Interim City Manager Randy Talifarro Reflects on Tenure

Randy Talifarro, plucked out of retirement to serve as East Lansing’s Interim City Manager for 228 days, boarded a plane back to sunny Arizona on Sept. 29, his last day of employment in his onetime hometown. Before he departed, he sat down with ELi for an interview to discuss his leadership of the city.

Talifarro, the longtime former East Lansing Fire Chief, was hired to fill the city manager void left by George Lahanas when he reached a separation agreement with the  city in January.

When ELi spoke with Talifarro at the beginning of his interim tenure in early March, he said his goal was “to provide some stability and put arms around some employee retention and hold down things until the next city manager was selected.”

When asked if he was still happy with his decision to take the interim leadership role, Talifarro paused to consider the question.

“I’m not sad,” he said. “I think I had gotten comfortable in Arizona, and enjoyed my life out there. I’m not disappointed and I am glad to have had the opportunity to be able to assist and reconnect with a lot of people I have a high regard for.”

Talifarro talks about the anonymous complaint that came to light in August.

Talifarro’s time in the city’s top spot was not without discord. An anonymous complaint was made public in April, alleging overreach by Mayor Ron Bacon and East Lansing Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Elaine Hardy that included breaches against the city charter and led to the ousting of Lahanas. At the time, both Talifarro and Bacon condemned the complaint as having racist motives. 

“I was also one of those persons that said I thought there was some racism,” Talifarro told ELi when asked to reflect on that time of his tenure. “What I think is that this is a classic case of not being aware of your biases and I don’t think that anyone was just bigoted and decided they would make this complaint. I think that it still strikes me they tied together people – myself, Mayor [Bacon], Elaine Hardy, they even introduced Robert Easterly who really has a very quiet, displaced kind of role and not that involved. And so, if I’m looking at it purely as who was identified and targeted, it was concerning. It remains concerning. 

“I do think that they may not be aware of those biases,” he said. “And then, when I look at some of the complaints, I’m always concerned with why can some people talk to Council members and why other people can’t talk to Council members. I think everyone has a view, everyone has an opinion. It’s not uncommon for people to share those opinions and those views. That happens. But it appears it’s only concerning with certain parties. 

“I think that’s the other part that’s concerning to me,” Talifarro continued. “I did serve on a board with Mayor Bacon, and I did serve on the King commission with Elaine Hardy. But that board met once a month, maybe, most months. Those meetings, there were probably 20 people there. The conversations were not real intimate and personal. I still couldn’t tell you, you know, I’ve never met the mayor’s wife, I’ve never met his children. I couldn’t tell you where he lives. We’ve been cordial, we’ve been respectful, but there’s a lot of insinuation about how close we were in our relationships and that’s not uncommon with people who’ve been on commissions and boards together. Those are the types of things that I talk about the bias that might exist. It was troubling the connections that people made.”

When asked about the independent investigator the City Council contracted to look into the complaint, Talifarro only said, “It’s ongoing.”

Talifarro said he did not witness the overreach Bacon has been accused of.

“I did not, especially from the parties that were identified,” he said. “I met on a regular basis with each Council member for lunch or a phone call. They would obviously ask for updates. They would let us know what their concerns were, or let me know. But there was not any direction or instruction on what should be done or how it should be done or who should be included in any of those things. It didn’t happen for me. I can’t say whether it happened for anyone previously. I can’t speak to that, but it’s not my experience.”

Many empty city positions were filled during Talifarro’s time as interim city manager.

Talifarro’s time in office saw a steadying of the city government, coming after a wave of resignations. 

“It sounds so simple,” he said, “but it was to try to get people to refocus and not be distracted by a lot of, I would call it, the white noise. Everything that’s going on around. Continue to provide a good service and live up to our values, quality services for a quality community. There were some accomplishments, but I think it was the workforce that continued to do those things.

“We got a lot of the positions [filled] we needed. We got all the social worker positions filled. We got the HR [human resource] administrators positions filled and the HR director, the communications staff, we have been able to add to it and there are some positions to be added to it. We’ve been able to get new police officers onboard, new fire fighters onboard. I think they’re 100 percent staffed in the fire department,” Talifarro said. “They are seeking new officers in the police department, but part of that is we added back three officers in the police budget. We’re closer to completing the deputy police chief process. There was really a lot done. There was always hiring at some of the lower levels of the organization. I feel very good about that. I know [Interim Director of Human Resources] Emily [Kenney] did work really hard and one of the challenges of that was that there was only one person in HR.”

Talifarro’s list is short of what he wished he had been able to accomplish.

When asked about what he wishes he had had the time to complete, the list was short.

“I really would have loved to have paid more attention to the ARPA [American Rescue Plan Act] issue and questions, but we had some alternative plans to make sure we would retain all of the funding and all of those things,” he said.

East Lansing had been allocated $12.2 million in ARPA  funds and, at Talifarro’s suggestion, City Council approved 10 percent of that money to go to retention bonuses, distributed in July 2023 and January 2024.

“I would have liked to have gotten the RFP [request for proposal] out for the waste study, and I think there’s a definite need to build up the institutional policies and procedures,” he added.

Despite the long hours and any tumult Talifarro faced during his time as city manager, he considers the time well spent, and sings the praises of those he worked with.

“It was a pleasure,” he said. “I worked with a really wonderful group of people. There were challenges, but we always rose to the challenge. I think there’s a bright future for the city of EL. It is a wonderful community.”