East Lansing Begins Lengthy Process to Find Next City Manager
The East Lansing City Council has started searching for the city’s next city manager, but a candidate is unlikely to be selected until next year.
During Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Interim City Manager Annette Irwin said East Lansing is conducting only its third search for a city manager since 1995. Ted Staton served from 1995 to 2011, George Lahanas from 2011 to 2023 and Robert Belleman from 2023 until his resignation earlier this year.
Belleman and the city parted ways after he was accused of sexual harassment and bullying by a city employee during a May City Council meeting. After the public accusation, the City Council released a November 2025 investigation report from Miller Canfield law firm that did not find evidence to support the employee’s claims, though individuals interviewed raised other concerns like a lack of trust and comfort among the city’s leadership team.
The next city manager will take over as East Lansing’s top employee during a critical juncture, as whoever is chosen will need to take on challenges like policing controversies, development disputes and the looming income tax renewal vote.
The search process will take months, Irwin said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. The City Council will likely issue a request for proposals, or RFP, and begin soliciting pitches from search firms in late September. Once a firm is picked, it will work with the council to identify desired qualities in candidates. Then, a nationwide search will take place. After that, the city and search firm will spend weeks screening candidates before finalists are brought to East Lansing for interviews and public engagement events.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Councilmember Kerry Ebersole Singh estimated the city is looking at a February start date for its next city manager.
Irwin said that the consultant will likely narrow the field down to four or five candidates for the council to choose from. In 2023, the council was initially given the names of five finalists, two of which dropped out before the council selected Belleman.
Singh said she would be interested in learning about the entire pool of candidates the search brings in, not just the top five. She also said she’d like to know how candidates are being screened and that the city needs to have a high standard for the search.
“I want to make sure as part of the RFP collection that there’s a demonstrated national search capacity that they’ve delivered on, not just that they claim to work nationally,” Singh said.
The city paid $19,000 for the 2023 search, but with members of the council indicating they would like a more comprehensive search and screening process, the cost could end up being much greater this time.
“These guys can charge a lot,” Singh said. “Like up to a year’s salary.”
“I think we’ve got to do it right,” Mayor Erik Altmann responded.
Councilmember Mark Meadows said that the search process needs to have public input, including from the city’s boards and commissions and residents who have been speaking at city meetings.
“A lot of the people who were at the microphone tonight need to be involved in this process,” Meadows said. Residents spent much of Tuesday’s meeting speaking about an East Lansing police officer striking a restrained Black woman and broader concerns about the police department.