Council Sets Guidelines for Charter Review Committee Selection; Partners with Gun Violence Reduction Program

City Council settled on a selection process for the seven-member charter review committee at its June 18 meeting. 

The city received a total of 28 applications for the new charter review committee and voted unanimously to have each council member review the submitted applications and select their top 10 picks, which they will then pass along to Mayor George Brookover for consideration. 

Brookover will announce his recommended seven candidates and desired committee chairperson at the July 9 City Council meeting and present on why he selected these individuals. The entire council will then vote on a final committee at its Aug. 13 meeting. 

Initially, Councilmember Mark Meadows motioned to have Brookover propose seven candidates at the July meeting and for council to vote at that same session. Councilmember Dana Watson, who expressed disagreement with the proposed process, requested there be a gap between Brookover’s presentation and the selection of the committee. 

“I might be open to hearing the list, the possible list, and then having a discussion but not making a decision that same day,” Watson said. “I need pause, just in case.”

Watson also proposed that council members rank their candidates from one to 10, and each member is guaranteed to have their top pick serve on the committee, expressing a belief that her desired candidates will differ from other council members. This idea was shot down, however. 

As part of Meadows’ motion, the city’s policy of not allowing individuals to serve on multiple boards or commissions will apply to this committee. This eliminates six individuals who applied, including Ernest Conerly (Police Oversight Commission), Jeff Friedle (Building Board of Appeals), Chris Wardell (Arts Commission), Collin Good (Human Rights Commission), Kath Edsall (Police Oversight Commission) and Adam DeLay (Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission). 

Watson said she wishes this information was shared earlier with current board and commission members, so those who submitted an application did not waste their time. 

Mayor Pro Tem Kerry Ebersole Singh asked City Attorney Anthony Chubb to clarify what the committee will do, saying she has heard confusion from residents. 

“The charter essentially acts as the constitution of the city,” Chubb said. “It’s 45 pages and sets up… the highest level structure of government, our top officials, our ability to to tax, the very, very high end things. The ordinances are likely 10s of thousands of pages that go through the very minutia of day to day rules and regulations that apply to the residents.

“The charter review committee is going to look at the charter itself, not at the ordinances,” Chubb continued. 

He went on to say that the committee is limited in its scope. He said that if the committee wanted to, for example, change the structure of government in the city to a strong mayor form it would need to be an elected commission, and would ask for council to set up an election for that commission. 

A charter amendment requires a vote of approval from residents. The product produced by the committee as currently structured could take a couple different forms, Chubb explained. 

“They could have a report that they would provide that would just be at a high level and say we should really look at the budgeting section or administrative officers, that would just kind of be overall guidance for the council for potential amendments,” Chubb said. “Or it could be… that they give actual proposed amendments and then that would allow council to say ‘I think we should take these up and put them on the ballot.’”

Council votes to fund program to decrease gun violence

Paul Elam and Charles Richardson of the Michigan Public Health Institute Advance Peacemaker Fellowship Program presented to council. Their program is designed to decrease gun violence and at the June 18 meeting, City Council agreed to a contract to implement the program in East Lansing for two years. 

The program will place a “Neighborhood Change Agent” in East Lansing to work with five fellows who are at risk of being involved in gun violence, Elam explained. The fellowship lasts for 18 months and change agents will check in on fellows three times daily. The program also has employees to do outreach and build relationships in the community, to identify people who would fit in the program and reduce retaliatory gun violence. 

The Advance Peacemaker program has been working in Ingham County since 2022. Elam said that in 18 months of work, Ingham County has seen a reduction in gun violence and communities the program is implemented in typically see 40-60% decreases in gun violence. 

Through its operations in Ingham County, program managers found a need to zero in on East Lansing. 

“We have outreach workers who work in the entire county of Ingham, prioritizing working in Lansing,” Elam said. “We know that there’s typically two individuals or more involved in gun violence. So, based on our targeting of individuals who live in the city of Lansing, we have insight that some of the opposition, folks that they feud with, live in other geographies – some in East Lansing.”

Elam said that the partnership with East Lansing will allow the program to work with individuals on both sides of the feud. 

A video shown at the meeting explained the program identifies fellows by talking to people in the community who have been impacted by gun violence. Some are formerly incarcerated individuals and others are victims or families of victims. 

Elam expanded on the program’s outreach strategy.

“Staff do street outreach daily,” he said. “We respond to every shooting in the community to identify victims, perpetrators and to determine if there is going to be a response to that shooting. We develop relationships with the family members of victims and we provide ongoing case management, mentoring, cognitive behavioral therapy.” 

Richardson, who serves as the strategy manager for the program, said that staff may go to the hospital to meet families impacted after a shooting to reduce the chances of retaliation. He said many staff members grow close to families impacted by gun violence and act as a sibling or parental-type of figure. Right now, the program has 11 local staff members and is looking to add more. 

The program employs several strategies to reduce cyclical and retaliatory gun violence, Elam said. Fellows are helped financially by being connected with state and federal programs they are eligible for. Additionally, fellows are given a stipend and may be introduced to job or internship opportunities eventually. Elam explained it is often challenging to find work opportunities for fellows. 

“If you can imagine, the individuals that we work with typically are being hunted and so if someone finds out where they are [working], they might shoot at them,” Elam said. “We get to that point of the strategy when we believe that the individual is ready. Most folks in 18 months are not ready to be – in this community – working because if their opposition finds out where they are located, they might drive by and shoot them and shoot anybody else that’s around them.”

Elam said right now they are working on workforce opportunities outside the county and that he is open to speaking with council offline about safe opportunities. He said the program primarily works with fellows on life skills. 

Elam said fellows are also connected with travel experiences to see the world beyond their community. These experiences can serve as opportunities to heal deep rooted conflicts in the community.

“Some of those excursions they have to travel with someone that they had been trying to murder,” Elam said. “Because they had never met this individual, when they come back from that experience we continually hear that they will not likely shoot at that individual in the community because they now have a relationship with them.”

The program also has an elder circle embedded in the community that mentors fellows. 

In response to a question from Meadows, Elam said the program has employees working in Lansing schools, but has not yet talked with East Lansing school officials. Meadows indicated he would like council to facilitate a discussion between the program and school district. 

Richardson explained the program is confidential and does not interact with law enforcement. This allows staff members to gain the trust of participants. Elam said that there are other models for reducing gun violence that involve police and are effective for those who participate, however these programs struggle to engage a large segment of the community. 

“Our model engages 100% of active shooters in the community,” he said. “We may also support victims. And because we are engaging active shooters, we need to stay away from law enforcement as much as possible to increase the likelihood that those active shooters will work with us.”

Council voted unanimously to form the partnership with the program. The city will spend $175,282 for a two-year contract. The Department of Justice will also spend $175,000 to support the program’s operations in East Lansing. 

“I’m really excited about this,” Meadows said. “For the longest time, we’ve been looking for ways to improve public safety within our community and this is one of those ways.”