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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, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of East Lansing Insider. I'm East Lansing Info's deputy editor, Anna Liz Nichols. And this week, we're talking about the city of East Lansing's financial future as its leaders consider the methods the city will use to make critical infrastructure adjustments as well as continue to provide the services and programs its residents use. I'm joined by East Lansing Info's managing editor, Lucas Day, to talk about some of the recent developments in some of these plans the city is considering as well as the looming task of what to do about the city's income tax, which expires in 2030.
Lucas Day:Yeah. So where we're at right now is in 2018, the voters approved an income tax that came a year after they denied it. So it's not like it's the most popular idea in the world. They can't they really had to push. They had, like, firemen going door to door to advocate for this.
Lucas Day:But, I mean, it's really important for the city for the city government, I guess, I should say. It taxes residents 1% and nonresidents that work in East Lansing half a percent. And the idea of it is that it forces people who work at Michigan State University to pay into the city. They said that, you know, you use your you you use our roads. MSU doesn't have fire department.
Lucas Day:They lean on our fire department. So you use our fire department. Just things like that. Like, you're using city infrastructure and facilities, MSU should pay, because it's a university tax exempt status. MSU doesn't pay property taxes on, you know, the majority of their land.
Lucas Day:There's little exceptions for private or for private entities that are on MSU's land. But just in general, MSU doesn't pay property taxes. The income tax was paired with a 5 mil reduction in property taxes for residents, which is a pretty significant amount. Think it was, 10% of property taxes that East Lansing residents paid. So there's kinda, like, winners and losers for the income tax if you're looking, like, solely at how much someone may pay.
Lucas Day:Like, say you're an old retired person who doesn't have much of an income, but, you know, you live in a nice house. You maybe you might like the income tax then because it reduced your property taxes some, but you're not paying much of an income tax because you don't have much income. Whereas on the flip side of that, if you're a young person who was just trying to buy a house in East Lansing, you don't have the nicest house, but you've got a pretty good income, maybe you're paying a significant more into the city. So that that's that's the basics of the income tax. The other thing that people should know is that, it really rescued East Lansing from, fiscal crisis in the city's pension debt.
Lucas Day:So just the history of my understanding from talking to, you know, the previous city manager about this is that municipalities that are old in general, including East Lansing, struggle with pension debt because they hired a bunch of people and, you know, their books looked fine, and they didn't account for how long, like, pensions and health care would cost long term. And as people live longer, there's just more people that are on your books that you're paying for. And so East Lansing was in real trouble with paying out pensions for, you know, not only people that are currently working are gonna need them eventually, but people that retired a long time ago and are still drawing their pensions. The state had to get involved. East Lansing was in such bad shape, and the city was making cuts before this.
Lucas Day:Income tax went into place. You know, we've all seen the charts about, like, how much the police departments dropped off for employment, although they're starting to rehire people now. They're up quite a bit over the last couple of years. But that that a lot of that was due to this pension debt, but that East Lansing all of a sudden needs found out that it needed to address. Like, they it could not continue to just keep the city staff the same way and pay out all these pensions.
Lucas Day:It was going broke. And so that stabilized, but it's not fully funded. And it it won't be for quite some time. The income tax period that the city has right now is for twelve years. So it was voted on in 2018.
Lucas Day:It's gonna expire at the end of twenty thirty unless voters renew it. And my every indication I've seen is that city leaders like the income tax, people that know finances like the income tax, municipal finances again like the income tax, and this is gonna be back on the ballot, maybe as soon as next year. So the city just had a volunteer committee filled with people that work in, you know, the state treasury and, again, just finance people who looked at all the city's numbers, and they made a bunch of recommendations. And one of them is we need the income tax. We should renew it.
Lucas Day:And so their recommendation is that as soon as you know, possibly as soon as next year, this is back on the ballot for people to vote on extending it ten years. And then they say after that ten year extension, the city should look at having it made permanent and maybe pair that with further, property tax reductions. So, again, just a big summary. City leaders and finance people really like this income tax. At city council, they're already starting to talk about, like, marketing this a little bit.
