posted" is not true.
Readers who write what WLUC thinks should be the story
will have the option to comment. Not very clever at all.

When Iron County had a recall effort against several
members of the County Board because of the poor treatment
that board afforded veterans here, WLUC came out against
the recall.

I have no further use for WLUC. They could never survive
as a commercial entity in any situation where they had
to compete with other TV stations. I've offered other
things in the past that were rejected for no real reason
other than what I wrote didn't meet their agenda.

We have a similar problem with our local newspaper. Both
these "media outlets" are as much in the business of
making local news as they are in the business of creating
and slanting it to fit some arbitrary paradigm of their
choosing.

Bill Vajk
--
--
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Help Get That Rumor Started! (modified Mar 3, 2009)

A funny thing happened the other day. I heard a rumor about

myself. "Bill Vajk is out to destroy Iron River," it said. I

confess to a few things I do want to destroy.

A good starting point is to destroy a city government

mentality that has city crews out mowing grass they decide

is "unsightly" instead of concerning themselves with child safety.

Why aren't the sidewalks up and down US2 from the Middle

School cleared of snow? Will it take a child slipping down

one of the snowbanks and being killed or maimed before

city government decides to prioritize child safety?

I also want to destroy the mindset that has the city charging

10% late charge, compounding to 314% per year, to the

poor soul that loses his job and suddenly can't pay his

monthly water/trash bill. And when someone doesn't pay

it because they're suddenly out of work, not only does the

city shut off your water, but they keep charging $25 a

month for water you're not using, right along with the

mounting late fees. It doesn't take long for the city to

totally wreck a homeowner's finances, and for what? To

make sure they have the money to mow your grass if

it gets a little high while not 50 feet away the weeds

grow 6 feet tall on city property?

Yes, I confess to having some amount of desire for

destruction in my heart, probably the very same things

you want to see destroyed, while keeping the good

things we have. The trouble is that if my concern about

these things spilled over and people started voicing their

concerns in City Council meetings, the next rumor would

be, "Bill Vajk is inciting a riot."

Please, please, help get that rumor started!

====================================

The above was submited to the Iron County Reporter

and the Iron Mountain Daily News newspapers. On

Saturday, February 27, 2008, the Daily News published

my letter with a minor omission. The cut out the part about

6 foot weeds growing withn 50 feet on City property.

We'll know tomorrow how the Iron County Reporter felt

about it the letter.

Bill Vajk

Modification - March 3, 2009

Not too long after I arrived in Iron River I had a

discussion with Allyce Westphal, now the editor

of the Iron County Reporter. She told me she's

always looking for a well written piece.

While the Iron Mountain Daily News published

the above as an opinion letter, it was decided

"not fit to print" by the Iron County Reporter.

Well that came as no surprise. The Reporter

seems to be just as sensitive about criticism

of local governments as the elected officials

who are misbhaving.

The press needs to be independent to be

effective as one prong in the balance of

power between the people and the

government. Instead, it seems to me that

the local paper merely wants to be

profitable. That's par for the course in

Iron County, Michigan.

Bill Vajk

--

--

--

World Discussion Blog

I've undertaken a new blog called World Discussion.

That space is designed to discuss national and
international issues about social, political,
and economic considerations and to advance
relevant theory. Personal attacks and naughty
topics will not be tolerated. Please stay on
topic although drift will be tolerated as ideas
grow from one realm to another.

It isn't an Iron County Michigan oriented blog.

The new blog can be found at:

http://www.world-discussion.blogspot.com

Bill Vajk
--
--
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What's the point of being a silent victim?

Ben Smith proposed the following idea to the two Iron County

Michigan Yahoo sponsored discussion groups. I think it a good

idea as well. - Bill Vajk

===============================================

Many if not most of you spend time, wallowing in concern? about the state of the USA. What can you do about it? Send a contribution to some professional Baiter? Call a number that never connects you directly to your representative ? Sit back and wring your hands ? Whereas ! ! Here at home you can look your elected officials in the eye. Of course in return they will cross their arms and roll their eyes ! But you do have the opportunity to organize people that support your position. Shall we begin with the formation of " The Iron County Open Government Group" If any of you think it's a worthwhile effort, let me know and we'll schedule a meeting. Ben Smith

City of Iron River garbage collection (modified)

The proposed Iron River solid waste disposal
ordinance modifications, with a public hearing
scheduled for February 18th, will result in
penalties without rising to meet State of
Michigan and US constitutional requirements
for due process.

