Trust, Growth and Taxes: The Challenges Awaiting East Lansing’s Next City Manager

East Lansing parted ways with former City Manager Robert Belleman in June, less than three years into his tenure, and soon the city will embark on a months-long search for a new top employee.

The next city manager will arrive at a critical juncture for East Lansing. They will likely guide the city through the first renewal vote of its income tax, address a number of ongoing policing controversies and lead a college town during a precarious time for higher education.

The city manager takes a leading role in crafting the city’s budget and overseeing staff. But the right hire will take on more than just the formal responsibilities of the job, a city manager should exemplify a city’s values, explained Erika Rosebrook, director of the Michigan State University Extension for Local Government Finance and Policy.

It’s hard for cities to find the right leader. Along with being a top administrator, city managers work closely with governing bodies that frequently turn over and carry changing goals and perspectives. East Lansing specifically comes with additional challenges because the city manager will need to balance the desires of year-round residents with the needs and inherent characteristics of a college town.

“It’s not an easy thing to get right, it depends a lot on the council, community and organization really understanding what they need,” Rosebrook said. “So much of who you want to be as a community has to be centered in that person.”

Over the years, East Lansing Info has reported on recurring challenges at City Hall. These challenges include communicating with the public amid controversies, providing guidelines for new developments and periods of financial uncertainty. Rosebrook said many communities around the state struggle with the same challenges, and that the next city manager can play a big role in addressing these issues.

The next city manager will need to bridge the divide between the local government and its residents… East Lansing’s financial future might depend on it.

There are people in East Lansing who feel fundamentally different about the city they live in than they did a year ago.

Last fall, droves of residents began attending City Council meetings after video surfaced showing an ELPD police officer pepper spraying two Black men in downtown East Lansing, footage critics have said shows excessive force.

A video of an ELPD officer deploying pepper-spray during MSU’s welcome weekend.

Before footage was released, the police department took the extremely unusual step of singling the incident out in a misleading press release that named the men pepper-sprayed, one of whom is the son of an activist who had spoken critically of the police department. Charges against both men were eventually dropped.

Fast forward 10 months and city officials still won’t talk about the incident and residents continue to speak at nearly every City Council meeting demanding Police Chief Jennifer Brown be fired.

The incident, along with comments Brown made in a news interview amid the controversy that critics condemned as racist, has dominated public comment at many City Council meetings over the past year. But the disputes extend beyond public safety.

Since the start of 2025:

The revolving door of controversies could catch up with the city.

In 2018, East Lansing voters approved a new income tax that collects 1% of residents’ income and .5% from non-residents. The new tax was paired with a five mill reduction in property taxes and sold as a way to have Michigan State University employees pay into city services, as MSU’s land is exempt from property taxes. East Lansing is budgeted to net more than $10 million from the income tax this fiscal year.

The tax is set to expire in 2030, and a committee that recently spent six months studying local finances recommended the tax be put up for a renewal vote sometime between 2027 and 2029. In a 2025 interview, Belleman said the income tax is a necessity for the city to continue to offer its current level of services.

Many voters won’t keep up with what happens day to day in local government, Rosebrook said, and if residents consistently hear negative news about East Lansing, it could hurt perceptions of the city and the income tax’s chances of renewal. She stressed the importance of city governments consistently communicating accurate information.

“Trust is easy to lose and it’s hard to build,” she said. “You do that through your daily actions and the way you show up for your residents.”

A billboard critical of East Lansing Police Chief Jennifer Brown was placed on the corner of Kalamazoo Street and Mifflin Avenue in Lansing. (Lucas Day for ELi)

Earning trust will be key when asking voters to renew the income tax, Rosebrook said. The tax was approved in 2018 with about 58% of voters in favor, after a different income tax proposal failed in 2017.

Sarah Reckhow, a political science professor at Michigan State University who is also the chair of the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission, said she thinks voters’ rejection of the 2025 parks millage was an expression of frustration from residents in the wake of the BWL ruling.

Reckhow said many of the people in the city who have been alienated are progressive voters who may ordinarily be open to a local tax. This could have an impact on the renewal vote, however, a bigger risk could be the persistent rift between the city and members of its volunteer commissions.

The Police Oversight and Human Rights commissions have both been at constant odds with city leaders over the last couple of years. Reckhow said some of the decisions that most upset the commissions – like removing DEI Director Elaine Hardy as staff liaison – were made without meaningful explanation or notice, building an even greater tension between commissioners and the city.

Reckhow said for two years in a row, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission spent months drafting a budget for the parks department, only for Belleman to propose major changes at the last minute – with the millage proposal in 2025 and a nearly $400,000 cut to the current fiscal year.

Discounting the input of volunteer commissions can lead to broader mistrust in the community, Reckhow said, as the commissions are made up of many of the city’s most engaged residents.

“There’s just a lack of seeing citizen engagement as a real process that should be taken seriously and respected,” Reckhow said.

The next city manager will need to figure out what the city wants built and where it wants it.

In 2024, the East Lansing City Council set a goal of adding 1,100 housing units over five years. The city’s 2025 comprehensive plan update said building dense housing downtown and near Michigan State University’s campus is a goal for East Lansing. Councilmember Mark Meadows recently said that he expects to see ground broken on large projects in the near future.

