Sometimes, the Clarkston government’s hypocrisy is really in your face, isn’t it?
I just finished working on my unofficial transcription of the July 25, 2022, city council meeting. If you want to read it before the meeting tonight, you can find it here: https://www.clarkstonsunshine.com/july-25-2022-city-council-meeting/ I want to comment on something that happened at that meeting.
We have one resident who wants to show a film in Depot Park on August 17th, and her request was (finally) approved at the July 25th meeting. She had to go through quite a few city hoops to obtain that approval, and she’s apparently been communicating with one of our three city office employees as her efforts progressed.
This resident has asked for nothing from the city except permission. She’s procured and is paying for everything herself – the equipment, the set up and tear down, the insurance, refreshments, etc. At the time she made her request, the city attorney felt he needed to do some research about whether she could even show the movie because the city attorney was apparently concerned about the content of the movie, which has a religious theme. FYI, when the government is evaluating the content of your expression to decide whether to give you permission to use a venue that the government regularly opens up to all kinds of events (including religious ceremonies), that’s a huge red flag under the First Amendment. Fortunately, the city attorney concluded that she could show her movie and we avoided another lawsuit. (Since the city attorney has already caused a couple of lawsuits with his amazing advice and/or conduct – one under the Freedom of Information Act and one under the Open Meetings Act – it’s nice to see that he isn’t going to cause another one. I’m sure his malpractice carrier appreciates it too.)
At the July 25th meeting, the resident was advised that even though she had been talking to one of the other two office staff members about what she was doing, she still needed to formally register on the city’s website so this third office staffer could approve the event and officially reserve the date. The resident was also told that she would have to pay $200 to rent the park, which is the going rate and part of the registration process. The resident immediately agreed to pay the $200 fee. She didn’t ask for a fee waiver and no one on the council suggested that she should.
At the end of the meeting, we heard from our city manager, Jonathan Smith, in the context of a discussion regarding the Clarkston Historical Society’s Art in the Village, which is also held in Depot Park. Smith told us that he is the president of the Society and receives no salary (neither do the other board members). He also told us that his wife is the museum director, and she does receive a salary from the Society to maintain the museum. (It’s a nice little museum, and you can visit it at the Clarkston Independence District Library.)
Smith told the council that in addition to artists, there will be a market area with pop-up shops. They only have room for 120 vendors, and already, they have 105 committed. Smith anticipates that this year’s event will be so amazingly successful that they will undoubtedly reach the maximum number of vendors in the two remaining months until the event because there are a “huge number of people applying.” They will also have a food court again.
Smith said that he put the item on the city council’s agenda for two reasons. One, he wanted to give the city council an update on Art in the Village. But the second (and most likely the real) reason was because he wanted the city council to waive the $200 park rental fee for this giant fundraiser. Smith said that the Clarkston Historical Society is a 501(c)(3) and the city regularly waives the $200 park rental fee for non-profits.
As we all know, our city manager always gets anything and everything he asks for from the city council, no matter what it costs the taxpayers. And, as usual, the council seemed generally receptive to the request, even jovial. The city attorney said that Smith was just trying to get the “sense” of council about the request at this meeting. Mayor Eric Haven asked how they would do that. Councilmember Joe Luginski said they could smile.
Thank goodness for Councilmember Wylie. As she aptly pointed out, the other non-profits that Smith referred to aren’t running huge fund raisers on city property. In most if not all cases, they don’t even have $200 to pay the park rental fee. I would also note that no one mentioned that the taxpayers will have to pay overtime to our Department of Public Works employees to work on this event, and the $200 in park rental offsets some of those costs.
To be clear, I don’t object at all to Art in the Village. I think it’s a really nice event. I also don’t object to paying overtime to our DPW employees for their work on the event, because we do that for all large events, and they are giving up their weekend time. What I do object to is our city manager suggesting that the Clarkston Historical Society should not have to pay $200 to use a taxpayer-owned asset and to partially offset the cost to the taxpayers for the labor of our city employees to work on that event. And it takes some real chutzpah for Smith to make a waiver request for a gigantic fund-raiser during the same meeting that an individual resident was told she would have to pay that $200 fee – that no one from city council suggested should be waived.
Smith plans to bring his request for the $200 waiver for his group at tonight’s city council meeting, so I guess we’ll see if our city manager gets his waiver. I’m sure he will. Because that’s how Clarkston rolls, doesn’t it? People with connections to the city council – or those who have certain family ties – get whatever they want. Others, not so much.