Further, the language of the ordinance is
constitutionally vague. Will six 15 gallon
tall kitchen garbage bags be viewed as equal
to three 33 gallon garbage bags? Other
combinations? Who will make the judgment call,
a contractor's employee?

In my opinion, the City of Iron River should
not be in the garbage business at all. The
past practice as well as the proposed
ordinance places all the financial risk on
the City. The City, in turn, is prohibited
by the Michigan Constitution from making any
profit whatever. If we were doing things the
American way, all risks would be assumed by
the organization that makes the profit. The
City also becomes the collection agent. Even
for as simple a function as billing, for
profit organizations invariably get the job
done at a lower cost to the customer.

There are arrangements other than the offer
on the table that do a much better job of
providing the necessary solid waste disposal
services, and do so without the depth of
municipal involvement being discussed and
unnecessarily repeated.

In other parts of the country where garbage
collection is not included in the property
taxes, the municipality takes bids for
garbage disposal and grants a franchise for
residential services to the lowest bidder.
The franchisee provides the service
contracted for and bills the homeowner
directly. In my last experience before
moving to Iron County, Waste Management
billed me quarterly. That business model
has been tested and proven efficient and
effective. The municipality may be entitled
to some small franchise fee in exchange for
such oversight as is provided.

New Text is in bold italics

I have been told of some movement to

introduce a prepaid bag/tag system where

the garbage collector would only pick up

garbage in containers that have a prepaid

status. Four problems immediately surface.

The first is that this scheme removes the

responsibility from the property owner and

transfers it to tennents at rental properties.

If you've ever been a landlord you understand

what this could mean to your property.

The second has to do with the contractor

accepting all the profits from such a

business while assuming absolutely no

business/financial risk.

The third is that prepayment is taken for

services not yet rendered.

Fourth: Should the contractor decide to

impose an increase in fees, they have only

to issue a new design of bag or tag leaving

those who have a supply of the old style

simply stuck with having spent the money

for nothing. ( I have personally experienced

this event with Waste Management being

the service provider for yard waste!)

Would the City of Iron River sue on behalf

of the citizens to enforce the contract?

What do you think?

I urge the City of Iron River to completely
rethink how solid waste disposal is being
managed. I object to the proposed ordinance
modifications.

Bill Vajk
--
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What went wrong anyway?

Since I filed my complaint about the City
of Iron River with the Circuit Court, I
began to wonder how it happened that I
have arrived to this situation, where I
am displeased with this part of the country.

When I first moved up here I was full of
joy, now I am spending my time suing John
Archocosky and the City, with significant
major class action litigation in the works.
This isn't what I had intended to do with
my retirement. And I heard a comment that
someone had had high hopes for me but that
I had badly disappointed them. So here's
the analysis of what's gone awry. That
disappointment runs both ways.

In my life, thus far, I've never met an
enemy, only friends. Some along the way have,
through their own doing, changed how I viewed
them.

And so it has happened here in Iron County.
I arrived full of openness, of admiration
for the natural beauty of the place, and hope
for the economic recovery of the region so
that my son, and his family, could move here
once his military career timed out and he
retires from the US Marine Corps. We spent
time here every summer as he was growing up,
and he loves this region as much as I did,
and should be able to now.

What happened along the way is that the
facade of "all's well" has been torn away
and an ugly political underbelly has been
shown. My earlier wish to help the local
economy has been replaced by an urgent need
to drag this county, with heels dug in and
holding fast to a primitive oligarchic form
of rule, into the 21st century United States
of America form of having the government
serving the citizens rather than having a
government that looks to the needs of the
oligarchy first while feeding off the
population.

To the folks who have spent most, if not
all, of their lives here and don't
understand what I'm saying, I have to
tell you that much of what goes on
here is simply Un-American. Look around
you.

The rest of the USA isn't economically
depressed like this. In most of the USA
if buildings are being torn down it is
in order to reuse the spot for a newer,
better, building. There's no reason not
to be like that here. There's no good
reason your children should have to
leave the region to find work and
to have a nice career and a good life.

