East Lansing City Council Adopts Ordinance Changes that Limit Police Oversight Commission; Decline Pay Increase

Amid controversy around recent East Lansing police actions and calls for ELPD Chief Jen Brown to resign or be removed, the East Lansing City Council passed amendments that weaken the powers of the city’s police oversight commission. 

The ordinance amendments were presented in August as a way to pull the oversight commission into compliance with an administrative law judge’s ruling and the collective bargaining agreement the city reached with a union representing ELPD patrol officers. Changes to accommodate the bargaining agreement have been in place since the spring, but they were officially installed in the ordinance at this week’s council meeting. 

For months, commissioners have said that some of the ordinance changes go beyond what is required in the text of the agreement and judge’s ruling, and changes hurt police accountability and transparency.

The version of the ordinance amendments passed is dated Oct. 17, City Attorney Steve Joppich said at Tuesday’s meeting. Commissioner Chris Root told ELi at the meeting she had “no idea” what council had just passed because the version of the ordinance approved was not given to the oversight commission beforehand.

Rules around how the commission operates have been evolving. One of the changes installed this spring is that reports about officers’ use of force that the commission had received for more than three years no longer contained the names of officers. However, when the commission received the August report, it included names but was not available to the public for the first time. ELi was able to obtain a redacted version of the report through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Commissioners gave pushback to the ordinance changes in an Oct. 2 memo, but weren’t given the Oct. 17 version before Tuesday’s meeting. Councilmember Dana Watson motioned to delay the vote until December to give the oversight commission time to weigh-in on the new new amendments. Watson’s motion failed when she was only joined in support by Councilmember Mark Meadows. 

“We wasted a whole bunch of people’s time by even insinuating that we were going to listen to them,” Watson said. “We may as well have just bounced this back to the labor attorney and just continued with closed-session and just dropped it on everybody, because that is where we are.” 

Mayor George Brookover said a future council can consider other amendments later on if it desires, but he thinks it’s time to move forward with the ordinance changes. 

“Unfortunately, I think the alternative is if we don’t do something like this, we’re then going to have a very, very complicated collective bargaining situation relative to the police oversight legislation that we passed,” Brookover said. 

In a phone call on Thursday, Root told ELi she had since reviewed the new version of the ordinance and found some changes in the language from the August version. She said a few changes were made that she believes address some of the issues raised in the oversight commission’s memo, but the most restrictive changes will remain in place. 

Among other things, she said the oversight commission will not be allowed to name officers during discussions and the commission’s ability to investigate incidents will be hampered. Root said she anticipates the commission will eventually receive further instruction from the city and its labor attorneys about the ordinance changes.

Later on at this week’s council meeting, council returned from a closed-session and voted to hire outside attorneys to conduct an independent review of recent actions by the city’s police department. 

Council rejects pay increase. 

Council turned down a pay increase recommended by the city’s Elected Officers Compensation Commission. The commission recommended the mayor’s pay be raised from $11,000 to $15,000, and council members’ pay from $9,470 to $13,000. 

The increase was recommended partially to make running for council accessible to more members of the community, as juggling family responsibilities, career obligations and council duties can be overwhelming. 

Watson was the only council member in favor of adopting the recommended pay raises. Had she been joined by one more council member, the recommendation would have been put in place because it takes a supermajority from council to reject the commission’s recommendation. 

“Sacrifices are made, my voice matters,” Watson said. “Just because I have kids I need to take care of and just because council [salary] is not going to pay my bills, doesn’t mean that the only people that belong here are retired people, professors or attorneys that work in town.”

Councilmembers Erik Altmann and Meadows indicated they would have been open to a smaller pay increase. 

“We don’t need this raise,” Altmann said. “I would have supported a cost of living allowance because I think that everybody deserves to keep up with inflation… That would be a 4% raise, this is a 40% raise.” 

Altmann and Brookover said they think council accepting a pay increase would hurt the chances that a parks and recreation millage is passed by voters at the Nov. 4 election. If passed, the millage would insulate the parks department from potential cuts, but would also increase the property tax cap put in place when voters approved an income tax. 

Brookover said in “any other set of circumstances” he would not vote to reject the recommended raise. 

“I think a pay increase is an appropriate thing,” Brookover said. “I happen to think that the ballot proposal is an extremely important vote, and that it should be voted for. And I don’t really want to do anything that could possibly be utilized by candidates who want to voice they’re against that proposal.

“We need to pass the ballot proposal. If we do not pass the ballot proposal, then whoever is sitting at this table is going to have the job from hell,” Brookover continued. 

This was likely the final meeting for Brookover, Watson. 

Tuesday’s meeting is the last scheduled before the Nov. 4 election. Barring a special meeting being added to the schedule or something else unexpected, this was the last meeting for Brookover and Watson, as neither are running for reelection. 

Council voted Brookover mayor shortly after the 2023 City Council election. His father, Wilbur Brookover, served as East Lansing mayor from 1971 to 1975. 

Watson was appointed to council in 2020 and then elected to her seat the following year. She will finish her tenure as the longest serving Black council member in East Lansing history.