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This is East Lansing insider brought to you by ELI on impact eighty nine FM. In this show, we break down all of the news and happenings in the East Lansing community. And now, today's East Lansing insider.

So it was a late night for East Lansing City Council On Tuesday. As they took up dozens of items, including a series of recommendations from a downtown solutions committee composed of city officials aimed to promote public safety in the downtown area. It included things like amending our noise ordinance to address loud car noises, adding amendments to our camping and loitering ordinance to prohibit camping and loitering, adding lights and cameras to the downtown area to promote public safety, and a series of other measures. So last night, myself and Lucas Day, our our managing editor, went to the meeting to cover the various aspects of of conversation that were happening last night and some decisions that were made. So we're gonna talk about that today.

Thanks for joining me, Lucas.

Yeah. There's a lot to talk about.

There certainly is. How late did we go last night again?

I think that they made the motion to go after midnight, but I think that they ended four minutes before midnight.

So we're gonna talk a little bit about what I just discussed, the public safety measures that were proposed. There were numerous proposals, but only a few made the cut. And that included amending the budget for 2026 to allow from two more traffic police officers, direct the city manager to address state stakeholders, to implement legislative changes, to limit the aftermarket modifications for the noise.

They make the the way we've been describing it and the way that, like, people say in city meetings is that they make the muffler sound like gunshots, which I think is a good description because it does.

Yeah. Authorize the Department of Public Works to fence in the transformer in the Target Rally House Alley, which I've learned is a engineering device that takes the voltage from the power grid and adjusts it to the appropriate voltage for what you need inside a inside a building. Direct the city manager or designee to review placement of permanent lighting and additional cameras, again, the public safety component. And then to adjust our camping and loitering ordinance to ban camping and to bar loitering in parking lots and parking structures. And those last two measures are probably the most controversial of the collection.

Don't get me wrong, what's a city council meeting where we're not talking about noise? But the bulk of public comment was surrounding these changes to the loitering and camping ordinance, with a lot of people pretty upset about the implications it has for our unhoused neighbors. One of the main criticisms of these proposed changes to the ordinance is that some believe it effectively criminalizes the act of existing in public while experiencing homelessness. I will say that East Lansing Police Department's chief, Jen Brown, did say that the priority of these changes to the ordinance is to connect unhoused individuals with resources and within the ordinance. It doesn't simply say that, you know, the first step is to for officers to make people aware of the resources available to them.

It's required to actually enforce the ordinance. And so the penalties, because there are criminal penalties within this ordinance if for violation, in order to enact those penalties, individuals have to be provided with information or resources.

Yeah. And I've I mean, I've been going to the DDA meetings for a couple years now where they talk about how unannounced people a lot downtown, and the police have been saying for years now that their strategy is to go up to them and tell them about the resources that are available and try to get them help. So really, don't I don't know what that first step changes. There there's a section of this that says that an unhoused person must they've they've essentially gotta try to get them help. But the language is if the person identifies as unhoused, the section shall not be enforced without an officer or other authorized city official first making an effort to provide the person with information about or otherwise assist in the placement of the person voluntarily in an appropriate social service facility or treatment facility, which means sending them somewhere else because East Lansing doesn't have homeless shelters besides Haven House, which is a family shelter.

I think that someone said last night that they've got seven rooms. And it's typically the same people that we see downtown that are unhoused. And so I think that what this means is that if an officer recognizes them and they've interacted with them before, that that interaction before still counts still counts going on. So it's it's, you know, I I I don't know what this changes as far as ELPD's strategy to get them placed in resources with resources, because my understanding is that's what they've been doing for a few years now, especially with the Department of Social Workers. It's just that now that there's an enforcement mechanism built built in here where they can get fined or put in jail.

Yeah. And those penalties, they're not nothing, especially if you're someone experiencing homelessness. The penalty for the first offense, if you refuse to to vacate the premises, or or you say you're going to and then you don't, is a fine of up to a $100. At second offense, it's a fine of up to $200 and possible incarceration of thirty days.

Yeah. I mean, and if you're if if you're on house, probably don't have the money to pay those fines. And and again, I want to highlight that there's I found the language I was looking for. It says if a city official or police officer has personally advised the person of this section on a previous occasion, they can receive those fines. So, you know, if you get advised once, going forward, you can be fined.

That changes the calculus for know, what they've got to offer as far as going in first with the resources, which, again, I I I think that they do every time. I I don't know how this changes that strategy, if that has been the strategy.