The problem is that government that's
here has been built on the rotten
foundations left by the mining
companies from the time that they ran
everything for their own advantage. Those
who followed them just stepped in and
took over without any change in attitude.
Those who lived here as the mines
disappeared into oblivion were used to
it, and didn't complain because
everything seemed to work when the
mines ran the entire community. But after
the mines disappeared and the economy had
to become self-sustaining without them,
what is called "the corporate culture" of
the region shifted from being beneficial
to the people who live here, to living
off them in ever worsening ways.

The more government illegally reaches
into the pockets of the people, the less
that the marginal local economy can
remain successful. The Headlee Amendment
to the Michigan Constitution, and other
laws, like the Freedom of Information Act,
are supposed to be tools for the people
to use in order to enforce the democracy
that so many wars have been fought over.
It has always been the business and the
duty of the people to oversee government
and to keep government honest. Part of
that corporate culture left behind by
the mines is making the people who live
here think that everything is going to
be OK if you just shut up and do what
you're told.

That apparently worked well while the
mines were in charge, but folks, the
mines are gone. The people running things
aren't looking after you like the mines
did, they're working for their own
advantage with precious few of them
giving you anything back for what they
take out of your pockets.

Please, folks, lets fix this together.

Bill Vajk
--
--
--

Dirty Politics

Iron County's dirty political games are coming
to the surface as a result of my lawsuit against
John Archocosky and the City of Iron River.

Hey, fellows, are you sure you want to have the
world see how you do normally business. Do you
really want the world to know that you are unable
to stand and deliver when push comes to shove?
Are you sure you want the world to see what
dirty fighters you usually are, or are you willing
to turn over a new leaf and do things honestly?

In the end you'll come out way ahead if you stop
trying to defend your corrupt practices. Revise
your business practices. Stop taking money
illegally out of the citizens' pockets. Live within
your means as the rest of us must do.

We can easily settle the current lawsuit and
the impending ones if you'll just obey the
conditions that are imposed on you by the
Michigan Constitution and the laws of the
State of Michigan.

No one is asking for anything more than that!

Why are you unable to comply with the laws?


Bill Vajk
--
--
--

My departure from Yahoo Groups

I resigned from the IronCountyWatch and the
IronCountyIndependent discussion groups in
November of 2007. It has, since then, been a
productive year from me because I have not
been distracted by the inane presentations of
others that were distracting me from doing
some very worthwhile things.

Any number of people have told me in the past
year that it was a mistake for me to quit, and
that I should remain active there. Several have
gone so far as to deem my absence "a mistake."

Perhaps they're right and I'm wrong, I don't
know and I'm not inclined to find out. I think
if I returned I'd be inclined to waste my time
arguing with people who are not working
towards improving the social, the economic,
and the political situation here in Iron County.
For some reason they think everything is
just fine here, while I am doing my best to
bring 21st Century USA into our everyday
experience here.

In every business curriculum there is one theme that
is repeated time and again. Seek out and deal with
the decision maker. That's not going to happen for
me in the Yahoo discussion groups. That is happening
with the approach to activism I've been taking in
the past year.

I've filed the first of what promises to be several
lawsuits against Iron River. I've taken the time
to study several issues worth suing over. The first
one is memorialized on ironcountydoings.blogspot.com,
posted earlier today only after the complaint was
filed, fees paid, and summons served this afternoon.

I'll keep participants on my blog advised of everything
that happens. I invite all to come to court to participate
when hearings in the case are held.

I won't talk in advance about the other suits. They're
in work. I will say that a lot less useless chatter in the
Yahoo groups with that energy converted to positive
action designed to improve our situation would be a
much better set of circumstances.

On the internet there's an old label attached to people
who criticize without doing anything about their
complaints. That label is called "critic troll." The
public comments about my proposing a "trolley system,"
an idea far from dead, and more recently my giving
several pages of suggestions to the Rodeo Board, were
only criticism. If the critics are so smart and know better
than I do, I urge them to provide some evidence by
offering something other than criticism against those
who are actually doing something to help. Criticize me
for not doing enough, not for trying.