“In 2018, we had half a billion dollars of construction going on in the downtown and we may be headed in that direction again,” Meadows said at the June 16 City Council meeting.

The East Lansing City Council is scheduled to vote on the fate of two proposed apartment buildings that could collectively house close to 1,200 residents at a meeting on Tuesday. The council could defer a vote on the apartments again or it could decide to approve or reject the proposals.

The projects have been broadly discussed in the city since last year, but the pathway for developers to break ground has not always been clear. Both projects were shrunk earlier this year to avoid a city requirement that 25% of units be used on moderately priced housing or another purpose to diversify the downtown housing stock, a requirement the City Council is considering changing or scrapping altogether.

One of the buildings, proposed to be built where the Bailey Street Parking lot currently sits, eliminated more than 80 spaces of public parking that was included in the first version of its plan. The city’s Planning Commission unanimously recommended the project, but several members said they preferred the first proposal, as business owners and residents have raised concerns about losing public parking.

Recently, developers proposing the apartments were told they will need to have a parking plan approved, a requirement that was not clear during the first several months the projects were discussed. The city does not allow developers to build on-site parking with new downtown developments, unless they obtain a waiver.

At the June 25 Downtown Development Authority meeting, Mayor Erik Altmann said the city “fumbled the ball” on making parking requirements clear to developers and voted against recommending a project because a parking plan had not been submitted.

Erik Altmann is sworn in as the mayor of East Lansing at the November 18, 2025 City Council meeting. (Anna Liz Nichols for ELi)

Michigan cities each have different standards for developers to meet. Some cities have very few regulations in the hopes to encourage development, while others have rules that allow cities to be more particular. East Lansing’s code includes provisions that allow projects to be denied based on subjective criteria. For example, projects have been rejected on the grounds that they could negatively affect the economic value of nearby properties or that the area already has too many businesses of a particular type.

In 2024, it took two tries for a developer to replace an old gas station with a new one because the initial plans made the gas station too visible from the road. City Council members have pushed back against bar expansions, saying there are too many seats in establishments selling alcohol already and that there needs to be seating for additional occupants.

Balancing community feedback while giving clear direction to developers is a challenge many cities grapple with, Rosebrook said. Cities don’t necessarily need to eliminate flexibility within their code, but it’s important to communicate expectations early on.

“My experience working with developers on projects, generally they just want a clear process and know what kind of answers they’re going to get,” Rosebrook said. “I think that’s helpful for staff too because you want to be able to advise people well when they’re coming in.

“It’s not complicated … there’s not some complicated magic system to make this go well. It really is just being clear and making sure that when people are confused or they’re upset about a process, that you’re … really hearing what is frustrating to them.”

Developers take a risk when they bring a project to a city. Cody Dietrich, who has led Tareen Development Partners’ efforts to bring an apartment to East Lansing, said in March that the company had spent around $500,000 pursuing the project and that was before the proposal underwent a significant redesign.

Property and commercial taxes can provide critical revenue for cities and if East Lansing loses that tax base, it puts pressure on residential homeowners to cover the cost of services, Rosebrook explained.

The next city manager will need to figure out where the city sits financially.

In 2025, the City Council voted to put a property tax increase on the ballot, proposing taxes be raised past the current cap to bring in nearly $3 million annually. The proposal was to replace the general fund’s contribution to the Parks and Recreation Department with the new tax revenue.

The proposal came months after the City Council was shown a projection that said budgetary changes needed to be made to avoid bankruptcy. Then-Mayor George Brookover said the next City Council will have the “job from hell” if the millage proposal failed, as some city leaders said East Lansing was operating with a multi-million dollar structural deficit.

Residents soundly rejected the property tax hike, with more than 60% voting against in the November 2025 election.

But the city defied expectations to finish last fiscal year with a surplus and adopted a nearly balanced budget for the fiscal year that started in July.

The volunteer Financial Health Review Committee recently completed a six-month review of the city’s finances, finding that the city is not in a dire financial position but faces potential risks, including the possibility that the income tax may not be renewed and the need to address future infrastructure costs. Previously, Belleman noted that the city’s budget has been buoyed by delayed infrastructure projects and unfilled staff positions.

While risks remain, discussions about East Lansing’s budget among city leaders have been much more optimistic in recent months compared to a year ago, with Altmann saying he was “startled” when the council was presented with a nearly balanced budget in April.

Not having a clear understanding of financial footing is a common problem for municipalities, Rosebrook said, and external factors like delays in the state setting its budget has made it harder for cities to get a full picture of funding.

“Things are really challenging for local governments right now,” Rosebrook said. “It is not unexpected to see more fluctuation in expectations … This is not just an East Lansing problem.”

Between discussions at Financial Health Review Committee meetings and talks held by the City Council, there’s no shortage of possible budgetary changes the city could consider.

The city could opt to pursue revenue through new charges to residents. As was evident when the parks millage was put on the ballot, the city can ask voters to increase the property tax cap. The financial health team recommended the city investigate assessing residents for the cost of maintaining street lights and the council has discussed implementing a stormwater utility.

Conversely, the city could pursue costly projects, as the council has discussed funding facility improvements through a bond and persistent issues with flooding have brought conversations about large and expensive infrastructure improvements.

The next city manager will play a central role in evaluating the city’s financial capacity and helping the council weigh competing priorities, including whether to impose new fees on residents or take on debt to fund expensive projects.