Dan Bollman and Mark Meadows Are Running for City Council
With three seats open on East Lansing’s five-seat City Council this November, Dan Bollman and Mark Meadows have confirmed they are both running again.
Meadows is a former council member and mayor. He resigned in July 2020 after three other members of Council (Aaron Stephens, Jessy Gregg and Lisa Babcock) voted to terminate the contract of then-City Attorney Tom Yeadon.
“I want citizens to know the decision I have made to resign is not spontaneous and has been contemplated by me for several months,” Meadows said with tears in his eyes before resigning and signing off from the virtual meeting.
He has since remained active on social media, commenting on local politics, and is currently the chair of the East Lansing Seniors Commission, whose members Council appoint. Meadows told ELi he made the decision on Monday to run again.
Meadows very narrowly won the last City Council race in which he ran, in November 2019. He came in third in a virtual dead heat with Erik Altmann for that seat. In that election, Gregg led with 2,944 votes, Babcock came in second with 2,871 votes, and Meadows came in third at 1,951 votes, with Altmann’s official tally coming to 1,949, two votes short of Meadow’s.
Bollman is a local architect with long-time service on the Planning Commission, including as chair. Bollman ran for Council unsuccessfully in the November 2021 election, when Dana Watson, George Brookover and Ron Bacon were elected.
Now, the seats of Bacon, Jessy Gregg and Noel Garcia are up for grabs. Garcia has said he is running, but Bacon and Gregg have not yet announced whether they will be running for reelection or stepping aside.
Garcia was appointed by the Council to his seat in January of this year, after Lisa Babcock resigned to take an elected seat as judge of 54B District Court. But before Council voted through Garcia’s appointment, Brookover nominated Bollman to fill the vacancy. Brookover and Gregg voted to appoint Bollman, but with Bacon and Watson against, that vote failed. The second round saw a unanimous vote for Garcia.
Bollman ran in the 2021 race where five candidates competed for two open four-year seats. In that race, Watson came in first (with 2,276 votes), Brookover second (2,063 votes), Chuck Grigsby third (1,783), Bollman fourth (1,562) and Adam DeLay fifth (1,015).
In the same election cycle, Bacon ran for a two-year seat made available by Mayor Ruth Beier’s resignation. (Beier resigned immediately before Meadows.) In that race, Bacon was opposed by only one person, Mikey Manuel. Bacon obtained 3,683 votes and Manuel 737 votes.
The three people elected this November will join Brookover and Watson on the Council.
The filing deadline for the November election is Tuesday, July 25, 2023, at 4 p.m.
Learn more about the election and how candidates can file to have their names on the ballot by clicking here.