Try starting your New Year by actually doing something
worthwhile. Using the two Yahoo Groups as bitching
boards isn't it. The two groups have a place in the scheme
of things, but they should never have become the totality
of anyone's activism as they have. I hope you'll join in
making improvements to the county. I don't expect
anyone to change their minds about me. I am satisfied
that I'm doing what I ought to be doing at this stage of
my life, and I can only hope that every reader is doing
as well with theirs.

Happy New Year, with best wishes of peace and prosperity
to each of you, friend and foe alike.

Bill Vajk
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FOIA lawsuit in Iron County

Yours truly has filed a lawsuit in Iron County
Circuit court. The summons was served today and
the affidavit of service was filed with the
Clerk of the Court this afternoon.

The exhibits are in .pdf format and I am not
posting them at this time as they are not
necessary to understand the case. They are
only needed for a judicial review which is not
happening in any public forum. If you believe
a cp of the exhibits would be helpful to you
in some way, please ask me for a copy of that
file in email sent to bill.vajk@gmail.com.

Document follows.

------------------------------------------------

State of Michigan
In the Circuit Court for the County of Iron
Circuit Division
_________________________________________________

COMPLAINT

William J. Vajk v. John Archocosky

Case No. I 08-3982-CZ

Hon. C. Joseph Schwedler

1) Now comes the plaintiff William J. Vajk,
pro se, and complains under the Freedom of
Information Act, Act 442 of 1976, MCL 15.231
et seq, hereinafter referred to as Act 442,
and common law, as follows:

2) This court has jurisdiction.

3) Plaintiff made a multiple Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) requests that he
personally served on the office of the
Clerk in the City of Iron River on
December 1, 2008. A copy of that request
is provided in Exhibit A.

4) The ensuing email interchange, including
attachments, is provided in Exhibit B.

5) Plaintiff thus came to discover one
aspect of the City of Iron River's "Pay
to Play" illegal gambit that wantonly
violates Act 442, common law fraud, and
common law extortion, as follows:

A) Plaintiff asked that the basis of the
"unreasonably high costs to the City"
part of the forms provided by the City,
Exhibit B pg. 4-7, be disclosed. Failure
or refusal to disclose this information
is a violation of Act 442.

B) Plaintiff was met with silence. The
pertinent part of Act 442, Sec. 4 (3)
states in part:

"A fee shall not be charged for the
cost of search, examination, review, and
the deletion and separation of exempt
from nonexempt information as provided
in section 14 unless failure to charge a
fee would result in unreasonably high
costs to the public body because of the
nature of the request in the particular
instance, and the public body specifically
identifies the nature of these unreasonably
high costs."

C) Defendant Archocosky has steadfastly
refused to provide this information and
has also refused to abandon the City's
demand for payment of the illegally
constituted fees. Since there is a well
established statutory requirement that
the named Defendant knew or should have
known, that the requested information be
provided without fees unless "unreasonably
high costs" are extant, identifiable, and
disclosed, the demand for payment is a
violation of Act 442 as well as both common
law fraud and common law extortion.

D) Given the circumstances of this case,
wherein the public body withholds requested
information for the sake of collecting an
illegally constructed fee, that the Defendant
knew or should have known to violate Act 442,
wherein the charge violates the clear
mandates of Act 442, imposition constitutes
a constructive denial of providing the
requested information in a timely manner.

E) The demanded fee of $38.46 is, on its
face, absurd and cannot be supported as
"unreasonably high" under any definition
of the words of the statute. Plaintiff's
reading of all reported and unreported
opinions relating to Act 442 to be found
on the Michigan courts web page finds that
each upholds the letter of the law as
spelled out in the italicized text above
with no allowances, alterations, or
modifications authorized by case law.

F) As the first example of patent
absurdity, the "Wastemanagement Contract,"
a document reported to be 4 pages long,
has a 1/4 hour charge associated with it
at a fee demand to Plaintiff of $10.53.
The City had the document in hand to
determine that it is 4 pages long. The
City has demonstrated that there is no
additional research necessary. The
document is one that is subject to
public scrutiny as it stands without
"review, deletion, separation of exempt
from non-exempt information" that might
suggest some, or any, reason for demanding
a labor fee. Thus it cannot meet the
relevant "unreasonable" test. Any city
employee that spends as long as 15
minutes on this item is in serious
need of being fired as is any supervisor
permitting such incompetence or reticence
to perform ordinary office job functions
in a timely fashion.