Which leads and we heard from the public what they think this actually is. That is actually just aimed to eliminate the presence of unhoused people in the downtown area. Like you said, Haven House is really our only shelter resource. Where are you supposed to go if if it's it's not just the the camping, it's loitering. Where are you supposed to go other than to leave the city?

Where are you gonna go? Lansing, where you also don't have, you know, a lot of bed space and shelters, that the city has been dismantling these encampments for which people experiencing homelessness at times band together to to watch each other's backs, to put their earthly possessions in a location.

Yeah. And we heard it last night at the meeting. Some people that work in homelessness or homeless services said that the shelters are full in Lansing, which is I I mean, I I interned in in homeless services in 2021 and 2022 for about a year, and that's pretty consistent with what I'd heard in the Lansing area then. I'm not sure if the calculus has changed in recent years, but I I I think it's important for the public to understand that these shelters do fill up. And the other thing is that if we're talking about the shelters that people sleep in, those those close in the morning and then they open up again at night.

I think it's five or 6PM. If you if you drive by the city mission, you'll see a line outside of it, and that's because people are getting let in at that time. So they don't really have any place to go during the day. A lot of times, they'll go to, like, the CATA station. But, I mean, there's been times where people have gotten in trouble for going to the CATA station too.

During the polar vortex, it was they canceled classes while I was in undergraduate work. I remember that. Or undergraduate. That was the big story that came out was that unhoused people were being removed, and I think someone was arrested for giving them bus tokens. So I might have to look go back and look at that reporting.

But there's not there's not many places that they can go and be allowed, if not in public places. So I I I I I just have got a lot of questions about the enforcement of this if it does eventually pass.

So I know that I'm preaching to the choir when I talk to you about housing. Lucas is obviously our housing guy over at East Lansing Info. But another component is, I think there's the perception within this ordinance that the only location that someone can be lawfully in East Lansing if they're unhoused is within a shelter or within some form of social services, whether that be, I don't know, a rehab center or something. There are reasons that people do not want to go to a homeless shelter. We talked last week with community outreach director for City Rescue Mission, the major homeless shelter in Lansing, about the challenges their organization is facing serving unhoused population, but also the challenges those individuals themselves face.

And she said there's a variety of reasons people might not want to come to the shelter, including safety reasons, Being around other individuals that you don't know in close quarters can be uncomfortable, and you can't always take all of your possessions or things that are important to you with you. Some people, you know, on the outside, they team up, whether that be a man and a woman or someone who has an animal. There are not that many shelters, be that for homelessness or domestic violence, that allow you to bring an animal.

Yeah. And if you don't have a car to stay in, which a lot of people, you know, that's that's what they end up doing. Again, I just I I if you're and we heard from some of the homeless service providers that spoke last night, the homeless people that you have in East Lansing, they're here because they are from East Lansing. What And this does is it pushes them into Lansing, and they basically said spend resources on addressing, you know, the homeless people in your community. And I guess I'm just confused about some of the goals with this ordinance.

We did hear from I mean, some of the business owners have got, like, legitimate complaints about issues that the unhoused population apparently caused their businesses. And I get if somebody's, you know, staying in your doorway and people can't get in over them. A But lot of the things that we heard last night was just, you know, people listing off crimes that they'd apparently committed. Like, they're not they're not immune from being charged with those crimes that they have apparently committed that the business owner said that they committed. They can still be charged with those crimes.

What we've done here is or what if this ends up passing, what this does is it creates a different crime that is more of a blanket policy that you can say that they're violating if they're in public places. But, I mean, if if they're committing crimes, there's nothing that's keeping the police department from enforcing the crimes that they're apparently committing. And they listed off several things that were, you know, not even gray area. If those things are happening, the police should be addressing it already. So I again, just from some of the stuff that the business owner said, I don't I don't see how this addresses those concerns.

If they're not enforcing current laws, do they need this blanket law to have something to enforce? I mean, some of the stuff that they said was pretty explicit.

Yeah. Especially what we heard from Ali Hader, the owner of the the the seven Eleven in downtown, who has talked at many meetings with grave concerns for his employees, especially his young female employees, about getting accosted by loiterers, about being physically attacked by passerby passersby. He said at multiple meetings in so many words that he wouldn't recommend any family come to the downtown area just for out of safety concerns. And as, you know, one of the the things that was proposed but not taken to the next step via vote last night was this this idea of having a social district where people could purchase alcohol in the downtown area and have a designated social district cup, walk around with that alcohol, especially during social events. He's not for it, and there's plenty of people in the city that are not for it for the the specific reason of they're worried it will draw more homeless people to the downtown area.

