East Lansing Begins to Review Proposed Charter Amendments, Eyes Multi-Election Approach

East Lansing City Council members are in the process of reviewing 29 recommended amendments to the city’s guiding government document which could appear on ballots over the next several elections.

Council members met on Tuesday to hear from City Attorney Steven Joppich about the recommendations made by the city’s Charter Review Committee, which held 19 meetings over the course of 2024 and 2025 to recommend changes to the East Lansing City Charter.

Much like the United States has a constitution and Michigan has a state constitution, East Lansing and other cities have a charter, which is widely considered a city’s constitution, Joppich told council members at their meeting Tuesday. And just as national and state laws change and culture transforms, cities also go through metamorphosis, and East Lansing voters get the opportunity to approve changes they feel they should see in the city charter.

“Every city has a charter, and every charter is unique to each individual city. Many of them have very similar provisions, but a lot of them have very unique provisions to fit the community for which the charter exists,” Joppich said. “So cities, over time, evolve just like our country does, and just like our state does, and with that comes the need, over time, to amend your charter to keep up with the times.”

The East Lansing City Charter outlines specific rules to the city on the roles and procedures of governance that are not already outlined in state or federal law such as how library board members are appointed, how the city enters into contracts to perform public works and how the city creates new ordinances or local rules.

Councilmember Mark Meadows, who served as council’s liaison to the review committee, expressed interest in working speedily on reviewing the 29 resolutions, saying that a substantial number of the recommendations are not controversial, though a few warrant significant discussion.

Recommendations include measures like altering language on the charter to be gender-neutral rather than reading “he or she” when talking about people as the charter does currently. Another proposed change is outlining new anti-discrimination language that would align with federal and state laws.

In 2023, Michigan expanded its anti-discrimination laws under the state’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act to support LGBTQ rights and ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Other recommendations include requiring future city managers to live within 25 miles of the city and adding a preamble to the city charter.

The recommended preamble reads:

“We the People of the City of East Lansing, Michigan, pursuant to the constitution and laws of the State of Michigan, do hereby adopt this Charter to secure the principles of home rule and ensure local control and autonomy over our community.

We recognize and honor that the City of East Lansing occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabeg — the Three Fires Confederacy of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples — land ceded in the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw. We acknowledge this history as we strive to uphold principles of equity and stewardship in our governance, providing a government that serves the common good, safeguards democratic principles, and fosters a just and inclusive society.

We affirm our City’s commitment to being a welcoming, safe, and equitable place for all to live, work, visit, and do business. Our city functions at its highest potential when we foster a shared culture that accepts, respects. and values the rich diversity of all people. We reaffirm our faith in fundamental human rights and in the equal rights of all people. We are determined to promote social progress and to guarantee that City government serves the people.

In adopting this Charter, we are dedicated to transparency, accountability, and justice, ensuring that every resident and visitor is treated with dignity and empowered to contribute to our shared future.”

Joppich cautioned that it’s OK and preferable to space out the proposed amendments over multiple elections in an effort to engage the most residents. He added that some elections like the gubernatorial election this year draw more voters than years where there are only local elections. Also, if too many local issues are on a ballot, voters can become fatigued and disengage from voting on measures that otherwise they would have voted on had there been only a few on the ballot.

It would be ideal and reasonably feasible to get at least six proposed amendments on the ballot for voter consideration in the August election, Mayor Erik Altmann told the council during Tuesday’s meeting. The goal would be to space out the amendments over four elections in the next two years.

“I don’t want to suggest that six is a magic number. I think it would be helpful to have some more information on what is a reasonable number of proposals to put on the ballot, considering all the various parameters, like the space of the ballot and voter fatigue and other stuff. There’s no magic number here,” Altmann said. “[It] seems like that should fit on the ballot, although it sounds like there’s a lot of variables there, but taking into account things like voter fatigue and if we have five or six amendments per ballot, that’s four elections to get us through this whole process.”

Altmann, with the vocal support of other members of city council requested that Joppich outline which amendments are the highest priority in the city or would be considered the least controversial in order to get simple or prioritized measures on the ballot at the soonest possible election. He also requested city council members make their own personal lists of what measures they prioritize the most.