G) The balance of the requested documents,
while larger, all represent similar
circumstances. Labor for the act of
copying is built into the per page charge,
leaving no additional labor charge that
can ever be considered "unreasonably high."

6) As shown in Exhibit C, Plaintiff filed
an FOIA Appeal in this instance issued to
the named defendant John Archocosky since
the city failed at every opportunity to
comply with Act 442 by failing to
identify the "head of the public body"
in their responses to Plaintiff's
requests. Please take notice that
defendant Archocosky insisted that all
future FOIA requests from me be
addressed to him. The statement is in
Exhibit B pg 1. To demonstrate to the
Court the City of Iron River's routine
practice of omitting the required
statutory language divulging the
correct addressees for appeal and
litigation information mandated by
Act 442, Plaintiff has included
another FOIA reply in Exhibit D.
This example is the only completed
FOIA response from the City of Iron
River to Plaintiff, and it too fails
to comply with the requirements of
Act 442 in the above stated regards,
specifically Sec. 5. (3)(d).

7) Since John Archocosky, the City
Manager for the City of Iron River,
asserted control over this and all
future FOIA requests, and in the
absence of any additional information
directing this complaint elsewhere,
Plaintiff had no option but to name
Archocosky as the defendant in this
action.

A) Plaintiff had and has no reason to
question Defendant Archocosky's
asserting control over FOIA requests
from this Plaintiff. Defendant John
Archocosky is, and was, the City
Manager of the City of Iron River
at all pertinent times.

B) A courtesy "FOIA appeal" went to
Archocosky. Mr. Archocosky failed to
respond to the aforementioned appeal
during the 10 days allowed by Act 442.
Even on the off chance that the City
had some legitimate reason for
believing the fees demanded to be
legitimate, Defendant Archocosky
failed to comply with Act 442 by
divulging such reasons as required
by Act 442 despite a specific request
by Plaintiff that he do so. Please
see Exhibit C pg. 1-2.

C) Plaintiff was not required by Act 442
to appeal the fees to the City before
taking further action. Plaintiff could
have proceeded directly to suit, but
wrote an appeal as a courtesy to
Mr. Archocosky and the City of Iron
River and in a failed attempt to avoid
the need for this litigation. In addition,
Plaintiff sent a copy of the final email
not only to the named defendant, but also
to the Clerk of the City of Iron River,
and the Mayor of Iron River, as a
courtesy to notify everyone working on
behalf of the City of Iron River possibly
interested in the issues a notice of the
pendency of this action. Please see
Exhibit C.

D) Plaintiff was forced to the conclusion
that Defendant Archocosky and the other
addressees prefer resolution of the fee
issue through litigation, and so here we
are.

8) Defendant Archocosky had, at all
relevant times, the authority and control
over the City's decision(s) regarding fees
to be charged while responding to FOIA
requests. If he does or did not, he had
only to divulge another person to whom
the request(s) might have been directed.
Defendant Archocosky has earned the
exclusive right, by his own actions, to
represent the city as the sole defendant
in the immediate cause.

9) It is thus clear that after
notification of a violation of Act 442
and common law, Defendant Archocosky's
actions, and the pertinent lack thereof,
under the color of his office, meet the
criteria for punitive damages.

10) Plaintiff asks the court to ignore
the smallness of the amount at the core
of this case. It is the repetitive routine
violations of state law by the City of
Iron River that is the significant problem
for which this case is the first of several
others currently in work. Indeed, the
information requested under the FOIA at the
core of this case is relevant to background
information necessary to develop the
complaints for one or more such class action
cases. Invoices representing city billings
against property owners in Iron River will
soon be sought using FOIA requests. Defendant
Archocosky and the City of Iron River are
aware that those previously promised lawsuits
will be brought soon as memorialized in the
minutes of the City Council meeting of
15 October 2008 as follows: "Tousignant will
contact MML concerning possible litigation."
Unreported in the minutes is the actual
mention of Plaintiff's name, at the meeting,
in these regards.

11) Plaintiff also publishes reports relating
to his activism on behalf of the community on
the internet at

www.ironcountydoings.blogspot.com.