I will say in terms of some of the concerns he brought up last night, were individuals defecating in his parking lot, breaking the doors on the the beer fridge within the seven Eleven, and amongst other concerns, there was one that stood out to me where I'm like, I I've experienced this, which is the verbal abuse that some individuals cast upon, especially younger women. I was a student at MSU not so so long ago, and I can tell you I can tell you that's a real thing that happens, getting catcalled by unhoused individuals in the downtown area as you're just, you know, going about your business. So that is that is something that happens in the downtown area.

Yeah. And I I understand that it happens, but I don't know what this ordinance does to address that problem because that is a crime.

Not geared toward it either.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's not. It's it's geared this is what the enforcement is. No person shall camp in any public place.

That's what it says. And then there's a bunch of sections about enforcement.

The ordinance are quite it's quite literally about presence. Literally.

But harassing women downtown is a crime already. You're not allowed to do that. Don't do that. Defecating downtown is a crime already. Don't do you're not allowed to do it.

Like, the police can already enforce laws against those, and so this just I I just got a lot of questions about this because it looks like a blanket policy. These are also you know, as far as crimes go, it's it's relatively minor. The the things that Ali was talking about are more severe crimes that could be punished with harsher penalties.

Mhmm.

And it just looks like this is easier to enforce because it could be broadly interpreted, especially I can't I keep going back to this. Any person that's been warned of this policy, you know, is now subject to the punishments involved in it. And when you have people that are chronically homeless, when you're seeing the people same people down there, they're probably going to get warned of this policy fairly quickly. So I've just I I don't think that the enforcement piece has been made clear about how they plan to use this, because it looks like they can use it in a lot of different ways.

And East Lansing is not the first municipality to consider, ordinances like this. Grand Rapids, you know, caught a lot of flack about two years ago for a very similar camping ordinance. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan called a lot of attention to it at the time saying that that it criminalizes poverty to make it instead of municipalities investing in more resources to protect and preserve the safety of their unhoused populations or even resources that prevent homelessness, these policies just eliminate or work to eliminate the perceived presence of those problems. But those problems persist. These don't get to the root of the issue of homelessness.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that kind of hits the nail on the head, nail on the head. Yeah. That's that's the saying.

I'm not gonna use that same. My mom, she makes fun of me when I use cliches. I said, we've got a lot to unpack, and now she says that to me every time I see her. So I can't say that one anymore.

She listens and critiques.

She does. She calls me the day after she listens to it, and she's like, so it's alright. But but, yeah, I I think what you're saying kinda gets to the root of the question that a lot of people have is, you know, a lot of on house people, they've got severe, you know, mental or physical disabilities, can't necessarily get jobs for a number of reasons, don't have familial support, there aren't shelters during open during the day. So where do they go if they can't be in public places? Most of the businesses, I don't think, want them sitting in their businesses during the day.

I've been in, you know, several businesses in East Lansing that well, some of them welcome them. Some of I can remember the subway that was next to my apartment when I lived in East Lansing and when I was going to school there. There was always an on house person in there, and he always had a newspaper, and the staff treated him very well. And it was kind of endearing to see, but, you know, if people are having, you know, real mental health crises regularly, the business probably don't want them in them. And I know that that's created issues for some of the downtown businesses that people were just outside of in the past.

So, you know, obviously, if the businesses don't want them inside and they're not allowed to be in public places, where do they go? And I I just don't think we have a real clear answer to that question unless it's someplace outside of East Lansing. Maybe the parks, but I guess that's a public place too.

Yeah. That's the that's the the answer is within the question of, you know, where do they go? You've given no places for them to go if the only answer is a shelter or or a hospital. There's a real number, a metric number I can give you for how many beds are in a place. And I can give you a metric number of how many unhoused individuals there are.

And if those are two different numbers, if the unhoused individuals are more than the bed space or people just won't go to the shelter out of safety concerns, out of any concern, there is no answer to where they're supposed to go. In the in the list that this this committee came up with, there's only and they came up with a a list of of shelters and spaces that unhoused individuals would be referred to. There's only one located in East Lansing, that's Haven House.

