EL Council Candidates Try to Distinguish Themselves in Crowded Field at Public Forum

This article was originally published on Sept. 15, 2023, and was republished on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023, with updated information about the forum video now being available.

Eight candidates for three open City Council seats: that’s the choice East Lansing voters will face on the Nov. 7 ballot. Thursday night (Sept. 14), the eight candidates tried to get out ahead of the pack as they took questions in a public forum cosponsored by the League of Women Voters of Lansing Area and ELi.

The League representatives developed questions based on a survey of ELi readers and note cards provided by the audience. The candidates were not allowed to debate or criticize each other by name.

What the candidates agreed on was predictable: East Lansing is a great place to live. Housing should be affordable and welcoming of diverse people. Everyone should be paying more attention to climate change. The city’s workforce needs stabilizing, and fast, after the loss of so many management personnel and all their institutional knowledge.

Where they differed brought out some surprises, with one candidate calling for the use of eminent domain to seize a property downtown, another wanting to redesign the income tax to pay down the pension debt sooner, a third wanting more attention paid to people with disabilities and more.

As ELi continues to provide nonpartisan reporting aimed at helping voters decide who to vote for, here’s a rundown on what happened at the forum. Video of the forum was released Saturday (Sept. 30).

Candidates spoke about their backgrounds and why they think they are uniquely qualified to serve on Council in this moment.

Noel Garcia, the only incumbent running, referred to his Hispanic background and his work on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), particularly for Latinos, as well as his professional background in policing and police training. Garcia said he’s learned a lot since his appointment to Council in January. He talked about his past and present work with East Lansing’s Independent Police Oversight Commission (ELIPOC), and said he wants to see more diversity on boards and commissions.

Chris Wardell emphasized his years of work in the state legislature as preparing him to serve on Council, his perseverance through adversity, his sensitivity to and advocacy on disability issues following the loss of a brother from complications of spina bifida, and his attentiveness to the need for safety for families that live in East Lansing. He also spoke about supporting seniors by attending to things like maintenance of sidewalks including in winter months.

Kerry Ebersole Singh said she’s running because of her “rockstar” first-grade son and that her background working for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) means she’s ready to support smart economic development and retention of young talent. Her work around the state, she said, leaves her well prepared to lead East Lansing. She promised to outreach to constituents if elected.

Former mayor Mark Meadows positioned himself as the elder statesman with decades of experience as an elected official in local and state government. Meadows hit hard on the themes of unity and the importance of bringing people together to move the city forward. He also touted his credentials of decades of work statewide and nationally with the Sierra Club leadership on environmental concerns.

Rebecca Kasen said her years of living in East Lansing (since 2020) has caused her to see the way people value diversity here. Her background in intersectionality and feminist advocacy, she said, positions her well to push DEI from a leadership position on council. As the executive director of a women’s center, she said, she brings experience in budgeting, administration and advocacy.

Joshua Ramirez-Roberts is the youngest candidate. He recently served on the University Student Commission as well as other volunteer boards. He emphasized his desire to tackle big issues, particularly the city’s pension debt and his concern East Lansing continues to face austerity measures. He wants to see the income tax restructured to send 80%, not 60%, of the net revenue to the pension debt. Ramirez-Roberts noted he was born and raised in East Lansing and is now completing a full-year teaching internship at East Lansing High School.

Dan Bollman, an architect, referred to his 15 years of volunteer service in planning work in East Lansing (including as chair of the Planning Commission) and talked about how to rebuild East Lansing’s staff in the face of a substantial loss of local expertise with recent resignations. He spoke repeatedly of his desire to increase neighborhood inclusivity while preserving the characters of neighborhoods.

Former mayor pro tem Erik Altmann, a Michigan State University psychology professor, strongly emphasized the need to have people with gravity, experience and commitment voted in for the next Council and said he wants to rebuild the city’s workforce and deal with environmental concerns and the pensions. He noted he lost his seat in 2019 by two votes.

In that election, Jessy Gregg and Lisa Babcock received over 63% of voters’ support and Altmann and Meadows received only 43%. Analysis by ELi showed if Altmann had asked for a recount, he might have been seated instead of Meadows, who resigned the next year.

The exodus of so many top staff in the city emerged as the most talked-about topic of the night.

All of the candidates recognized the serious problem the city is facing with loss of staff and understaffing. Bollman, Altmann, Garcia, Meadows and Singh named the stabilization and rebuilding of the city’s workforce as the most important issue facing the city.