ISSN registration request has been filed.

12) As a consequence, the records requested
by Plaintiff should be deemed to "be in the
public interest" as defined in MCL 15.234,
Sec. 4. (1) of act 442.

Therefore, Plaintiff respectfully requests
this Court enter the following judgments:

A) The City of Iron River shall be ordered
to provide the information requested in the
pertinent FOIA request at the core of this
case at a cost to Plaintiff consisting only
of the standard copying costs of 25 cents
per page.

B) The City of Iron River shall be ordered
to pay Plaintiff's costs in this action.

C) That this Court find that the City of
Iron River has arbitrarily and capriciously
violated Act 442 and order the City to pay
to Plaintiff the maximum punitive damages
allowed by Act 442.

D) That the Court permanently enjoin the
City of Iron River from routinely demanding
payment of small amounts for information to
be provided under the FOIA where
justification of "unreasonably high costs"
is not legitimately established and
articulated. Plaintiff is asking the Court
to prevent the need for repeating this
lawsuit with the same City defendant for
the same reason when additional different
FOIA requests are being processed in the
future.

E) That all future FOIA requests from this
Plaintiff, when accompanied by a
certification that his work is in the
interest of the public good be provided in
compliance with Act 442 Sec. 4. (1), at no
cost to the undersigned Plaintiff.


Respectfully submitted

__________________________________


The undersigned William J. Vajk, being duly
sworn, certifies under the penalties of
perjury that the information provided in
this complaint and attached Exhibits is
true.

___________________________________
William J. Vajk




Sworn and subscribed to before me on the
________________ day of _____________, 2008.


__________________________________________
Notary Public

My Commission expires ____________________________

Constructive Quorum in Michigan

I've been to some, not very many, meetings
of public bodies here in Iron County, Michigan.

It always seemed to me that the members of
the various boards and councils got through
their business rather quickly, and often a
motion was brought, and carried on voice
vote, with infrequent dissent.

Aha, I thought, they've discussed their issues
and hammered them out beforehand....that
ought to be illegal under the Open Meetings
Act.

My recent research found that it is. It is
called a constructive quorum, where members
of the controlling organ of a public body
discuss an issue serially in order to, they
seem to believe, thwart the intent of the
Open Meetings Act without actually violating
the law. Well they're simply wrong. It is
a violation.

There's the case of Marquette City Attorney
Bonnie L. Hoff in which the following classic
text is provided in the unpublished opinion:

"[I]t is clear from the various exhibits
submitted by the parties . . . , specific-
ally including the Affidavits of
Commissioners Spoelstra and Kensington,
that the same type of Open Meetings Act
violation found by the Court in Booth
Newspapers v University of Michigan
Board of Regents, may well have
occurred during the private “get
togethers” between various subgroups
of the Marquette City Commission that
each involved, admittedly, less than
a quorum of the Board. Such a
conclusion . . . is supported by
the fact that the Board terminated
the contact of one of the two highest
City employees, Ms. Hoff, the City
Attorney, at the January 31, 2005,
city commission meeting without a
whit of discussion and with no stated
reason. Even the most naïve and
trusting observer would conclude that
something more than an exchange of
pleasantries, which involved the
topic of Attorney Hoff’s termination,
took place at the non-public
subgroup meetings. [Emphasis in
original.]"


"Similarly, in Booth Newspapers, Inc
v Univ of Mich Board of Regents, the
defendant board established subquorum
committees that engaged in telephone
calls and small group meetings. This
Court found it significant that the
acknowledged purpose of these subquorum
committees was to engage in the same
intercommunications that could only
have been achieved in a full meeting
of the board. According to this Court,
“The subquorum groups were utilized
or designed to avoid the OMA, and
therefore, they constituted a
constructive quorum[.]” Therefore,
this Court held that, because the
board “deliberately divided itself
into subquorum groups to deliberate
on public policy, in direct
circumvention of the OMA’s objective
of promoting openness and
accountability in government,” the
OMA applied."

By reading the entire opinion and the
footnotes one discovers that this
problem has been repeatedly been before
the courts, and that in most cases the
courts have held that the subquorum
meetings were illegal.

