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A weekly show from the folks at East Lansing Info breaking down all the news and happenings in East Lansing, Michigan.
Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of East Lansing Insider. I'm East Lansing Info's deputy editor, Anna Liz Nichols. And today, we're talking about the big news out of this past week. The city of East Lansing has parted ways with its city manager Robert Belleman after a series of events. This separation comes just as Belleman was a couple months shy of three years of service to the city.
Anna Liz Nichols:How how did things play out during that meeting?
Lucas Day:Well so they announced the separation agreement before the actual meeting that everyone was there. So they held a special meeting where all that they did was go in and talk to their attorneys in a different room, and then they came out and they made three announcements. One was, regarding ongoing, labor practices, I believe. The other one the next one was to accept Belleman's resignation essentially and to reach a separation agreement with him. And then the third was to name Annette Irwin as interim city manager.
Lucas Day:And you could kind of see this is the direction that things were headed, while they were in closed session. Annette has worked for the city for almost thirty years. Everyone knows her. And so about halfway through that closed session, which lasted, I think, close to an hour, I saw I I saw Annette walk into the room, and I kind of assumed that's the direction this was headed. I I don't know why there any other reason why she would have been there.
Lucas Day:She she she retired a few months ago, and she was she just came in. She was talking to the city employees, during the closed session. They came back, made that announcement right away, and that gave a pretty lengthy statement, actually. She was just talking at the podium about how much she's enjoyed working with the city's city employees, just talking about some of the things that go on behind the scenes to make the city run, and then they closed that meeting, and then they started their regular meeting.
Anna Liz Nichols:And I wanna talk about what's been going on with Belleman, but I will note that when Annette Irwin retired, she was met with a litany of positive statements from city employees. It sounds I know you've been around, East Lansing politics longer than I have, but it sounded like she was pretty well loved and and more even more so really respected by her colleagues here.
Lucas Day:Yeah. I mean, the description I've gotten of her is that you she was, like, the planning and housing director when she when she retired. But I I I what I what I've been told by other city by people that have worked in the city is that, she was kind of the person that people went to if they're having issues. Like, people confided in that, and they were just comfortable talking to her. Close to the end of her tenure, Dustin, one of our reporters, wrote a story about Annette, and they compared her to Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation.
Lucas Day:So that, if you've seen the show, that kind of tells your energy a little bit. She's very upbeat. She's she's always working on something. I I I'd go to Annette every now and then if there was, something wrongs wrong with buildings in East Lansing, and I'd have her explain, like, inspection reports to me. And she'd tell me if it was normal or not, and she'd love talking about her work.
Lucas Day:She never had any issue, you know, picking up the phone and explain if something was normal or if it sounded worse than it actually was or if it was a real issue. And so now she's obviously gonna be stepping into a different role. This is expected to take months, they said last night. The last time these Lansing separated with the city manager, it was about eight months before they had a new one, and I I'd anticipate a similar process here.
Anna Liz Nichols:Yeah. And not to sound redundant, we will be getting into the details of what Belleman was accused of, what city employees said about his behavior at work. But one thing I wanna make pretty clear for listeners who might not know, you know, the ins and outs of how local governance works, at least in East Lansing, the city manager role is, if not the most important role in the city, one of the most important roles in the city. Lucas and I, we talked about this earlier where whereas, you know, city council members, they're elected. They're elected by by residents.
Anna Liz Nichols:That's on paper a part time gig. I I know that they're running around attending lots of meetings, but many of them are able to have other other careers and and other jobs. Whereas the city manager is appointed by city council, and that's a that's a full time gig. Additionally, in terms of importance, whereas the city council operates as the legislative branch of the city, you know, implementing and and creating policies. The city manager has a huge oversight kind of role.
Anna Liz Nichols:The city manager will make recommendations for the city budget. They offer insight and advisement to the city council on the day to day operations of the city. They really have their hands in in in all parts of the city and and really oversee how things are gonna work. So as we're having this discussion on on why it's so monumental that East Lansing's in a bit of a flux as far as the city manager and how important workplace culture and systems are under the city manager, I want listeners to know know that information about how the structure of local governance works in East Lansing.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And I this I mean, the city manager is the the lead the leader in the city. It's the most important job. It oversees everything that happens. I mean, you can look at their pay.
Lucas Day:Like, city council makes, like, $10,000 a year, and the city manager makes a $190,000. And so the city council really sets a direction, but it is up to the city manager to work with the staff to make that happen, work with all the directors. Like, the city council can actually get in trouble if they work with the staff too closely. It's a violation of the city charter. So the person who's going to understand the inner workings of what's happening in the city is is the city manager.
