Meet East Lansing City Council Candidate Joshua Ramirez-Roberts

Editor’s note: This is eighth in the series of East Lansing City Council candidate profiles by ELi reporters. Eight candidates are vying for three open Council seats in the Nov. 7 election. Check out ELi’s Elections coverage  for more profiles. ELi is partnering with the League of Women Voters for a 6:30 p.m. Sept. 14 City Council Candidate Forum. Click here to help ELi and the League formulate questions for the candidates.

Candidate for City Council Joshua Ramirez-Roberts was born and raised in East Lansing and has no intention of leaving.

“I just really like East Lansing,” he said in an interview with ELi. “Almost everyone I know who grew up in East Lansing are like, ‘God, I want to get out of here.’ But I really like it. If you think about long term, like a place to raise kids, as a place to just have a nice, not quiet, but calmer existence. If you look at moving to Metro Detroit, it’s just so soulless, I think, with just that urban sprawl. I’ve always liked it here. When I was a kid, my hobbies would just be walking around town. I’m a ‘homer.’”

Ramirez-Roberts began a year-long teaching internship at East Lansing High School [ELHS] this fall, a Michigan State University requirement to earn his teaching certificate. His ultimate goal, he said, is to get a full-time job teaching history and government at ELHS.

Ramirez-Roberts’ background and inspiration

As a college student, he has been active in local government, serving on the University Student Commission (USC), the Community Development Advisory Committee and the Bailey Community Association. It was at one of those meetings that Ramirez-Roberts was inspired to run for Council.

“When I was on the USC,” he said, “I remember trying to talk to Councilmember [Jessy] Gregg about how we’re putting up all these new apartments. And whenever we’re looking at new spaces to be developed, it’s always apartments, apartments, apartments. But if we look at retaining people, especially my age, after they graduate, they don’t want to just live in just another apartment. They want to work on moving to a place where they can afford a home, afford some kind of ownership and stake in the community, so they’re not just stuck in some rental property.

“And I was trying to talk to her about that and there was a big development plan on the north of the city, and I was talking about looking at starter homes or these cheaper options, maybe even looking at condos,” he said. “It may not be White Hills, but it’s still an investment, creating economic opportunity for someone my age. That’s what people my age want. They don’t want to be stuck in apartments. They want to achieve that American dream of owning a house. And I just don’t think we’re putting any effort into that.

“We’re just doing what the landlords want,” he said. “We just decided there was a need here. If you put a building there, people will come to it. We’re just doing what makes landlords money instead of what community members [want].”

It was, in part, the housing issue, but also what he termed as instability in the city government, that led Ramirez-Roberts to run for a Council seat this November.

“I think everyone has been surprised with the decision-making of the East Lansing City Council the last few years,” he said. “It really is just making the weirdest decisions at all times. There’s no stability, there’s no real…I mean, I’d love to hear the explanation of why they chose [Robert] Belleman [to be city manager]. I don’t even know how he got to be a finalist in the first place.”

Ramirez-Roberts’ top priorities

When asked about the issues most dear to him, he identified budgetary concerns, supporting small businesses, building a stronger connection with neighboring Lansing, and harnessing a sustainable future to draw tourists and new residents.

“Sixty percent of our budget is going towards public safety,” he said. “We’re $80 to $100 million in unfunded pension debts. And they don’t provide a readily available budget thing like I think they should, so we can see where that money is going to. Sixty percent is insane, so we have to assume at least some of that is going to the pension debt. Yeah , it sucks, but we have to do something about it. It’s not like we can go lackadaisically along saying, ‘well we’re not getting any worse.’ Meanwhile, we have people paying an income tax that is supposed to be dealing with this problem. And then we have other City Council candidates, I think Erik Altmann, talking about putting the income tax towards parks and stuff. We can work towards decreasing that income tax. We can work towards eliminating that income tax.”

Ramirez-Roberts, whose father ran for City Council in the 1990s, is also disappointed with the businesses East Lansing is drawing.

“We’re bringing in all these big chains,” he said, “We’re bringing in Target, Dunkin Donuts, Auntie Anne’s, Detroit Wing Company, all these huge things that basically just come into college towns, basically profit off drunk college kids who don’t care what they’re eating. And we’re forgetting our community should be rooted in small business, that people who actually live here, who’ve lived here our entire lives don’t want to go eat at Detroit Wing Company. They want to go sit in our downtown and have a nice dinner. You can’t do that right now.”

Supporting development in Lansing would also mean a better future for East Lansing, he said.

“We’re living next to the 17th most violent city in America,” Ramirez-Roberts said. “Directly adjacent. And we’re not doing anything. We’re not working with Lansing City Council, working with [Lansing Mayor] Andy Schor, trying to build programs and initiatives to advocate for federal and state funding for business opportunities in Lansing that will also help people in East Lansing, right?

“A lot of people work in Lansing. My parents both work in Lansing but live in East Lansing,” he said. “If we’re improving that community, it’s only going to benefit us. It’s not a direct competition. We’re not in this perfectly enclosed system where everything has to happen in East Lansing. Why aren’t we working to plan development and infrastructure to create so we’re both in our own niche?”

A potential niche for East Lansing, according to Ramirez-Roberts, is increasing its tendency to seek out sustainability.

“I would love it if not a single other blade of grass was touched but that’s not reality,” he said. “New stuff is going to be built. But what can we do in our community to make the suburban model as sustainable as possible. There’s a 60-80% reduction in fly and insect population. We’re seeing a decline in the bird population by the billions. We’re not going to plant one tree and all our problems are going to be fixed. In the Bailey Community Association, I’m trying to implement sustainable landscape practices, or at least advocating for them on the city level.

“A lot of [East Lansing lawns] are just grass, invasive grass at that. People want their lawns to look nice,” Ramirez-Roberts said. “What can we do to make our lawns look nice, support the environment and provide food for people to eat while also reducing our carbon footprint? We can work on planting native fruit trees, native berry bushes and collecting our black walnuts.

“ This is more of a pipe dreamy idea,” he said. “But what can we do to make East Lansing a destination again? When you look at Frankenmuth or Grand Haven, they have a unique look, a very unique aesthetic. We can use our ecology and play into our own aesthetic where we’re getting this food and creating a unique look.”

Editor’s note: The order of publication of the East Lansing City Council candidates profiles was determined by names being put in a hat and randomly drawn. The order the names were drawn is the order the profiles are running in ELi.