Lucas Day:Those conversations haven't been real in-depth, but whenever they're talking about, like, financial things, this tax is starting to creep into their minds. You can tell because they're talking about, you know, when are we gonna start talking about this publicly? The finance director said we should do it soon. And so I think that this is something that's gonna be on the forefront very soon.
Anna Liz Nichols:Back in 2018, the income tax passed with not the largest of margins, not not a negligible margin, but that we've we've seen other things on the local ballot that have have been approved with with better margins. I think this was about 60 ish percent. Yeah. But that was after it was rejected the previous election back in 2017. I was wondering if you had any insight on what the city can advertise or say that gets people on board with, an income tax.
Lucas Day:Well and and that's I think the crux of what I think that we should talk about today is and, you know, usually, I try to be I'm not a columnist. I'm not an opinion writer. But, like, to give my opinion on this, I I don't think the income tax is gonna renew. I don't think it's gonna pass. I don't think the renewal is gonna pass.
Anna Liz Nichols:It's a prediction. It's not
Lucas Day:like Yeah. It's a prediction. I'm being very clear right now that I am predicting that if this were on the ballot today, voters would not approve it. And there's several reasons why I think that and, you know, I could be wrong. But, like, the data point that we have right now is that the city tried to put a parks millage on the ballot in 2025, and it wasn't close.
Lucas Day:It it it it got, I think, less than 40% of the vote. And that was kind of eye opening to me because millages usually pass easily in East Lansing. This one had additional challenges. And it's in the millage, it said we're gonna have to raise property taxes, put this millage in place. But still, I mean, millages usually pass easily in East Lansing.
Lucas Day:I'm talking upwards of 70% of the vote, and this one didn't even come close. And I I think that the income tax was always going to have some hurdles to pass as far as, you know, people voted on this twelve year income tax. I've I've talked to residents. I've seen when we post our budget stories on Facebook or when we post stories that mention the income tax, you see people that are upset that this is gonna be back on the ballot because they're gonna say because they're saying, I thought this was temporary or risk we're rescuing the city from its pension debt, and now you're gonna ask us to renew it. So there is already a corner of the public that thinks that this was going to be a temporary thing, and they're going to be unhappy that they're voting on it again.
Anna Liz Nichols:Yeah.
Lucas Day:So I I I think that's one just unavoidable systemic thing the city is going to have to address is that they're asking for people to vote for this again. There's at least some people in the city that thought this was a temporary onetime thing. So that's unavoidable. That's something you're gonna have to deal with. The other one, and I I think that a lot of people are familiar with this, is just that there are worsening economic conditions.
Lucas Day:And we've seen all of these polls with the midterms coming up. Like, we've seen you know, I am polled the citizens of East Lansing about the economy, but I but I'd imagine that they're similar to, you know, national feelings. In 2018, people had a lot rosier idea of what our economy was. And I think especially in democratic cities, like like, East Lansing, like, people are upset with the federal administration. They're thinking the economy is down.
Lucas Day:Like, the economic conditions are just worse today than they are than they were in 2018. And I think that's going to convince some people that they don't wanna pay the income tax. Like, again, the lift for the city, as good as the structure may be as get getting money into the Lansing City government by forcing MSU employees to pay into it who don't live here, like, you've still gotta convince people to give you money, and that's a hard lift. Like, taxes, even if, like, there's people that are willing to pay taxes to do good things, you're asking for more of a a broader tax, I guess. It's I mentioned the breakdown of how it's used earlier, but it's not like a very narrow millage that's used to build a homeless shelter or, you know, help out the library.
Lucas Day:Like, you're entrusting your government with your money, and that's that's a hard lift.
Anna Liz Nichols:Yeah. Because East Lansing residents, very good margins, just this past election, just in August, passed all of these county wide mill helped pass these county wide villages, Things like funding Potter Park Zoo, funding trail repairs and constructions all around Ingham County, including here in East Lansing. I believe it's the North Tier Trail, a really popular trail. I actually use it all the time. Millages can be advertised as these, like you said, these very particular niche things whereas the income tax would be for a broader city goal.