The problem here in Iron County is that
not only do we not have enough of the
public involved in the meetings, but also
that our public is mostly apathetic when
it comes to letting illegal conduct slide.

Posted by Bill Vajk
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An Agenda for Change -- Chapter 1

I recently started promoting the following
concepts as part of a basis for making
changes to how business is done in
Michigan, and particularly in Iron County.


Publicly Funded non-government entities:

All publicly funded non governmental entities
shall have a mission statement expressed in
measurable objectives.

All publicly funded non governmental entities
shall provide a published publicly available
annual (or more frequent) report that provides
detailed information that includes their annual
budget as well as the cost allocations to each
measurable mission and their performance for
each measurable parameter in simple,
understandable, terms.

Economic Development:

Every publicly subsidized economic development
initiative shall meet the following requirements:

1) Where vehicles are involved in the assisted
business enterprise, the target enterprise shall
agree to purchase all fuel (for locally based
vehicles) within the county providing assistance
and shall permit themselves to be audited by
state, county, or municipal authorities or their
agents.

2) The number of new or retained jobs shall only
be counted if they are full time (minimum 40
hours a week, 52 weeks every year) with fringe
benefits including group health insurance, in
the same group for all employees and management,
for the employee (and family through payroll
deduction,) paid vacation of 1 week per year,
five paid sick days per year, and no less than
6 paid holidays each year. Any employment not
including at least these benefits as a minimum
shall not be included in any "job count"
resulting from such an economic development
initiative.

3) The job count of new or retained jobs shall
only include jobs in direct employment by the
assisted enterprise.

4) New and/or retained jobs subsidized in any
way by public funds shall only be available to
permanent Michigan residents. Non residents may
be hired but may not start work or receive
payroll or other funds until the individual
is a permanent resident of this state.

5) All publicly assisted businesses shall
bank exclusively in Michigan.

6) All publicly assisted businesses shall be
incorporated in Michigan. This requirement
precludes registration in Michigan as a
foreign corporation.

7) No assisted enterprise shall be provided
with real estate at public expense at a rent
less than fair market value.

8) Assisted enterprises may not utilize
employees or contractors not comporting with
§ 2 above in a quantity greater than 5 % of
the total number of jobs comporting with
§ 2 above.



Open Meetings & the right of petition:

Brother Samaha's paper
The Declaration of Human Rights
very nicely traces that history for us. I find
the "right of petition" documented in Article 61
of the Magna Carta of 1215. The paper by
The Online Library of Liberty traces some
of the weaving and wobbling in settling just
what the "right" is. What is clear from all
this history is that we can consider ourselves
fortunate that the Founding Fathers were very
well read.

Through this winding history we arrive to the
First Amendment to the US Constitution with
its "petition the government".

During the late 1800's, an ancestral uncle of
mine, James G. Blaine, wrote about the fact
that during the hundred years or so that the
US had been independent, the mistakes of the
past were starting to be repeated. "So slowly
turn the mills of the gods." The country was
slowly but surely returning to the despicable
British practices that formed the basis of
the American Revolution.

We see similar erosions creeping in here in
Michigan presently.

Former Attorney General's Frank J. Kelley's
opinion number 5716 quotes the Open Meetings
Act as containing the statement, "These rules
must be reasonable, flexible and designed to
encourage public expression and not discourage
or prohibit it." The same paragraph today only
requires that "A person shall be permitted to
address a meeting of a public body under rules
established and recorded by the public body"
and other procedural requirements.

The entire basis for the open meetings act has
been stripped in this erosion. Today we have a
townships organization that is teaching Michigan
township boards that "There is no constitutional
or First Amendment right to open meetings." Where
and how else can the citizen be assured that
his 1st amendment right to petition the
government is assured?

We are presently seeing restrictive rules that
clearly violate the first amendment. For example,
the Iron County Board of Commissioners (BOC) has
rules that limit public comment to agenda items
and limit the total time to 20 minutes which
effectively denies a citizen of his right to
petition if there are issues to be discussed
that have the general population upset. The
restrictive nature of the BOC rule stands in
clear violation of "Congress shall make no
law ....or abridging...to petition the
government for a redress of grievances" as
brought to the states by the 14th Amendment.