Bollman said his work with the Cities of Kalamazoo and East Lansing taught him how absolutely critical the retention of knowledgeable staff is. He noted there are important plans like the form-based zoning code proposal sitting on shelves waiting for adequate staffing to tackle them.

Singh said she regretted the city having to turn down a million-dollar grant for lack of staffing. (Rising costs and an unpopular park design were also reasons the Council walked away from the $1 million MEDC grant.)

Altmann characterized city staff as “overworked and demoralized” and said the key is good leadership, including in terms of having the right city manager. He said he wasn’t sure Robert Belleman, who was just chosen for the city manager job in a 3-2 vote of Council, understands that the decision to hire him “was not well received” by the electorate, with public reactions ranging “from mystified to horrified.” Altmann said the people need to know what’s caused the exodus and a plan needs to be put in place to remedy the situation.

Meadows said he was troubled by the lack of transparency about what’s really going on to cause so much disruption in city hall. He said he’s hearing questions about it over and over as he’s knocking on doors to try to gain votes. He noted that long-time employees stuck it out working for the city through the recession, through COVID – through so much – but left recently, and he wants the community to know the truth about the reasons.

Garcia (the incumbent) said he has talked to employees who have left and most of them said they left for better opportunities for their careers and families, “and I couldn’t argue with that one bit – I didn’t try to talk them out of that decision at all.” He said he wants staff to conduct workplace culture surveys.

“There’s a little bit of turmoil in City Hall,” Garcia said. “There’s an in-group and out-group” and he said that’s why there was a question about that during the city manager interviews.

After the forum ended, ELi followed up with Garcia to ask him what he knows about the division into two factions in City Hall, as has been described in the anonymous complaint. The complaint identified DEI Director Elaine Hardy and Mayor Ron Bacon as leading one side. Garcia confirmed he knows many top employees actually left over the infighting described in the complaint.

He said when he was facing the decision of who to support for city manager, Robert Belleman or long-time city employee Tim Dempsey, he went to City Hall to listen to employees.

“I heard not just great things about Dempsey,” Garcia said, “I heard really bad things about Dempsey. And I think part of the turmoil down there was the infighting that was occurring between the group he’s in and the other group,” the ‘other group’ including Bacon and Hardy.

Garcia voted for Belleman as City Manager along with Bacon and Councilmember Dana Watson. Materials released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show Hardy also supported Belleman over Dempsey.

ELi reported this week results of a FOIA request by ELi and a review of communications to City Council indicate Dempsey was the overwhelming favorite in comments submitted by city staff and the public.

Several candidates hit on the theme of lack of transparency:

Ramirez-Roberts expressed frustration over how much information can only be accessed through use of FOIA and said he wanted more explanations of why things are being done as they are. He also referred to ELIPOC’s finding of disproportionate use of force against African Americans and said he was disappointed in a “no comment” response on that issue from the police department.

Wardell said transparency is the top issue facing the city and asked why ELi has to FOIA “everything” to get at the truth. He said that, as “a recovering ex-journalist,” he’d like to bring transparency “back” to City Council. He said residents have a right to know what’s going on.

Kasen also named transparency as the top issue facing the city but said she thinks about the issue differently, namely that Council members don’t explain their votes enough. She said she would explain her votes.

As noted above, Meadows and Altmann both decried the lack of transparency in City Hall with regard to the loss of staff. Meadows said without ELi’s reporting, few people would know what is going on in the city. He wants to see better communication out of city hall with more staff hired in communications. (ELi reported during the 2019 election the challenges of the public accessing information under the Council led by Meadows and Altmann.)

Several candidates recommended voting “no” on all the Charter amendment proposals.

Three City Charter amendment proposals will be on the same ballot as the Council race. One calls for increasing the size of Council from five members to seven. One pushes the swearing-in date from November to January. A third calls for ranked-choice voting in Council elections and allowing Council to call for special elections to fill vacancies (both of which are not currently legal under state law).

Bollman said he’s generally for ranked-choice voting but sees no reason to rush into any of these proposals, particularly when there’s a need to “focus on staff stability before we start making changes to the foundational document that governs the city.” He called for a Charter Review Commission to thoughtfully consider charter changes after the election.