Anna Liz Nichols:I was wondering, has there been conversations from the city about what this income tax might be used to build, rescue, rebuild? What are they saying about why this income tax now as opposed to back in 2018 is so necessary?
Lucas Day:Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of the same reasons. Like, this like I said, the city's pension standing is getting better, and it is. It's gone from, like, low fifties, maybe even high forties when they got this tax, as far as the percentage funded. And it's it's the way this is explained by the municipal people is weird because of it, like, it it relies on assumptions.
Lucas Day:So, like, the broader, you know, investment market market plays a role in it. So I'm I'm just gonna say that, like, the pension debt is getting better. It's not as much better as they thought I think that they as they thought it would be in 2018, but that's got more to do with broader economic conditions as far as, like, investment markets. But it's up substantially from where it was when this tax was initially passed and where we would be had it not passed. And I think that the goal going forward, they haven't said specifically what the categories are gonna be, but I think they're gonna be something similar.
Lucas Day:It might not be pension specifically. They talked about wanting to put it towards long term liabilities instead of pensions, which would encompass things like retiree health care because I think there's an additional savings if they can get that retiree health care program fully funded. They would have some just some additional benefits. So they wanna broaden the categories a little bit, but kinda keep the scope similar. But, again, it's not asking people to fund, you know, a library or a homeless shelter or, you know, trails that people use.
Lucas Day:I think it's an easier pitch to make if you're talking about a relatively limited amount of income as in a millage. Like, they put they put down when they pass these millages, like, how much it costs to the average homeowner, and it's, like, you know, sometimes less than a $100 a year on these. So so those are easy pitches to make. Like, they're asking people to put a significant amount of money into this income tax. 1% of your income at the end of the year, if you make a $100,000, you know, you're making a you're paying a thousand dollars.
Lucas Day:And I I mentioned earlier that I think that, like, some of the challenges that they're gonna run up against as far as this just being back on the ballot and the economic conditions are unavoidable systemic things. I I I think that the city's also done things that are going to create problems for them. Like, I think that they've made choices that are going to put this tax at risk. And, again, like, this wasn't a popular thing to begin with. It it failed in 2017.
Lucas Day:They got it through with about 60% of the vote in 2018, but that was after a really big marketing push. So to get into some of the things that I I think are going to run the city's gonna run up against us renewing this. The first one, you see it at all the city meetings. You've seen it in all the city meetings for last year for the last year. I think that the progressive base that probably helped this income tax pass is not going to support it in the numbers that it did in 2018.
Lucas Day:And I think that the main issue here is, you know, the policing things that we've seen. There is also a longer discussion about, you know, homelessness in the city potentially putting in a camping ban last year that, you know, got some national group's attention, state group's attention. But, by the time it's not back on the ballot, I don't know how big of an issue that'll be. I don't know what issues will arise in the future. But I think the policing thing is still unless there's some drastic changes, I think it's gonna be an issue.
Anna Liz Nichols:Yeah. With it being such a general nebulous thing of what will this money be used for, at the helm of those decisions are the city leaders. It's the city council, city manager. The city of East Lansing parted ways with its city manager amidst allegations brought by a city employee of sexual harassment. An investigation cleared him of of that allegation, but the the investigation report, and this is an independent investigation, found that there were reports that the working environment at its the city government was was rather hostile, picking favorites, prone the city man the previous city manager was prone to outbursts, just inappropriate behavior.
Anna Liz Nichols:And we've we've parted ways, and we have an interim city manager, and the city is is going to be going through the task of finding a new city manager. But, additionally, as you said, the progressive base is obviously disgruntled. It's no small thing. City council has public comment section. And when was the last time that the majority of that conversation wasn't about recent policing decisions made by ELPD?