It's Haven House, and that's a family shelter. That's for people with children. It's not for the people that you're seeing downtown. There's not that many that I think I've seen regularly. There's, you know, a handful that I've I've been seeing for years and years, but those people aren't people that can stay at Haven House.

That shelter's not structured for them. That that that's that's usually helping families with children, and it's trying to get them into an apartment or a rental home or something like that going forward. And it's got pro it's a it's a great resource, but it's just it's it's not structured to the people that we see maybe sleeping in the parking garages or things like that. That's not what Haven House does.

And in terms of the importance of, you know, shelter space and resources, right now, the capital area does have a code blue, meaning it's it's not safe to to be outside for extended periods of time. Lansing has extended we've been in a code blue in the Lansing area for a while now. In fact, before this meeting for which city leaders did vote to move the ordinance changes to the next level, there was an individual resting in the Hanna Community Center just feet away from where this decision was being made about where individuals this winter will be allowed to be.

Yeah. It was kind of I I I don't know if I've seen many people sleeping in the Hannah Center, but it was it was cold outside and just the imagery of it was kind of striking because it was the room with, like, the vending machines that are right it's right behind the meeting room. I went in there to grab a water right before the meeting started, and he was he was sleeping in there. And I I was just wondering. I was like, man, if this ordinance was in place, if they put this in place tonight, and if they woke him up and said, it was a I I think it takes a couple days for the ordinance to actually, you know, go into effect, so I'm being a little bit dramatic here.

But had they woken him up and said, you know, there's there's a camping ordinance. You need to get out of here, he said, no. It's cold, and there's other people in here. Like, would they have cited him then? Would he have been would he have been cited or arrested then?

I I I just don't I I don't know. Because there are a lot of people that refuse services for a variety of reasons. Obviously, the ideal thing is that they, you know, they they go to the services, but, if if they don't, I don't know that jail is a is a great solution because, again, they're not likely not gonna be able to pay these fines. There's just a lot of questions how it's enforced. And jail jail carries a cost for the city too.

So if if we're talking about the city does have budget problems. If they're saying that they don't have, you know, the resources to create the structures that are needed to help these people, I mean, you're incurring a cost too when you put them in jail. Maybe that cost is for Ingham County, which East Lansing taxpayers also pay too. I I I just don't know. I've got so many questions about the enforcement, and I think we're in about a month to figure these things out before it's finally voted on.

Yeah. The thing that struck me with this is it's it's it's a different city a different city leadership than we had, you know, just a few years ago. This I I don't wanna call council conservative because, Steve Whalen's told us that he's a little bit politically ambiguous. He's voted from people from both parties. The rest of them, I I know for a fact about Democrat.

But I Dana Watson, left council just a few months ago, would have moved heaven and earth, I am sure, to stop this first reading from going forward. But, it was just a different process last night where mayor pro tem Carrie or just mayor pro tem anymore. Council member Carrie Singh, she you could tell she had some issues with it, but when she found out that the first reading didn't put it in place, she was okay with moving it forward. And that's just a different it's just a different city government than what East Lansing has historically had. I'm thinking back to, you know, Aaron Stevens and, you know, certainly Dana, who who called in last night.

Dana's been off city council for a month, and she called in last night telling them not to move forward with this. And it's just a different look. Maybe maybe this ends up not passing, and it's more of a procedural thing. But there's there's just just definitely a shift in East Lansing city government that's visible at these meetings.

And I apologize. I probably should have started with this. They have included definitions of what camping and loitering will mean moving forward. Camping will be defined by, to set up or remain at a place with bedding, sleeping bags, or other material used for bedding purposes, or any stove, cookware, or fire is placed for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live. And loitering will be defined by remaining in a place for no obvious reason or a reason other than the purpose for which the place exists.

This is across the street from MSU, so especially that loitering definition. What is the downtown but the main venue to loiter?

It's what the kids do.

It's what the kids do.

And, yeah, and it just goes back to the guy that was sleeping at the Hannah Center last night as they were discussing this. If

If he has a blanket, does that mean he's he's camping there?

And if he doesn't have one, is he loitering? And is the kid that's maybe sitting at the table next to him but doing their homework, are they not loitering, but he is loitering?

Find me an MSU stu a class at MSU for which one student didn't come with a blanket, even in the summer. That's what the high school students do now too. They bring a blanket to school. So the crux of criticism that we heard last night during public comment was questions about what the intentions behind this ordinance mean for for the city, for what the police department wants to accomplish with with the ordinance? And as far as trust in East Lansing Police Department, it's been pretty strained, especially over the last couple months.

