WE ANSWER THE CITY IN THE SUPREME COURT
On Monday your executive director and his co-plaintiff in the Boardwalk hazardous waste complaint, currently pending in Kent County Circuit Court, answered the leave to appeal that Assistant City Attorney Daniel Ophoff filed with the Michigan Supreme Court in a long-shot effort to put an end to our complaint. As reported a couple of weeks ago, Ophoff filed this "Hail Mary" on behalf of the City of Grand Rapids and to the clear benefit of the private defendants in this case, Pioneer Incorporated, Dykema Excavators, and the Boardwalk development companies.
Because Ophoff's appeal has no merit, it has slim to no chance of being heard by the supreme court. For that reason, none of the private defendants in this case were willing to pay their attorneys to do the same. However, Ophoff drafted the appeal so that it was applicable to all the defendants in the lawsuit, and so Pioneer, Dykema, and the Boardwalk development companies told the supreme court ditto. Thus, the City Attorney's office at taxpayer expense provided the Toxic Towers defendants with a long-shot appeal to the state's highest court at little cost to themselves.
So why are the Toxic Towers defendants bothering with the Michigan Supreme Court if there is so little hope of success? Delay. Avoiding the day of reckoning has worked for them so far. By filing the appeal, the local court granted the Toxic Towers defendants a stay until the supreme court decides what to do with the matter. That could take months. Meanwhile, the hazardous waste complaint grinds to halt. In particular, there is no discovery allowed.
That matters to Ophoff, because he blocked our request for the Boardwalk's tax assessment and valuation documents under the Freedom of Information Act on the basis that we could obtain them through discovery in the hazardous waste complaint. By filing a flimsy appeal and getting a stay in the hazardous waste complaint, those documents are not available through discovery either. So the question of what the Boardwalk developers told the City about the value of their property to get a low-ball tax assessment remains under the thumb of Ophoff.
So, once again we have Ophoff with the acquiescence of the City Attorney's Office working for the private parties who dumped 26,000 tons of poisonous waste in the middle of River City. And no one, dear readers, not the Mayor, not the City Commission, not the City Comptroller, and not the City Manager has put a stop to this. Why you the taxpayer should be subsidizing the defense of a gang of polluters who have wantonly exposed hundreds of people to toxic concentrations of lead, arsenic, and mercury for no better reason than turning a dirty buck is a question your elected officials continue to duck.
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