Anna Liz Nichols:I can tell you I can tell you when was the last time. It was when those same people who offer their criticisms of ELPD were taking on the mantle to rail against the the homeless, the encampment and loitering bans. So the only respite city council has had from hearing outcry from the community, from the progressive base about ELPD was when they were considering these ordinances that impact were going to impact the unhoused community. And there still there still was conversation about the demeanor of the East Lansing Police Department.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And, I mean, just to give a quick recap of what we're talking about now, in the way back in 2025 around MSU's welcome weekend more than a year ago now, people started going to the city meetings, and they started to say that ELPD had used excessive force against people that hadn't committed crimes, and there's conversation around it. It's kinda murky. It was smaller than it ended up being. But the LPD ends up putting out a press release that says that, you know, there's, you know, this violence, and the LPD responded x amount of fights, made x amount of arrests, and had x amount of calls.
Lucas Day:And in that press release, it names two people, young black men. I think they were 20, 21 years old. Mhmm. And it says they were charged with crimes related to fighting. And so after that press release come comes out at the next city meeting, one of the woman that had been, you know, criticizing the police and asking for justice, Nadia Sellers, you find out that one of the men named in the press release was her son.
Lucas Day:Mhmm. And so you've got an advocate who's been named in a ELPD press release for misdemeanors related to fighting. And, I mean, off the jump, it made no sense. Like, there's how many kids fight in downtown East Lansing during MSU school year every weekend? Why were these specific kids singled out?
Lucas Day:And it made no sense. And it made even less sense when the video of this particular arrest comes out, and it shows that Nadia Sellers' son stepped in to prevent a fight. His buddy was in line arguing with some people. He was up in the curb. He came over.
Lucas Day:He got out between them. They've been pushing and yelling at each other. He got he got between them. He was, you know, standing between his friend and these guys he's arguing with them. The ELPD ELPD officers come in.
Lucas Day:They pepper spray these guys very quickly, and that's essentially the whole interaction. Mhmm. This footage comes out. The LPD is gets criticized. The prosecutors dropped the charges against the kids, and we found weird things in FOIA, which, like, at one point when they were discussing this press release, there is a completely unrelated name of somebody that like, the communications people, they're trying to put this name in the press release.
Lucas Day:And he's got he was in a fight, but he was not in this fight. The issue is that his last name is Sellers. He's got the same last name as Nadia Sellers. So they think he's connected to Nadia Sellers, and that's why his name was discussed as being put in his press release at one point in time. They find out that he's not her son.
Lucas Day:He's discarded entirely. They put her son's name in the press release. The chief of police, Jennifer Brown, provided the names we put in that press release. We can see that through FOIA. The city has not talked about this in more than a year.
Lucas Day:And that's a big deal because all of a sudden, you look like this doesn't look like a mistake all of sudden. It looks like retaliation against an activist. And if it isn't, the city should say that. But they've said we're getting sued now. These men have since brought lawsuits.
Lucas Day:We're not gonna talk about this. People are furious, especially because over the last year, Jennifer Brown's a relatively new police chief. She was made intern chief at the end of twenty twenty four. She's promoted in May 2025. This all happened less than a year into her time at ELPD.
Lucas Day:And over that first year, there was a significant increase in use of force. Police use force more often. It was there was a broader racial disparity. We just heard we're recording this on Thursday. We just heard last night at the police oversight commission that even when you control for factors like resisting arrest, police were far more likely to use force against black people.
Lucas Day:So there's there's just a lot of controversy around police. And then there's been all these other incidents. So back in April, LPD had its first fatal shooting in years. 21 year old black MSU student, Isaiah Kirby, he's suspected of stabbing in a local attorney. They released footage.
Lucas Day:It's a it's a miracle this guy survived. Like, they were the LPD was responding to a very serious situation. I'm not trying to downplay that. No. But, like, the lead up to this was city leaders, you know, calling for footage to be released, and it kind of followed an uneven path where they so they're gonna release the footage, and they backed out for a few days, and they released it a few days later.