Lucas Day:And, something that I think shouldn't be overlooked is that, it takes a long time to get running in this position. I can remember I talked to Robert Belleman, the, you know, now outgoing city manager. I think it was close to a year after he'd been hired. And he said, yeah. Like, this is my first actual budget season because it takes this long to figure out just what's happening in all the departments so you can start making decisions.
Lucas Day:Like, he was hired in September, and then they approved the his the first budget in, May. And he told me that the department heads really had to, do most of the work to put that budget together because he didn't understand, you know, well enough what was going on in all the individual departments to make the changes that maybe he made a year or two later. And that's gonna be the same with whoever they bring in. It it just takes time to learn all the different moving parts in the city and where adjustments can be made. And the city just is is now wrapping up a a financial review committee that has been working with the city manager for close to six months and made many, many recommendations about what the city should do to, improve its financial state.
Lucas Day:And, I mean, the the memory that we had with the city manager going through that is now gone. Like, they're gonna have to teach all that to someone new. And when you're talking about dozens and dozens of hours of work, that that really matters because I I don't think that you can just ask that you know? And this is just one example. Ask that team to do that work again.
Lucas Day:And who knows how many similar initiatives there are within the city that the new city manager's gonna have to learn, the different things that are going on with all the city's commissions and committees. Like, it's it's a job that takes a long time to learn, and they're gonna have this month's long search process, and then they're going to have to hire somebody to figure that all out.
Anna Liz Nichols:So to get into why we are now in a position in the city to look for a new city manager, just to give a rundown of of current events because this has gone kind of quickly in the last couple weeks. There have been, East Lansing residents know, several controversies over the last couple months, especially surrounding public safety and policing. And so there was the May 19. City council meeting where we were actually expecting the story of of of public engagement to be surrounding that. It morphed into, not that that still doesn't exist in the city, a conversation about Robert Belleman when first person to talk during public comment during that city council meeting was East Lansing grants coordinator, Erica Hernandez, who accused Belleman of sexual harassment and other abusive behaviors during the meeting in front in front of everybody.
Anna Liz Nichols:And this was the first the public heard about this. And her her narrative is that much of this behavior happened in the latter part of 2025. There was an investigation performed by, local law firm Miller Canfield that later we would find out found that there was not evidence of of the the sexual harassment she had outlined. Specifically, she said Belleman would call her too easy, and at first, she didn't really understand what that meant. There it was kind of loose language, but there was a certain instance where she said it it became kind of clear that he either was insulting her intelligence or more nefariously making a sexual innuendo.
Anna Liz Nichols:She said that he, in certain instances, would berate her, scream at her. And though the investigation did not find an evidence of this, interviews with several other city employees found that city employees were reporting that Belleman had a noticeable difference in tone and demeanor towards female employees rather than male employees. The women he would work with at times would receive more harsh treatment, more harsh tone. Other employees said they didn't really know which version of the city manager they were gonna get that day. He was prone to emotional outbursts.
Anna Liz Nichols:There were there were two employees that said he was, you know, a pleasure to work with and and a a great leader. This has caused a discussion in the city about, you know, how a person who went through the says they went through the proper channels of reporting abuse in the workplace found themselves in a position to have to take public stand against someone who was in leadership above them when they felt like they weren't being included in the investigation process and didn't see, you know, marketable difference in their behavior and and consequences for it. We we would later find out, Robert Belleman received leadership training as suggested by the investigation's conclusion.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And and I think that what people have been looking at is just the timeline of this all. So, you know, as you said, this complaint was filed last September. In November, the investigation was finished. We we saw in a FOIA that the grants coordinator believed that city council was going to talk about this at an at a closed session in early December.
Lucas Day:And then there there was no knowledge of this in the public sphere until May, when when the grants coordinator publicly accused him of sexual harassment and other abusive behavior, which she described during public comment. This is just exceedingly rare. You do not see Citi employees talk during public I don't think I've ever seen it. Maybe with the exception being I I think some employees may have spoken, like, when somebody else was retiring. But that's that that like, never anything serious like this.
Lucas Day:It was exceedingly rare. And so two days after she spoke, the city, city council held a special meeting. They talked with their lawyers, and they came out, and they said they'd released the report. At that meeting, the mayor gave a statement saying that he supported Robert going forward. Couple of the other council members said, hey.