There were people with signs in the back calling the the city council and also the police department racist for not removing Jen Brown after some comments she made in recent weeks about individuals that she said create crime in the area. There's a lot of hostility right now towards local leaders in East Lansing and also how they've handled questions about racial bias and brutality within the police department. I'd say the not so silent elephant in the room in terms of the criticisms we heard during the city council meeting of East Lansing police really stemmed from an incident earlier this fall where East Lansing Police responded outside of Dave Dave's Hot Chicken. The press release later released by the city called it an altercation. I think they called it.

The word violent was used several times in that press Where

later security

Called a fight. They they called it a fight.

Yes. Well, security footage was later released to the public, not by the city, by the defense attorneys for for the two gentlemen that were were arrested, which make it clear that at least one of the individuals was physically holding someone back from the altercation away from the crowd outside of Dave's Hot Chicken. And that happened to be the person who got pepper sprayed by police when they respond responded. Criminal charges for fighting were filed against these two and these two young men, men of color, and were later dropped as more and more information became public and media outlets started picking up on what was going on.

Yeah. And they when they were done talking about some of the public safety recommendations, which was the package that contained that camping and loitering ordinance, they moved on, and they went into a they went into an agenda item that kind of acknowledged that there has been that rift between some sections of the community, especially communities of color, the ordinance or the agenda item says. And they they passed something that I think hope addresses it, or they I mean, they certainly hope it addresses it. You heard from some speakers last night that they don't think it's enough. What what it is is they talked about enhancing their partnership with Advance Peace.

It's the first one Advance Peace kind of works to address cyclical gun violence. They work directly with people that may be involved with gun violence. I'm not I'm not sure how that expands public trust, but they didn't spend a ton of time talking on this, so I'm just reading off the agenda report. The other one is some department trainings for implicit bias, cultural competency, and mental health and de escalation trainings. There's three different trainings that the police department, I think the police chiefs specifically as well, will go through.

They talked about data collection. So data's been a big issue that the police oversight commission's been talking about for years and years now. And, the issues with the data collection that, chief Brown talked about last night are the same ones that the oversight commission has been kind of harping on for a couple years now is that there's not really a great system for data migration. Like, there's a lot of manual moving data from one place to another. And she said that that could help with transparency.

Of course, there's the concerns with the oversight commission. We've covered this pretty extensively where they rolled back some transparency, or some things that were meant to keep the police department transparent. So some of those rollbacks actually have specifically to do with data and the Oversight Commission's ability to collect data on certain things like officer use force. But we'll I guess we'll see how how they implement this. I I think that data collection is one of the best things you can do for transparency, so if they do it well, I I certainly do think that could help.

And then engaging with community stakeholders, and then they got a communications coach for the police chief. It looks like it's a three month contract. They're gonna be helping with coaching her personally, but then also with some communications things, like, I think it's had assist with press releases. So, I mean, we'll we'll see. We heard from the NAACP last night.

Their president said what you need to do is you need to apologize to the two young men that you pepper sprayed and then put that misleading press release out. Again, this is something that we've covered, pretty extensively in the past. So I don't I I I don't know if if these actions will address this divide that the city seems to be acknowledging. The city is in a tough spot with issuing an apology about that because it's now the subject of a federal lawsuit or a lawsuit in federal court, I guess. Yeah.

There's about $70,000 in contracts for training and communications help, that they passed last night. So it looks like that's the direction that they're going to, bridge the divide in the community, I guess.

There were a few individuals during public comment that took the opportunity to express that they are very supportive of the police, that they wanna see more investment in public safety. There is a bit of a divorce between narratives where the police are saying as they're as and mind you, Jen Brown was presenting these

These were her recommendations.

Yeah. She did say at an earlier city meeting that these aren't she doesn't necessarily support all the recommendations that she was presenting, but it was her her job to present all the recommendations. But it is clear that she was pretty supportive specifically of the ordinance changes. You know, Jen Brown has been saying for months that crime is

on the

rise, that individuals are coming into the city and promoting unsafe in an unsafe environment for for patrons of the area. Whereas with this lack of transparency, with these questions about accountability, some residents are saying, you know, the real threat to public safety is the police department now that it's untethered by this rather symbolic group, the the LIPOC, the the oversight commission. It doesn't it never really had a lot of teeth, but it was there to promote and allow there to be a venue for the public to ask questions to demand accountability. And what little authority no authority. What little voice they had has been very much muted by recent changes.

