Equitable Hiring, Modernizing Systems Among Priorities Set by Council

The East Lansing City Council set 10 priorities for 2024 and 2025 at the Friday, Feb. 23 Special City Council meeting. 

The meeting was part of the city’s strategic planning, which has included presentations from department directors and Council brainstorming sessions previously. At the Feb. 23 gathering, Council members narrowed a lengthy list of priorities they had previously identified down to 10 for the city to focus on. Priorities set by Council centered on infrastructure, the environment, city operations and more. 

The priorities were set by four members of Council selecting their two favorites, and Mayor George Brookover “gifting” his two priorities to be set by Council collaboratively. 

The priorities will later be reviewed by City Manager Robert Belleman and staff to see how they can be implemented. After staff recommends action for the priorities, they will be returned to Council for approval. 

Finances, city charter focus of priorities set by Meadows.

Councilmember Mark Meadows kicked off the discussion by stating he would like to see a financial health review team to address unfunded pension obligations and health liabilities the city faces. The review team would make recommendations to Council. 

Additionally, Meadows said he would like to establish a charter review committee to review the city charter and make recommendations about changes that may be necessary. Meadows said one example of a change that is needed is making language gender neutral. 

Late last year, several city commission members advocated for a charter review commission, though Meadows did not reference this group in his comments. 

Altmann eyes environmental progress, infrastructure improvements. 

Councilmember Erik Altmann’s first priority recommendation was “invest in decarbonization and adaptation to climate change.” The recommendation combined two priorities in the list Council was working from, but eliminated the actionable steps. 

Additionally, Altmann recommended the city “develop a policy or pilot project for relocating above ground utilities.” Altmann said he wanted to leave the priority open ended, so that Department of Public Works Director Scott House would be able to decide the best route to accomplish the goal. 

Singh wants to prioritize modernizing systems, holding successful elections. 

Mayor Pro Tem Kerry Ebersole Singh said she wants to “lump” together priorities that fell under the operational, fiscal and employment categories. The root of her goal is to modernize and standardize systems, and fill vacant staff positions. During director presentations, the need to modernize systems was stressed, as some directors said they had to rely on paper records at times. 

“Scott [House] can’t bury all the power lines unless he’s fully staffed,” Singh said. “And he’s not occupied shoving paper around trying to get grant dollars. I need to make sure our manager and the team has what it needs to operate successfully.”

After some discussion, Altmann recommended Council use the wording “Efficient, effective and modern city operations” for the priority, which Singh agreed captured her ambitions. 

The next priority Singh recommended addressed elections. The priority is “Smooth, safe, and secure access to voting, voter registration, and voter information and education.”

Accessibility to city meetings and equitable hiring are priorities set by Watson. 

Councilmember Dana Watson zeroed in on accessibility to city meetings as a priority. Recently, the city has upgraded microphones in the Hannah Community Center to make it easier to hear speakers at city meetings. However, Watson believes the city can go even further, asking if the city could push to make the meetings available to residents remotely. Currently, City Council and the Planning Commission are live streamed, but other commissions are not. 

Watson said her goal is to have residents be able to attend meetings remotely and speak during public comment, like during the pandemic. A hurdle to achieve this is the staff time it takes to have the recording equipment set up and manage access for those attending remotely. After a short discussion among Council about how public access would be managed, Brookover cut in to say it is the City Manager’s job to figure out the logistics of how goals are accomplished, not Council’s. 

Watson then moved on to her second priority, which is to “Develop and implement personnel policies to ensure equitable hiring and promotional standards and train all employees in unconscious bias with 100% participation in training.”

Brookover’s “gifts” to group prioritize diversity, communications with public. 

When Council began discussing how the priorities Brookover “gifted” to the group opened up, Altmann started by saying he thought including public safety and quality of life was important. He mentioned hearing concerns about speeding, drivers running stop signs and loud cars.

The idea gained traction with other members of Council before Brookover stepped in to voice his opposition. He said it is not Council’s place to tell the police how to do their jobs. Additionally, he says that the city documenting the priority could give prosecuting attorneys a challenge if there’s a perception that the city is pressuring the police to enforce certain laws. 

“I understand what you’re getting at, I think it’s admirable, but I don’t think it should be part of this document,” Brookover said. 

Singh jumped in to say she believes the city’s communications could be improved. Specifically, she said the marketing and social media presence could be better. Council decided to make communications between the city and public a priority. 

After a few ideas were bounced around, Meadows said he thought the final priority should be “Foster a thriving culture that celebrates diversity in City sponsored events and activities,” which was listed under Cultural Arts/Diversity on the large list Council was drawing from. 

Meadows recalled a conversation he had with a Michigan State University jazz professor when stating why he thought the priority was important. 

“He said, ‘It’s great you have a jazz festival, but you know, Black folks don’t like to come here,’” Meadows said.

Council agreed on the priority and the list was set. The next step will be for staff to review the priorities before the list is sent back to Council for approval.