Remembering Former East Lansing Mayor John Czarnecki

By all accounts, John Czarnecki wouldn’t have been comfortable as a regular politician. The former East Lansing councilmember and mayor was happy to speak to constituents and his daughter remembers the phone calls he would take from residents at all hours of the day.

But he was also a classic Midwesterner. He didn’t boast about himself or seek out attention. He eschewed any situation that could be seen as unethical or untoward. Czarnecki was a hardworking public servant who stepped up because he thought he had something to offer his community.

He died in November at age 79 after a short battle with cancer. He served from 1975 to 1987 on the East Lansing City Council, with his last four years as mayor.

Czarnecki made his career in community and economic development, working for the Michigan Department of Commerce, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and the Clinton County Economic Alliance, where he was the organization’s first CEO.

More importantly to him, he met his wife here, the former Patricia Vanderver. He leaves her and two children, Katharine Merritt and Nicholas Czarnecki, to remember him.

Czarnecki earned a degree in urban planning from Michigan State University, but it wasn’t his first career choice.

“He almost became a priest,” his daughter told East Lansing Info in a phone interview. “He was on the path to priesthood and then, for whatever reason, decided to go to college instead — luckily for me.”

After earning his degree and settling in East Lansing, he began shaping the kind of community he wanted to live in.

Czarnecki founded the Tri-County Bicycle Association in 1972, working to develop an area trail system and a network of recreational bicyclists.

“John’s far-sighted initial objective of having a tri-county trail system was eventually picked up by local activists, organizations and governments,” said Tom Hardenberg, a longtime friend. “This trail system is still emerging, but the established portions are a safe recreational facility for bicyclists of all abilities — exactly what John’s aim was in 1972.”

He ran for and won a council seat in 1975, earning the third most votes. Almost immediately, he set out to be a different kind of council member.

During his campaign, Czarnecki promised to hold regular office hours so residents could talk to him in person. His Wednesday nights at City Hall were often spent alone according to a profile in the Lansing State Journal, but he kept his word.

Merritt remembers how often city business called on her dad.

“People would call at all hours,” she said, “complaining or whatever. Some were nice, some were not nice. But I think he thoroughly enjoyed his time on City Council.”

Perusing through aged copies of the Lansing State Journal, it’s evident that his tenure as mayor required he and the community to address big issues.

After a series of particularly raucous Cedarfests — semiannual parties in the Cedar Village student area — he pushed the city to stop future iterations. He also publicly encouraged judges to issue maximum penalties for individuals arrested at the 1986 Cedarfest.

Czarnecki also voted against the construction of a group home for people with mental illness in the Whitehills neighborhood. The 15-bed home was denied on a 3-2 council vote and prompted a failed legal challenge by the Tri-County Community Health Board.

But the biggest fight of his tenure centered on an ordinance that would have added stricter regulations for people applying for a handgun license in East Lansing, exceeding state requirements. LSJ reports that individuals convicted of a violent crime or who had broken a law under the influence of alcohol would be barred from receiving a license. Applicants would also be required to take a safety class offered by the East Lansing Police Department.

More than 300 citizens attended the City Council meeting for the bill’s hearing, with testimony dragging on for hours.

Czarnecki was the lone dissenting vote, saying he did not think more restrictions were necessary.

That was one of his last major votes on council. Czarnecki chose not to run for reelection that year. In a contemporary interview with the LSJ, he said his decision was based on wanting to spend more time with his young children.

“I think I have to devote myself to them from now through high school,” he told the LSJ.

In that same interview, he reflected on how his public persona had evolved over 12 years.

“I was perceived as a liberal because I was young and had long hair,” he said. “City issues are not liberal or conservative. They get down to protecting citizens.”

Mark Grebner served with Czarnecki on the Ingham County Board of Commissioners from 1993 to 2002. He told ELi that Czarnecki was a conservative who consistently voted with liberals.

“I can’t think of anything that John took the lead in, because John’s idea of leadership was to let other people do what they wanted to do, and then try to guide them toward what was responsible and sensible and careful and measured and honest and upright and boring and conservative,” Grebner said.

“The image I have — and it sounds like I’m being critical, but it’s sort of the opposite — John was a guy who, if you were trying to sail a boat through choppy waters, the one thing you don’t need is crew members whose weight you can’t predict. John would stay put. John did his job. John showed up at meetings and voted sensibly and reported correctly. He was the steadiest person you could ever ask for.

“He was ballast. He helped lower the center of gravity of my little boat.”

More important to Czarnecki than the committees and organizations he led was the family he built.

“He had a very strong work ethic,” Merritt said. “He was the first one at work; he’d often bring work home. But what I remember is that he never missed events. He never missed a piano recital, he never missed a swim meet. He stuck to his word. If I needed him to be somewhere and he said he’d be there, he’d be there.”

Merritt followed in her father’s footsteps, studying urban planning. She now works as an instructor at Michigan State University.

“It’s funny,” she said. “I left Michigan because my dad was so involved in the community, I wanted to get out of town so it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, you’re John’s daughter.’ And it’s funny because I ended up back in Michigan working in the same career field as him.

“I never intended to come back after leaving Michigan, and then through his relationships I landed a job in Midland. It was fun — when he was also in the field, in economic development — and I’d see him at conferences. I think part of what he did inspired me to do what I do.”

Grebner remembers the ethical, no-nonsense man he served alongside on the county.

“John was never part of a plot,” he said. “That was the crucial thing. If somebody was putting together a sleazy package of five votes to put something in a budget and then do something with the money… oh my God, you could never imagine John being involved in that. John would have run out of the room — no, he wouldn’t have run, that would be flamboyant. He would have walked calmly out of the room and then not said why he left.”