Big Stories Simmering in the City of East Lansing
Today, we’re bringing you updates on some of the bigger stories ELi has been covering for our readers. Remember, if you’ve got a news question, you can always send it to us. We love to hear from readers.
We have two answers about who’s applied for the City Manager position.
On Jan. 17, 2023, East Lansing’s City Council voted to terminate the city manager contract with George Lahanas and to hire Randy Talifarro to serve as interim city manager. In March, Council hired the Michigan Municipal League (MML) to run the search for the new city manager, and at a dedicated meeting in April, Council let the MML recruiters know what they were looking for.
Since then, we’ve heard nothing about how many candidates have applied and who they are. But, responding to questions from ELi, Talifarro says he has not applied for the position, and Interim Director of Planning Tim Dempsey says he has.

Dempsey was Deputy City Manager under Lahanas until Dempsey left in 2019 to join a planning consultancy firm. Asked about doing an interview with ELi at this time, Dempsey declined, writing by email, “I do not want an interview to create any appearance of unfairness since the list of candidate names is not public and the other candidates cannot be given the same opportunity. Should I make it to the interview stage, I would expect that the public and ELi will have access to the candidates and that would make an appropriate time for a conversation.”
Artspace is stalled due to low staffing.
Late last year, East Lansing’s City Council, Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and Arts Commission committed a total of $35,000 to pay Minneapolis-based nonprofit developer Artspace to undertake the second phase of analysis into the question of whether to build an Artspace project here.
Artspace constructs live-work housing restricted to “creatives” whose income falls below the area median. The company has built and operates projects all over the U.S.
So, what’s the status?
Mayor Pro Tem Jessy Gregg, who has been especially active in the area of arts, tells ELi that, while the city did sign the contract for Phase 2, work on that phase hasn’t started. That’s because the Planning Department is missing so many staff members, it lacks the capacity to work with Artspace.

“We are in a holding pattern while [we] staff up in the planning department,” Gregg said in mid-June.
ELi has previously reported that Dempsey has resorted to hiring an external consultant to keep the planning department running, as the city continues to suffer from a wave of resignations.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, ELi has obtained staffing data from the last year and will be bringing an analysis of that in the coming days.
Parking downtown continues to present a pickle and the city is looking at possible solutions.
The city is planning to bring forward a new “master plan” for parking in the near future. Meanwhile, with the new MSUFCU building now open downtown, the city has been looking to move its own employees’ vehicles farther east, out of the Grove Street lot down Albert Avenue to the Charles and Division ramps, both of which have much higher rates of vacancy. The idea is to make space in the Grove ramp for MSUFCU.
There’s additional pressure west of Abbot Road from the Graduate Hotel, which was constructed with no on-site parking. The Graduate is currently leasing spaces in the public lot across from City Hall and its valet line sometimes backs up well onto Albert Avenue.
With the possibility of two big new buildings being built near Valley Court Park, the pressure to do something about west-side parking is getting higher, especially as people don’t seem to want to walk more than a block or two for parking.
ELi has learned from various sources one idea being batted around is knocking down City Hall and building a parking ramp there. That building is showing its age.
But in that case, where would city offices go? The leading idea appears to be to move city operations to the vacant offices in the Marriott (University Place) complex downtown.

The city owns the land on which the hotel, offices and retail space sit, and owns the parking garage under the hotel. The developers have leased the land for 40 years at just $10 per year, according to the original agreement. Now, the original ground lease is drawing to a close and the city realizes it could end up owning what’s on the land….
But at this point, it’s all just talk.
What’s going on with the investigation into the anonymous complaint?
In April, Council received an anonymous complaint alleging violations of the City Charter, specifically objecting to supposed overreach on the part of Mayor Ron Bacon and suggesting problematic, politicized leadership is responsible for the big wave of resignations among the city’s departmental directors.
Council decided to hire former Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office J. Randall Secontine to conduct an investigation, allocating up to $30,000 for the job. City Attorney Tony Chubb said at the time the investigation would be “absolutely” independent from the city.
But since then, the public has heard nothing more. It’s worth noting that hiring an attorney to do this work means the Council will be able, if it so chooses, to cloak all communications – including the results – under a claim of “attorney-client privilege.”
The anonymous complaint focused in part on an eight-page memo which outlined a plan to remake East Lansing’s city government, amassing power in the hands of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion department, currently under the direction of Elaine Hardy.
On May 2, former economic development specialist Adam Cummins (who quit the city’s employ on Jan. 27) claimed he wrote the eight-page reorganization memo. Then, a few hours after Cummins sent his message to Council and ELi, in public remarks, Bacon implied he himself was the author. (It appeared Bacon may not have been aware of Cummins’ claim at the time he made his own remarks.)

Bacon has not responded to questions from ELi to clarify the authorship.
Our attempts under FOIA to obtain records of the reorganization memo’s origin have been met with the claim that no such records exist, even though Bacon must have gotten it from someone or have the origin information himself. Records obtained in a different FOIA request showed he delivered the memo to Lahanas on Sept. 26.
On May 15, we formally appealed the denial of our FOIA request to Bacon, as mayor, as the city’s FOIA policy dictates. He did not recuse himself from the matter and rejected our appeal on May 30, claiming there are no documents to shed light on authorship.
ELi has been independently using FOIA to look into the claims of the anonymous complaint and a complaint by Lahanas that Council was violating the charter. (“I want to express a significant concern that has occurred a number of times over the prior several months,” Lahanas wrote to City Council on Jan. 2, 2023, “where I have objected to City Council members becoming directly involved in personnel management. As I have stated, such involvement violates the City Charter, which prohibits Council or its members from directing or interfering with my management of City staff.”)
The reporting work we’re doing includes looking at communications between council members and city staff. We’ll be bringing an analysis of the materials released in the coming days.
Who’s running for City Council?
Earlier today, Interim City Clerk Marie Wicks told ELi she can confirm only four candidates so far: Dan Bollman, Noel Garcia, Rebecca Kasen and Mark Meadows.
Bacon and Gregg have not responded to ELi’s latest inquiry about whether they are running for reelection.
The filing deadline is July 25, 2023, and three seats are up – those of Garcia, Bacon and Gregg.
ICYMI, East Lansing’s DDA and City Council have big decisions on their dockets tomorrow. Find out from ELi what’s expected.
Correction on Sept. 23, 2023: The original version of this article stated Randall Secontine’s former title as “Prosecutor for Oakland County.” This has been corrected to reflect that he was an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office.