Council Attempts to Outline Ambitions for 2024-2025 Term
In a rare Saturday morning session, the East Lansing City Council met to hear from the two remaining departments about their goals for the coming year and City Manager Robert Belleman attempted to lead Council members through a priority planning process for the next two years.
The laidback Jan. 20 session was held at the Hannah Community Center with just three members of the public in attendance, most of the Council members in comfortable clothes, and bagels and coffee from Panera Bread.
Previously, ELi delivered two separate reports on the other nine department presentations, which were given to Council at its Jan. 16 discussion-only meeting. Here are the remaining two.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Organizational Culture
Elaine Hardy, director of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Organizational Culture Department, began her presentation by giving a brief history of her unit, which was formed after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and the summer of protests that followed.
That fall, the City Council adopted a resolution declaring racism a public health crisis.
Hardy stressed the need to continue capacity building (strengthening skills and abilities) in city employees.
“The whole goal is to make sure we are embedding equity,” she said. “If we don’t embed and talk about equity, it won’t get done.”
The Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation training developed by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation was one such experience Hardy added to the city’s arsenal over the last two years.
“What percentage of staff have gone through the training?” Mayor Pro Tem Kerry Ebersole Singh asked.
“It was mandatory when we started,” Hardy said. “Two hundred and ninety eight members of staff [100%] completed all 40 hours.”
“Some people did have strong reactions to the training,” she added. “When we came back after the [2023 New Year] holiday, we allowed people the opportunity to opt out.”
Hardy is working with Emily Kenney, East Lansing Human Resources director, to put together an applicant screening process for those applying for city jobs to work toward a diverse pool of candidates.
“It encourages people to look at where they’re posting the jobs,” she said.
“If we continue to look for people the same way we looked for people in the ’80s, you’re not going to find…” Councilmember Dana Watson said, leaving her thought unfinished.
Finance
The final department to highlight its goals for the coming year was Finance with its director, Penny Wright, stepping to the podium.
In a succinct presentation, Wright outlined the efforts of her staff, leading off with the hope of finding a common time clock that can be used citywide and be compatible with software already in use.
“None [of the currently used time clocks] interface with our accounting system,” she said. “They require hand entry and it is more time consuming and more prone to error.”
The topic that brought the most visible interest from Council members was the East Lansing income tax. Wright explained the city purchases tax records from the State of Michigan, exploring them to determine which individuals are residents of East Lansing before cross-referencing its own lists to check if they have paid their city income tax over the last several years. This work is carried out by a third party vendor.
“Employee lists of [Michigan State] University are public record, but are you getting cooperation from other organizations?” Councilmember Mark Meadows asked after Wright said it was tougher for the city to collect tax payments from individuals who worked in the city but resided elsewhere.
Wright responded that other employers were cooperating with the city’s work.
“Can we make [an option to pay] taxes digitally?” Ebersole Singh asked.
“It’s something we can look at,” Wright said. “But we don’t presently have the human capacity.”
The city manager led Council members through a strategic-planning process.
The final goal of the Saturday meeting was to set priorities for the next two years, a process initiated and facilitated by Belleman.
From the start of the session, members of the Council, particularly Meadows and Mayor George Brookover, expressed their discomfort with the process.
“I’m dubious about the whole thing,” Brookover told Belleman. “As city manager, why would you ever want us to do this?”
“Why I would want you to do this is to provide myself and staff guidance on what you want us to focus our limited time and resources on,” Belleman said. “And then we take what you do today and it will be the guiding budgeting principles for fiscal year ’25.”
Belleman explained how previous Councils had created strategic plans for the work, highlighting six categories that priorities had fallen into: economy and development, environmental sustainability, transportation and infrastructure, recreation and cultural opportunities, diverse community, and good governance.
Meadows pointed out those categories had been created by a previous Council and he didn’t feel it was necessary to keep them.
Belleman then attempted to walk the Council through an 18-page color-coded spreadsheet highlighting 2022-2023 strategic priorities for the city’s departments, but was interrupted several times before moving on to his next activity.
Council members created lists of recent successes and challenges.
With the help of Asia Siev, assistant to the city manager, two easels with large post-it notes were moved in front of the Council with four questions for the elected officials to respond to. They were asked to identify recent successes, what circumstances could work against the city, and what trends and changes could be an asset.
Again, Brookover and Meadows spoke against the process, with the mayor at one point asking the city manager, “Why are we doing this?” and Councilmember Meadows asking Belleman to just list the successes from the previously-discussed 18-page spreadsheet.
Nevertheless, Belleman continued, eliciting responses from all Council members.
“The work in the clerk’s office during the election,” Councilmember Erik Altmann offered.
“Surviving the pandemic has helped prepare us to survive the next one,” Watson said.
“Maintained fiscal responsibility,” Brookover said.
“ELIPOC [East Lansing Independent Police Oversight Commission],” Ebersole Singh said.
“During all the campaigning,” Meadows said, “nobody ever complained about city services despite the loss of employees over the last year.”
The Council also identified several factors that could work against the city: results from the upcoming presidential election (Brookover), misinformation (Watson), and the unfunded liability (Meadows).
Belleman leads Council members into identifying and discussing their priorities.
At this point, Belleman pointed the Council’s attention to the colorful sticky notes and multi-colored stickers already at their seats.
“My next item on the agenda will be to identify and discuss our priorities,” Belleman said. “And that’s an exercise where those post-it notes in front of you, you’re going to write down your priorities, we’re going to slap them up on the [white]board because I don’t want to shout them out and have groupthink. I want individual thoughts. And from there, we can start categorizing them – if they’re infrastructure-based, if they’re service-based, if they’re sustainability-based – and then identify, I say five to 10, priorities to focus on.
“I really want to hone in on five to 10 initially so we can start implementing, shaping the budget around them, and measuring them,” he said, “Which is the part I don’t think we’ve done well, measuring them, [seeing] where we are at, if we’ve moved the needle.”
Initially, that is how the process went. Each Council member, some with lists of priorities they had already prepared, wrote on their sticky notes and placed them on the large whiteboard on wheels. They studied one another’s ideas and Belleman worked to organize them into broad themes, including infrastructure, public safety and land use.
Once Belleman explained the next stage, in which Council members would place stickers on their top 10 priorities, Brookover again broached his discomfort with the process.
“I do not want to start prioritizing based on a list of stickies on a whiteboard, given 10 minutes and everybody’s writing, and then to try to figure out what people are talking about and stuff like that,” Brookover said. “I just can’t do that. I want time to think about things and look at what everybody’s put down. I just think, from a group standpoint, it’d be better to get these to us in writing and give us a little time to think about this.”
Meadows countered that given the time set aside today, it might be valuable to move forward with the stickers and see what initial thoughts were among the body.
Altmann offered an opinion that supported the mayor’s call for a break and second stage.
Brookover admitted that, while he was dubious of the exercise, he knows the work is important.
“Look, obviously I’ve been a little sarcastic as we’ve gone through the process,” Brookover said. “But this is important work. I just think important work requires some thought, deliberation, and we have plenty of time to do this. We can come back for an hour or two after we’ve honed things down and figured it out.”
Meadows spoke several more times, saying the exercise should be revisited after time for reflection, but wanted the opportunity for everyone to place at least two dots to identify priorities. He was rebuffed by the mayor each time with Brookover finally adding, “Yeah, your position is clear for the record.”
The meeting ended with a promise from Belleman to email the Council a typed list compiled from the sticky notes and a tentative plan to meet again at a not-yet-decided time.
The Council, however, gathered for a regular meeting Tuesday (Jan. 23).