Deadline to Apply to Serve on EL Charter Review Committee Approaching

30 years have passed since the East Lansing charter was last formally reviewed, and the city has started the process of assembling a team to look at the charter once again.

The new committee will include seven members. Initially, it was slated to have five members, as the 1995 committee did, but Councilmember Dana Watson motioned to expand the committee at the May 14 City Council meeting, a motion that was approved 4-1. City Council will appoint members of the committee from the pool of applicants.

“In an attempt to make sure that we really reflect the entire city we raised the number to seven,” Meadows said. “We’re going to have a geographic, you know, split of members. We didn’t talk about the composition. We wanted to see who applied, I think before we have any conversation like that.”

The committee will hold its first meeting within two weeks of having its members appointed. At that first meeting, the committee will decide on at least three dates to hold meetings, so residents can suggest changes to the charter. The committee will complete its work within one year of being appointed.

East Lansing residents can apply to be on the committee through the board and commission application process outlined on the city’s website. Applications are due by June 15.

An example of an objective of this review will be to examine the charter’s language to make it completely gender-neutral, Meadows said. 

“We need to go back through that process and make it truly gender-neutral by using the word ‘they,’ for instance. I know that’s an objective that everybody seems to want,” Meadows said. “We expect them to go through the charter line by line. If there’s any confusion, ambiguity, or anything like that might be contained in the charter at this point, we’d like to see that cleaned up.”

One particular aspect of the charter Councilmember Erik Altmann said may need to be looked at is the swearing-in date of council members. Last year, voters narrowly rejected a charter amendment that would have changed the swearing-in date of newly elected council members from the Tuesday after the election to early January. This proposal was largely motivated by an anticipated change in state election law that requires municipalities to allow more time for canvassing after elections before newly elected officials are sworn in. 

Voters may have been concerned by the lame duck period for outgoing council members that would have been created by that proposed charter amendment, but the city needs to make sure it is in compliance with state law. Altmann hopes the charter review committee is able to find a solution to the problem. 

“One example is that we need to update the timeline for seating new council members after an election, in response to changes in state law,” he said. “There may be different approaches to this and I’m glad we’ll have a committee to think through the options.”

This review will include a public process, Meadows said.

“The committee will take a look at the charter. It may have meetings on its own. Those are open meetings, so people can go to them, and at some point, there has to be meetings that elicit statements and contributions from the general public, so that they can consider those recommendations as well before they make their report to us.”

Meadows continued, “We [City Council] take their report and all the information, and we hold a public hearing on the report and the recommendations, and then at some point, we’ll ask the city attorney to review the report and draft up proposals to be on the ballot, and then we will review each one of those proposals and take a vote on whether it goes on the ballot or not.”

If a proposal is rejected by council, it wil still have a chance of being on the ballot if it receives enough signatures through a resident petition process. 

East Lansing’s effort is different from the charter review commission elected recently in Lansing. In Lansing, nine members from a field of 36 candidates were chosen in a May election, according to WKAR. The process in East Lansing is very different, as City Council will appoint the seven East Lansing committee members. 

The function of the two committees will be different, council members explained. 

“The Lansing commission may consider broad changes to city government,” Altmann said. “The charge to this committee will be more limited, focusing on tune-ups to our governing document.”

One factor that went into East Lansing’s committee being structured this way is cost. The committee will serve its function to review the charter and then disband – unlike city commissions that are permanent. Additionally, appointing members of the committee is a way to save on election costs. 

“What we did is we priced it out. We looked at how each one of these [structures] would function in terms of the end result, which seems to be the same, other than we don’t have an election that we have to pay for, that we don’t have a commission that has to have a large budget to proceed,” Meadows explained. “It’s not a permanent committee, it’s one that will function. There will be a cost associated with it and we built that into the budget this year, and it’s far less expensive or ornate, I guess I’d say, than the process that Lansing decided to follow.”

Mayor Pro Tem Kerry Ebersole Singh believes an appointed committee will allow the city to complete the review in an efficient and timely manner.

“Seizing upon general elections and planning for those charter amendments and priorities will help us utilize and implement the prioritized amendments,” she said. “It’s an efficiency of time and then leveraging general elections so you’re not having to schedule a separate election, which would cost the city money.”

Singh said she is glad the review is being done because it is a topic she has heard from many residents about. 

“I just was elected last November, and this was a topic that came up during the campaign,” Singh said. “I’m excited that within the first, what, seven or eight months of us taking office, we have a plan to address updating the charter.”

The application is open to all East Lansing residents, Singh hopes to see candidates from different backgrounds.

“We are looking for diverse points of view, and diversity could look like backgrounds, socioeconomic backgrounds so it can be reflective of our city’s population,” she said. “I think that’s optimally what you’d like to see.”

Altmann spoke on a few traits they hope to see from applicants.

“We need thoughtful, open-minded, and conscientious people – good thing there are lots of them in East Lansing,”  he said. “It’s important because we want to make the charter the best document it can be.”

Altmann said he’s pleased with the number of applications the city has already received, but hopes that number grows by the June 15 deadline.