There was a newspaper report earlier this
year that one of the City Council members
in Iron Mountain felt that when the council
was in session "it is our meeting" and
comments should be restricted or prohibited.
Such attitudes are absurd.

My request for new legislation is that we
return to the ideology that the meetings are
designed to encourage participation by the
citizens interested in doing so.

I request the following elements be made
part of the Open Meetings Act:

The agenda for an open meeting shall be
locked in and published concurrently with
the meeting notice.

At least 120 hours shall elapse between
the publication of the agenda and a
meeting notice and the meeting to which
those documents refer.

No new agenda items may be added at
the time of the meeting.

Whenever a motion is made, followed by
discussion, specific public comment on
that item must be permitted before a
vote is taken.

General public comment on any matter
must be heard at some point during
the meeting.

It is critical that we, as a state, revert
to citizen participation in government at
every level. That begins at the local level.
If we can't get that right, the rest of the
schema falls apart.

The above is the first foray into revising how
business needs to be done here in Iron County
and hopefully in the state.

The concepts above are put forth and supported
by their author, Bill Vajk.
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The War on Christmas (continued)

There's a funny thing about history. It
changes things. Religion is evolutionary.
If it weren't, Christianity itself would
never have happened and things like
the Council at Nicea, the Second
Vatican Council, and the Reformation,
each introducing major changes to
one or more branches of modern
Christianity, could never altered the
world as they did.

So those folks who pry up a lot of
recorded, unrecorded, and anachdotal
history appear, to me, to be finding
excuses for taking over what was a
pretty nice idea, gutting it of the meaning
and intention of those who invented
it. To add insult to injury, they work
hard to completely secularize it. This
worked pretty well with the
Thanksgiving holiday, and now
they're back for more.

Pretty soon they'll be attacking
Easter and commercializing that
as well.

I have news for them. So long as I
own a hunk of Thanksgiving,
Christmas, and Easter, the religious
basis for the holidays will remain in
effect. One thing we Christians have
learned through the ages is tolerance.
Whatever those lacking soul want to
do in those periods is their business.
I'll maintain my family traditions, no
matter when they were invented. And
I'll speak out against the grinches who
can't stand for my family to enjoy
these religious holidays in the fashion
to which we've become accustomed.

The one thing I won't do is be quiet
about it.

Bill Vajk
--
P.S. The above was initially written
in response to a secular progressive
article elsewhere.
--
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A Funny Thing Happened on the way to this Forum

A funny thing happened on the way to this forum.

I introduced an Iron County Democrat to the contents
of the article immediately below, the one called
Energize!!! And it turns out that some Democratic
reformers aren't reformers at all when it includes any
threat at all to the power currently held by the
Democratic Party. It seems to me that unthinking and
unflinching religious loyalty of childhood is very easily
replaced by an identical unthinking and unflinching
loyalty to a political party as an adult. Religion
promises after death rewards, political parties
promise "power right now." I guess I can understand
a now instead of later mentality, even if the now
rewards are short and the later rewards are
permanent.

It's like this. Michigan Democrats (generally) lamely
work towards stamping out corruption in the county
so long as the party itself, and their individual power
and collective power isn't at risk.

So the underlying question is the most important one
of all. What will it take to get people to pull out all the
stops and root out corruption by any means, and in
the end let the chips fall where they may. Having a
strong political party of any persuasion is completely
worthless so long as that political party fails to serve
the needs of the people under all circumstances.

In the circumstances we presently have in Iron
County Michigan I'd like nothing better than to
abolish the Democrats, the Republicans, and the
Libertarians, and replace them with three brand
new parties and brand new hierarchies. We would
do far better with three new parties regardless of
their names, even if we call them rock, paper, and
scissors. At least there would be interplay and
something worthwhile could happen in Iron
County instead of the private interests that are
presently being served exclusively.

Realistically we know that can't happen in the present
political economic climate. So we need to work
together to have 3 strong parties competing with
one another, regardless of the fear this instills
in some Democrats.

Today I realized that I am living in a community filled
with characters resembling those well described in
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. If you're not
familiar with that work I highly recommend it for
reading. Generally speaking, nothing is quite as it
would seem to be if you scratch just a bit below the
surface. Just like Iron County. Chaucer died more
than 500 years ago.

The more things change, they more they stay the
same.

Bill Vajk
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