Lucas Day:If you've had if you're a city employee who's, you know, experienced mistreatment, we encourage you to come forward. And then on Tuesday of the following week, so this is five days after they released or they voted to release the report, They placed them on leave at the end of a city council meeting. So, yeah, in the in the statement from the mayor was at at Tuesday night's meeting when they announced separation agreement is, city employees and taxpayers deserve a government that maintains a high standard of conduct and delivers high quality services. That is why we acted quickly to open a new chapter for our community. That's just radically different from what he said the night that the council voted to release the report.
Lucas Day:And so I I I'd imagine that something has changed between May 21 when council voted to release that report, and now, at least they're speaking very differently. When you when Belleman was placed on leave, they hired Thrum Law Firm to answer questions that the council had raised during closed session. They speak very vaguely about all of this. And then later, they described that process as an investigation. So I don't know if whatever changed came out of that Throne Law Firm investigation.
Lucas Day:I don't know if it is something that came out when, mayor pro tem Grigsby and council member, Singh were having, listening sessions with staff. I don't know if there is another complaint. Although, by the time this comes out, maybe I do because I've got a bunch of FOIAs out. But it just seems like something something changed because, again, council knew about this in November. This this report was finished in November.
Lucas Day:It was not in the public sphere until, last month, and all of these developments have happened, in the weeks since.
Anna Liz Nichols:Here's the thing. We don't know if something occurred, and I'm not I'm not trying to dissipate your your educated guess. If something occurred in the last few days, this might be sorry to be speculative. It might be a matter of, oh, now the public knows about it. Sorry.
Anna Liz Nichols:The truth of the matter is, like you said, they've had this report that has a a couple employees saying that he is prone to emotional outbursts, that the dogged way he questions people can be seen as berating, can be seen as interrogation, that he noticeably speaks to female employees differently than male employees, and he plays favorites. Playing favorites was was mentioned a couple times within this report as well. City council, the mayor has seen this, and his response to to being able to release that information was was support for Belleman. Additionally, city council generally knew what, you know, folks at Belleman's previous job had to say about him. Belleman was fired for for for claim after there were claims that he created a a toxic work environment when he was county controller over in Saginaw County.
Anna Liz Nichols:That was only a couple months before he came to East Lansing. He lost his job in the summer, had a new one in East Lansing by the fall.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And, I mean, the way that that process really played out quickly, which I think is a good transition to what we're about to see, which is a search for the city manager. So I covered the 2023 search for George Lahanas' replacement. And I I can remember at the time that there were five finalists. Belleman was a finalist because a different finalist dropped out.
Lucas Day:He was initially a, alternate. I had he's got a lot of experience leading municipal governments. So I I'd imagine that his recent termination from Saginaw County played a role in him being an alternate because he did have more experience than the other candidates.
Anna Liz Nichols:Mhmm.
Lucas Day:But by the time that we got to the meeting where council made the decision, two of the finalists had already dropped out. One of them didn't even come to the proceedings. A second one, Eli wrote a report on, which, you know, we we got his personal files, and there were a number of just concerning, accusations made by employees in his department that he'd worked in Cincinnati previously. So when we reported on that all of that, he he dropped out right before the meeting. And so you were down from your five finalists, which already had one alternate down to three.
Lucas Day:One of them was Tim Dempsey, who is now the Meridian Township manager. He was popular with, I I can remember reading through, like, the public comments at that time. He was he was popular with the community. So I I was surprised, when he wasn't the pick. It seems like internal candidates, if they've got some level of support locally, they they tend to be chosen for these types of things.
Lucas Day:But in the three two pick, they picked Belleman. And, obviously, you know, some members of council like things that he was doing. Like, it hasn't been all doom and gloom in the city since he got here necessarily. There's been positive movements financially for East Lansing, which some would say might be a little bit of a mirage. It could have to do more with budgetary practices and delaying projects.
Lucas Day:But, I mean, we've got a budget surplus this year when it's expected to be negative. So he's been here for about three years now. Are you Robert was here for about three years before they reached the separation agreement. The next decision that city council makes as to who is the next long term city manager is the most important decision they will make, while they're on this body probably. The there's a lot of questions about public safety as you mentioned previously and previously, and the city manager oversees the police chief.
Lucas Day:There's a lot of demands for things like roadwork and, the parks departments faced cuts previously. If those continue, people are gonna be upset. And East Lansing is just uniquely situated where its economic future depends entirely on the vote of its residents. We have an income tax that is unique because it's renewed every twelve years or at least that's structure it's currently in. Most cities just have their income tax permanently.
Lucas Day:It's not something that people usually vote on. It failed when they initially tried to put it in place in 2017, and it passed with about 58% of the vote in 2018. If this income tax does not pass in 2030, things are going to change radically in the city. People are going to lose their jobs. There are going to be less services offered.