Meadows said he’s voting against all the proposals. He likes a Council of five and believes swearing-in should simply be done the first Tuesday after canvassing is complete. He noted ranked-choice voting is currently illegal under state laws, “so I’m not sure why we should clutter up the Charter with something that may or may not be in effect in the future.” He also supports a Charter Review Commission.

Altmann said he’s voting “no” on all the proposals because the City Charter should not be amended lightly. As for providing a lame duck session, he suggested that Mayor Ron Bacon and Mayor Pro Tem Jessy Gregg, who are not running for reelection, are “showing us how much damage a lame duck can do.”

Ramirez-Roberts said he’s concerned about the stress a bigger Council could put on staff and Council’s business. He said he’s against an increased lame duck period and is for ranked choice voting but found the ranked-choice proposal confusing.

Garcia noted he voted to put the charter change from five to seven members on the ballot and said it brings East Lansing’s Council size more in line with other municipalities. He said he does not support ranked-choice voting.

Kasen said she thinks a bigger Council will mean less work for each Council member, which would in turn increase the diversity of those who can serve, so she’s for the seven-member proposal. She said she “needs more guidance” on how to think about the swearing-in date question and said the state didn’t provide adequate guidance. She said she would consider ranked-choice voting when it’s allowed in Michigan.

Wardell thinks “more voices are better” on Council. He’s concerned ranked-choice voting will put strain on the clerk’s office and is firmly against lame-duck sessions, as he’s seen the problems with them in his work at the legislature.

Singh supports increasing Council to seven members, is willing to “consider supporting postponing office taking” and said she’s in theory for ranked-choice voting but has concerns about the actual process.

Development and affordable housing came up a lot.

Discussions of this circled around the controversy over the proposed affordable “workforce” housing apartments that would replace two-thirds of the Bailey Street (Lot #11) parking lot downtown.

On that development proposal, Altmann took a strong stand, saying he is not in favor of it and suggesting the city use eminent domain – seizing the private land from the family that owns it – to “keep it as a parking lot.”

Garcia said he is not in favor of the American Communities Development (ACD) proposal for the Bailey Street lot. While he said he is “hugely in favor” of affordable housing, he said he doesn’t think it needs to be downtown.

Wardell said rental prices in East Lansing are out of control and, while he wants to see workforce housing, he also doesn’t support the ACD project: “No thank you.” He thinks it would bring congestion and it’s “just not the right project.” He said there are “other places we can look to put affordable housing.”

Bollman said the ACD project represents a clash of two “equity issues” – a shortage of affordable housing and a shortage of surface parking. He said he sees an “absolute need” for workforce housing but is also worried about what two years of construction on that property and the loss of parking will do to the businesses nearby. He wants to see careful attention paid to the parking issue. (In his role as vice chair of the Planning Commission, Bollman voted on Aug. 23 to recommend construction of the ACD project to City Council.) 

Being a long-time city planner, Bollman directed many of his remarks to development issues. He referred to the 2021 housing study that showed East Lansing lacks diversity of housing stock, being too heavy in single-family detached houses, which many people can’t afford. He said he lives in a walkable neighborhood (Bailey) and wants to see more people able to “access those amenities.” But, he said, it has to be done carefully and smartly and maintain the character of neighborhoods. He would like to see the building of duplexes, cottages around courtyards, and the like to create livable, affordable housing.

Singh agreed that affordable housing represents “a crisis around the state” but took no position on the ACD project. She said she also wants to focus on “tech transfer and small businesses” and working to help storefront businesses.

Altmann also said the debt on the Evergreen Properties needs to be paid off and that he’d like to see that land “turned into a park if nothing else.” (While Altmann and Meadows were on Council the debt was not reduced significantly and he did not explain during the forum how the $5 million debt could be paid off if the land were turned into a park.)

Altmann noted he and Meadows were on the Council that successfully ended the blight at the corner of Abbot Road and Grand River Avenue, where dilapidated, abandoned structures were ultimately replaced with The Abbot apartments and the Graduate Hotel. That project involved a development agreement that led to those buildings but ultimately failed to produce the Valley Court-area affordable housing promised by the developers in 2018. The current Council recently shifted that project to a new developer with a new agreement.

Meadows called affordable housing his “passion,” noting his long-time work with Capital Area Housing Partnership.

Kasen called East Lansing a “sundown town” (a place where Black people are expected to leave by sundown) and said she’d like to see city funds go to down-payment assistance for people of color. She also said she wanted to see $25,000 down payments offered to city employees so that more police officers and firefighter/EMTs might live in East Lansing.

