East Lansing City Council Bumps Up Start Time of Meetings

With recent East Lansing City Council meetings often spanning several hours, and some even dragging into the early hours of the next day, council voted on Tuesday to start its meetings earlier in the evening. 

Starting with the Tuesday, April 28 meeting, discussion-only City Council meetings will begin at 6 p.m. and regular meetings will start at 6:30 p.m. To this point, meetings have typically begun at 7 p.m. 

When the council previously discussed starting meetings earlier, some council members raised concerns that a 6 p.m. start time would not give some residents enough time to get to meetings after leaving work and taking care of other responsibilities. There was also concern that it could present a scheduling challenge for future city council members – though everyone on the current council said meeting earlier is not an issue for them. 

The change will be in place for the remainder of the year, but council could opt to switch the time back when it adopts its meeting schedule next year, City Attorney Steve Joppich clarified at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. 

“Just moving it back down a half-hour earlier for a business meeting, I think, lets us gauge how the public will respond and whether it still makes the public comment portion of the meeting available to most people,” Councilmember Mark Meadows said at Tuesday’s meeting. 

Starting meetings earlier was initially part of a larger package of proposed changes to meeting regulations that included shortening public comment and banning disruptive behavior like clapping and booing. Mayor Erik Altmann told East Lansing Info that the other proposed changes will still be considered by the City Council later on.