Yeah. And I I mean, you're gonna have your supporters in opposition to the police department in any city. I think that's just, you know, part of being a police officer is I mean, it is a hard job. Like, in there's gonna be mistakes. I think that where where the city screwed up here is, a, that press release, which they've now taken down off the city website, and, again, is subject to a federal civil lawsuit.

I think that that was a big misstep after I think that most people who can, you know, objectively watch that video of those two young men being pepper sprayed in downtown would say, you know, we don't want our police officers acting like that. You know, it could have been this community has asked for de escalation. It's been a focus, not just Denise Lansing, but around the community. So I think a lot of people can watch that video, see that incident could have been handled, should have been handled better. And then once the press release came out that kind of, you know, exonerated the officers and named these two kid or two young men, one of what one of which looked like he was doing everything right, looked like what MSU tells their students to do, which is if your friends are too drunk, go and grab them.

Get them out of there. I I think that they really just the way that was handled was bad, and I don't I I don't know if you can fix part of the divide or the section of the community we're seeing the divide with without acknowledging the mistakes there, which, again, I don't think the city wants to do because they're in a lawsuit over this. But, I mean, there's absolutely a ton of supporters for the police department in this community. And I I don't mean to say that, you know, that they've been going rampant and, you know, they haven't done anything good. I I Jen Brown attended last year before the election.

I or I guess it would have been two years ago now before the general election. Jen Brown did a lot of the security around those elections, and she's very knowledgeable about security because that's where she was consulting for about ten years. And I know that she made people in the city clerk's office feel safer. The Neumann Lofts residents, appreciate all the conversations she's she's had with them. I've heard from business owners that she's very good about going to talk to them.

We've heard that at city meetings. So there's there's absolutely people that think that there's many parts of her job that she does well. It it just seems like they're the city now is in kind of between a rock and a hard place where they they have this big controversy because of things that adults did, because of things that Jen Brown did, and now there's this lawsuit, which I don't know if they would have apologized even without the lawsuit. There's about a month between the when the security footage came out and when the lawsuit was filed, and they weren't answering my questions about it during that month period. Maybe they anticipated the litigation.

I don't know. But I I I I just don't know how you address those concerns without addressing the root of the issue. It it just seems like they've been beating around the bush the whole time. Even when they acknowledge those comments in the news interview that people have called racist, you know, the city manager said that the comments were racist. We heard people on the city council say that they were racist and she needs to do better.

You know, it's a learning opportunity. Even if those meetings were there, it was happening, they still weren't addressing the pepper spray incident, which always seemed like the bigger deal to me. I don't know. They're paying this consultant $25,000, so maybe he knows maybe he knows more than I do. Yeah.

And and the one thing that I think that it's important to contextualize here is that even if you're not if city council because after this happened, city council did order an independent investigation into ELPD. They didn't specify about this incident, but they said or they did specify incidents surrounding welcome weekend, which we've we've got some reporting out this weekend. It shows that over the start of the MSU school year, there's a lot more use of force incidents this year than the past three years where data is available, like, significantly more, like double last year. And so I I I think that maybe the city council saw those numbers, and that's why they were a little bit curious about what's going on within the LPD. But then, also, I I think that it's this incident, this incident where, you know, you got overhead footage that provides a clear narrative of what happened that you don't always get because body camera footage isn't you know, it isn't it's it's good, but it isn't perfect.

It's often obstructed, or they don't turn on their cameras because they're running to respond to something, and, you know, your your focus is on responding to something, not turning on your camera. I I know that they're they've talked about doing more training to remember to turn it on. But if if they don't turn it on, doesn't have audio for the first two minutes is what I'm trying to get at there.

You know, so many of the the weekly episodes we've done on East Lansing Insider go back to this idea of public safety being a top issue in in the city. So I expect the next time this these proposed changes to the ordinance come up in city council, and that could be later this month. That could be more likely next month in in January. We're gonna continue to hear from the public about, you know, either their their support or their concerns over this proposed change. And of course, East Lansing info will be at these important meetings and be asking important questions about, you know, where the city is going with all of this.

Thanks for tuning in to East Lansing Insider. I've been deputy editor, Annalise Nichols.

And I'm managing editor, Luc Day.

Talk to you all next week.

East Lansing Insider is brought to you by ELI on Impact eighty nine FM. We are on the web at eastlancinginfo.news and impact89fm.org. Thanks for listening.