Lucas Day:Like, there just isn't any way around that. I I I've talked to a political science professor about this. She's also the chair of the city's parks department, and she said that she thinks that the way that city leadership has been communicating with their city commissions, has been chipping away at trust between the city's most active volunteers and its leadership team. We know that the, you know, human rights commission and the police oversight commission have had, you know, huge disputes with city council and the city manager, but the parks commission also has. And I understand some of the other commission commissions have as well.
Lucas Day:These are your most active and, like, important volunteers. Like, you want your next city manager to be somebody who builds bridges with these people because if they're advocating for your income tax, like, they're talking to their neighbors. East Lansing is still a small city where that kind of thing matters. And then also the other thing that the, political science professor, Sarah Rackow, told me is that, you know, your progressive wing is probably the wing that would be, you know, more inclined to vote for attacks, and that's also a wing that's alienated right now. So that vote is four years away.
Lucas Day:The next city manager is probably the person who's going to usher East Lansing through that period, through that renewal vote. If the next city manager is not the person doing that, then you've run into whole new set of problems. So, I mean, the the the city's financial future really could depend on who they hire to do this.
Anna Liz Nichols:As East Lansing residents know, we have a duplicative sort of problem, not to to conflate one with the other, but my gosh, over at Michigan State University, there have been, and mind you, there's a little nuance with acting in interim presidents. There have been six, six presidents in the last, what is it, eight years at MSU, one of the state's biggest institutions, and there has been a renewed call. These calls I know a lot of I know there's a lot of conversation. People are becoming really privy to the importance of of university governance boards, but let me tell you. As someone who was at Michigan State University in 2018 during the sentencing of Larry Nassar, who was responsible for one of the largest sex abuse scandals in in collegiate in sports history.
Anna Liz Nichols:There have been calls for a cleanup of these of of Michigan State University's board of trustees, its governance board, with the infighting, accusations of of acting in self interest, disagreements about transparency, just about anything you could bump heads over that has led what many are saying because as because MSU has had a lot of pain over controversial presidents. John Angler, former governor of Michigan, John Angler back in the twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen era garnered a whole lot of controversy for his handling of the of the aftermath of the Larry Nassar scandal. But the the vacating MSU president, Kevin Kevin Gustoix, he was, you know, not without not without complaint from the university community but has been regaled as one of the better picks in in recent history. And he he recently left for a different deal over at Clemson after a huge raise had been approved to to get, you know, president Gutswitz to stay. Some of the developing voices at MSU that are becoming louder in this this conversation of perhaps a cleanup is needed of of how to handle these, university governance boards.
Anna Liz Nichols:In Michigan, we elect a couple of them on a statewide ballot, which is different than any other state in the country. But, a surprising voice on this has been, longtime MSU basketball coach, Tom Izzo. He's getting increasingly ear publicly irritated with the state of disarray at the university governance level.
Lucas Day:I mean, like, Michigan State and East Lansing are linked. They're they're always gonna be linked. The university is what the city is known for is the top employer. And, you know, just like we just mentioned with the city government where every time you have leadership changes, things that have been progressing kind of stop and start, that happens at the university. It can lead to people leaving their jobs if it's unstable.
Lucas Day:There are lots of competitors. People can go to the state capital. They can go to Lansing or Meridian Township or even over to MSU if you're East Lansing. Like, you you don't want to have these periods where you're frequently changing leadership over and over again. And at the same time, you don't want people working in a toxic workplace.
Lucas Day:Last night's meeting, I was listening to they they went on and they talked about developments and development incentives, and you listen to people like, Landon Bartley, who's been here for about three years, talk about the different incentives they can use for developers and the different things that have been approved for developments that are on the table. And, like, it's just clear that it takes a a long time to build up the knowledge that Landon has. And then, you know, Alicia Wright was with him too who's one of the city's planners. And my understanding is that when Landon was hired as principal planner, that that office had a secretary, and that was it. Like, there's several people in that department.
Lucas Day:The city is not that far away from a period of high turnover among its, among its directors, its high level employees. And so where the pressure both at or where the pressure at the city level is that you need somebody leaving the staff that's going to keep city employees around, or else you're going to have things stopping and starting at a lower level. Belleman told me previously in an interview that some road projects that that residents have been demanding are not done because the office was empty. And then, I mean, the same sort of thing happens kinda to to a different scale, but, the same sort of things can happen at MSU if they're going through these frequent, leadership changes. It's it's not good for the city.
Lucas Day:It's not good for the university.