Ramirez-Roberts said he was tired of seeing residents pay high tax rates while developers “get tax breaks.” He wants changes to make “developers and landlords pay their fair share.” He also said he wants developers to work around thoughtfully-instituted infrastructure, not to have infrastructure follow development.

Ramirez-Roberts called the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) “very oligarchic in nature” and said he wants to see opportunities for “creating wealth” for people through affordable condos.

First responders got a lot of support.

It became evident in candidates’ responses that firefighters have been talking with many of them about wanting more staffing and equipment.

Meadows referred specifically to “notification [to candidates] from the firefighters that they have difficulty providing service” without tapping mutual aid. He said he wants to see more funding for personnel and equipment. He said he is “all for counselors and social workers” but wants to see police cars “rolling through” the neighborhoods.

Ramirez-Roberts raised concerns about “the rise of violence in downtown” and said there is a flow of violence coming from Lansing. He called for working with Lansing to advocate for state funding to help prevent violence and the problems East Lansing police officers face.

Bollman reiterated his belief that staff – including police – must be trusted and held to a high standard but added he thinks oversight is appropriate and important. He said he thinks the “balancing act” of supporting and overseeing complaints about police “can be hard” but that he expects continued good work going forward.

Altmann said he wants to see greater enforcement of existing laws without excessive use of force. He wants to see public safety officers paid well, get the training they need and be held accountable.

Wardell said he wants equitable policing and “more patrols back in the neighborhoods” to keep people safe.

Garcia suggested ELIPOC spend more effort on improving relationships and said that he supports a community policing approach, referring to his own professional background in the Lansing Police Department.

Singh wants better staffing for public safety and said she appreciates police and fire personnel coming out to meet kids at social events.

Not too surprisingly, candidates in East Lansing care about climate change.

Singh spoke to her background in energy consulting and policy and said the city should attend to efficiency, electrification of its fleets, support for biking and cutting carbon emissions.

Meadows said East Lansing needs to embrace updated green building standards and that we need more solar projects all over town.

Kasen said it was “not OK” that a church recently had to get a variance to install solar panels. She also said she recently spoke to CATA about how to create “mini-buses” that would help people get from neighborhoods to the central corridor bus lines.

Ramirez-Roberts said being born with asthma has really brought home to him the effects of climate change. He spoke about his work “pulling buckthorn” (an invasive species) in East Lansing parks and said he wants to see the city plant to support native wildlife. He also called for green roofing downtown,the establishment of community gardens and he suggested East Lansing “partner” with Native American communities to manage green spaces.

Bollman said a great way to address climate change is “to build where we already have amenities and infrastructure” and said, “The greenest building is the one that is already built.” He wants to see preservation of neighborhood characters while planning smartly with tools like form-based code and mass-timber construction to capture carbon.

Altmann pushed the ideas of solar panels on municipal buildings, electric garbage trucks and dealing with stormwater management as we face more intense storms, a concern Wardell (whose basement was flooded from a storm) also raised. Altmann also said he believes every unit of government “has an obligation” to do what it can about climate change. When on Council, Altmann spearheaded a zoning code change to require installation of EV charging stations on some private properties.

Garcia said he believes climate change is real and said not everyone does. He endorsed the ideas of updating the building code, a quieter (electric) garbage truck fleet and pushing mass transit and walkability.

Wardell endorsed the ideas of adopting EVs for the city and pushing more solar power and community gardens.

Two more forums are upcoming.

The Pinecrest Neighborhood Association is holding a forum from 7-8:30 p.m. Monday (Sept. 18) at the East Lansing Public Library.

The Associated Students of Michigan State University will hold a Council “debate/forum” 7-8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 3, in the International Center on the MSU campus.

You can find ELi’s Voter Guide here.

The forum was recorded and when the recording becomes available, ELi will post links to it here and in the Voter Guide.

Editor’s Note: The original version of this article said Ramirez-Roberts wants to shift to having 60% of the net revenues of the income tax to go to the pensions, when he in fact said 80%. (It is already set at 60%.) (5:25 p.m., Sept. 15, 2023). This story has also been updated to clarify the vote of Dan Bollman in his role as vice chair of the Planning Commission on the proposed project at 530 Albert Ave. (2:16, Oct. 2, 2023)