Meet East Lansing City Council Candidate Chuck Grigsby

Editor’s note: This is one in the series of East Lansing City Council candidate profiles ELi is running to help voters get to know the candidates. Check out ELi’s Elections coverage for more profiles. Click here to find our voter guide to the election.

Chuck Grigsby tells ELi that he is running for East Lansing City Council because he believes transparency with the community is a priority that urgently needs addressing on Council. Three other important goals Grigsby lists as motivating his run for Council: addressing budgetary issues after the pandemic, promoting economic development, and creating better relationships with other municipalities.

Grigsby is seeking a four-year seat on Council, and said he is committed to serving a full-term (as opposed to the two-year seat) because he believes a full commitment is important to East Lansing voters. Grigsby told ELi in an interview that he believes he has been directly and indirectly involved in many beneficial East Lansing initiatives.

“The great thing about local government is that you can get a lot done in community work on this level, and I really want to continue that process,” Grigsby said.

Candidate’s background:

Grigsby was a professional athlete, playing some professional basketball, but mostly spending his athletic energies on mixed martial arts. He explained that this allowed him to experience many cultures and to better understand his community.

Following this career, Grigsby said, he wanted to give back, particularly working with youth. After volunteering in the schools, he found a need to support students who learn differently. Currently, Grigsby leads a nonprofit he founded: Primetime Mentoring & Tutoring Educational Services.

Prior to his athletic career, Grigsby worked in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office after studying criminal justice. He served as an investigator for victims of violent crime. Grigsby said this work provided him an appreciation of how state government works, how government assists people, and how laws are applied. 

After completing East Lansing’s Emerging Leaders Program, which teaches participants the fundamentals of East Lansing’s government operations, Grigsby was elected Chair of the City’s Human Rights Commission.

Grigsby said that Commission has been very active, advocating a resolution to recognize racism as a public health crisis, working on ordinances about policing, and collaborating with the East Lansing Police Department on the City’s attempts to “realign” public safety. 

This work, Grigsby said, has provided him “the experience of working and building relationships with [City] staff, community [members], and leaders in our community towards a common goal.”

Grigsby has also been serving as elected Chair of the Study Committee on an Independent Police Oversight Commission, and said he believes it is important to create a commission that solves problems. Grigsby said this special service on the Study Committee has given him experience dealing with complex social issues and working with experts on policing, developing what he hopes will be a template for other municipalities. 

“I’m proud of being able to sit across the table from people who may not necessarily agree with a pathway to the solution, but we can come together and create that solution,” Grigsby said.

Candidate’s view on the important issues:

After talking to people in the community, Grigsby said, he heard that many are concerned about government transparency. He said transparency is more than just about accountability, also reflecting education about what is occurring in the community.

Grigsby says transparency involves understanding the common vision of the community and also what City staff are seeking.

“I think a lot of people right now feel there are things happening in the community that they don’t really fully understand in some ways, or understand how it came to be, behind the process of that,” Grigsby said. “So when I think about one of the things that comes up for me, [it is] transparency with intent that really promotes involvement.”

Grigsby said that, following other conversations with community members, economic development is an important issue for him. This includes examining current and future developments, including social development projects. 

The uncertainty of the future coming out of the pandemic and addressing the budgetary issues concerns Grigsby as well. He named the pension debt and said it will be important to be “diverse and creative” when addressing that problem.

Grigsby said he also wants to work on the City’s relationship with neighboring municipalities. He said this is important following the devastation the pandemic has caused for some businesses, schools, and families. 

Grigsby said it will be important for East Lansing to develop relationships with other communities to determine “what’s working with them, find out what they’re doing, and communicate with them and build relationships with them, so we can make some of those great things that are happening ours.”

Grigsby told ELi he believes that opening up relationships and being open-minded to other approaches would provide the City a stronger vision moving forward.

Find out much more from ELi about the November 2021 Council election, including filing deadlines, who is running, and more, by clicking here.