Council Again Clashes Over Loud Cars; Take Step Towards Green Code Audit

Last October, City Council passed an ordinance ending pretextual stops in most cases. Now, council is revisiting the ordinance to potentially repeal a provision about noise. 

Pretextual stops are stops made by law enforcement to conduct a speculative investigation, not because a driver poses an immediate threat. A driver being pulled over because of a cracked windshield or tinted windows are a couple examples of pretextual stops that ELPD is no longer to conduct under the ordinance. 

The East Lansing Independent Police Oversight Commission recommended the ordinance, saying it helps reduce bias in police and frees up officers’ time to be spent on more serious offenses. 

The ordinance banning pretextual stops was approved by council in a 4-1 vote. Councilmember Erik Altmann was the vote against and has strongly opposed one provision included: Loud exhaust. Altmann has voiced opposition to the provision at several meetings since the ordinance passed, and raised the issue again at the June 10 discussion-only council meeting.

A common complaint during public comment at City Council meetings has been loud cars, particularly those with modified mufflers that sound like gunshots. Altmann believes the pretextual stops ordinance makes the issue worse.

However, when the ordinance was approved, it was explained that police are not equipped with the technology to pick up a decibel reading on a moving car, making noise laws hard to enforce on moving vehicles.

Council will revisit the pretextual stop ordinance after a request from Councilmember Erik Altmann.

At this week’s council meeting, council discussed noise issues in the community. During that discussion, Altmann again brought up the pretextual stops ordinance, saying he would like council to consider repealing the loud exhaust provision. He said he needed the support of one other council member to put the ordinance back on an agenda, support that was then given by Councilmember Mark Meadows. 

Altmann said that even if ELPD has troubles enforcing the noise laws on moving cars, having loud exhaust included in the ordinance signals that loud cars are OK in the city.

“I think that ordinance sends the wrong message,” he said. “I recognize that there are issues with enforcement… but ordinances are not just about enforcement, they’re also about communication. They tell our community what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable.

“I think we need to fix this, I think this is a problem of our own making,” Altmann continued.

Watson objected to Altmann’s request to change the ordinance just months after it was passed. 

“Councilmember Altmann, you are regularly dismissive of me,” Watson said. 

“We came to a decision,” she said. “When you bring it back up three months later because it didn’t go in someone’s favor, I think it’s disrespectful. Because the ELIPOC commission worked hard on that, then we worked hard through deep conversations and lots of questions, and it landed where it did.”

Watson pointed out that, while people often complain at council meetings about loud cars, data provided by ELPD shows that residents rarely turn to police to address the issue. A table included in the meeting agenda shows that from the start of last September to the end of April, only one call for service was about a loud vehicle, with a few more about loud music coming from vehicles. There were hundreds of calls, however, about noise from parties and music. 

“It’s weird to see that, once again, loud music is at the top of this, but we’ve not discussed that at all,” Watson said. “We’ve decided [that] because the community has shown up to discuss loud cars, that should be our only discussion.”

Meadows said he is unsure how he will vote on repealing the loud exhaust provision in the ordinance, but he is “always willing to put things back on the agenda.” He added that he thinks it might be worthwhile to look at starting a fund to pay for muffler repairs for people who are pulled over and unable to afford them – an idea initially floated by former Interim Police Chief Chad Pride last year. 

Meadows acknowledged issues with enforcement, saying that even if people do call the police to report loud cars, they will be long gone by the time police arrive at the scene. He said he still thinks the city may be able to find a better solution to the problem. 

“We need to take a look at this, we need to have a debate with regard to it and make sure that what we have on the books is… an efficient and effective way for us to control this,” he said. 

Altmann suggested that the council hold a meeting somewhere on Grand River Avenue sometime this summer to see if they can make it through without being interrupted repeatedly. 

The city is moving forward with effort to rewrite code to eliminate barriers to green infrastructure. 

After there were two large flooding events last summer, the city began having more discussions about reviewing its code to make sure it doesn’t contain provisions that would impede green infrastructure, which could help alleviate the flooding problem.

“A lot of communities in the midwest and around the country have legacy language baked in their code that serve as codified barriers to create [green] infrastructure implementation,” Environmental Sustainability and Resiliency Manager Cliff Walls said. “A lot of those are not nearly as obvious as they may seem.”

Walls said these barriers can be restrictive and prevent communities from considering creative solutions. 

Previously, the city formed a Green Code Study Committee made up of members from some of its various commissions and Altmann to review specific ordinances. The committee reviewed the stormwater standards put on developers and will soon review the tree protection ordinance, for example, Walls said. 

“It’s kind of whatever we throw at them,” Walls said. “It’s a good cross-section of various commissions that touch this type of work.”

Now, Walls said he believes the city should hire a consultant to audit the city code, which would likely cost $25,000 to $35,000 and take up to six months to complete. 

“A line-by-line review of every part of the code,” Walls said. “Looking for places where… the code is either neutral, supportive or prohibitive of green infrastructure implementation.”

Walls said that a consultant will be able to also suggest new language to replace problematic language. 

Council was strongly supportive of the audit, giving Walls the nudge he needed to begin soliciting proposals from potential consultants.