Lucas Day:And some of the statements that they made leading up to it didn't really match what was on the footage. Like, they talked about him running at place, which is true. He was running in the direction of place when he was shot. There's this it's it's unclear if he would have kept running down the road or if he was gonna launch an officer at the time they shot him. But the the I mean, the officers were really making a split split second decision at the time they shot him.
Lucas Day:The the broader issue is that there was three separate volleys of shots in this incident, and this was not described in the public meetings by officials who had seen this footage before people saw it. They they shot him once while he was running towards them and close to some officers, and then they shot him again while he was on his knees. It appeared that he was holding the knife to his own throat, and then they shot him a third time while he was crawling on the ground. And these volleys all included several rounds of shots. And so the the controversy around this hasn't necessarily been around the first volley of shots.
Lucas Day:It's been around those second and third ones where people are like, well, was he really a threat at that time, or could, you know, we potentially have saved this this 21 year old who may have been, you know, not himself at all, not in the right mind. And then the criminal system does the mental health system does what it will do with him. Like, I I I think there's a lot a lot of debate around that still, and it's not gonna slow down because the attorney general's office still has not decided whether or not to, charge these officers with crime. MSP still hasn't given us their investigation. Like, this is something that's gonna linger on.
Lucas Day:Most recent incident last August was of a cell phone footage came out of a 20 year old black woman. She seemed to be drunk, and she was carried downstairs by l p d LPD officers. There's several of them around her. Her arms are they look like they're handcuffed, zip tied, whatever. They're restrained behind her back, as there's several officers around her.
Lucas Day:And and the officer who it looks on the video to me like he's kneeling on her back. Maybe he's kneeling next to but it looks like he's kneeling on her back. He punches her four times in the back. And, again, the city said very little about this. They initially blamed us on the county prosecutor, the delay in getting this footage out.
Lucas Day:Again, we're almost two months out from this incident now. They said they've released the footage. They still haven't. Last week, they said, or a few weeks ago, they said, we're waiting on John Duane, the county prosecutor, to make a decision on whether or not this woman is charged with crimes. John Duane said, we're not charging her with crimes last Friday.
Lucas Day:Now the city is saying, actually, we're gonna have the city prosecutor looks look at this. This is standard process. They did not say the city prosecutor was gonna look at this beforehand. I don't know why the city prosecutor didn't look at it in the month and a half leading up to this. It seems like, you know, it's a high profile incident.
Lucas Day:But all these incidents together are creating, like, a general mistrust of local government, and that goes back to what you said about the city manager. After the city manager report came out or the meeting they voted to release it, the mayor gave a clear endorsement of the city manager. And this report was done in November. So after the public gets the report and there's backlash, they start talking to city employees, I'm assuming, and they make a different decision. They didn't say why they made a different decision.
Lucas Day:But after the mayor initially endorsed the city manager, backtracked. They put him on leave, they parted ways. He wasn't fired. They he resigned, the city let him go. The city paid him his buyout.
Lucas Day:But, again, just the process that they followed created a general sense of mistrust among city government. And I don't even think that these policing incidents in a vacuum are the biggest risk to the income tax, which, again, is what we're talking about is the income tax because you need your voters to support the income tax. I I think that the risk to the income tax from these policing incidents, they continue to not respond to them, is that there is going to be some sort of organized opposition to renewing the income tax from your progressive voter base that you would would usually anchor support for this?
Anna Liz Nichols:Like you said, like, none of this has happened in a vacuum. There are few people in the country that have been exempt from a conversation about policing. It's ever since, you know, 2020 with George Floyd, I would say use of force, policing, police brutality, racism in in policing has been a front of line issue. And in East Lansing, the questions of of use in use of force and and, you know, how our our officers interact with people of color predates what happened in the fall of twenty twenty five with the two black men. I will note with each issue, with these most prominent incidents we were talking about, each one of them is with a young person of color in a college town.
Anna Liz Nichols:And so a lot of the conversation has been, you know, in a city where the economy is largely sustained by its young people, population, by college students. How do we how do we treat young people? How do we treat young people of color? The incident you described with Myana, it it spurned a a larger a larger conversation about long standing practices. And this this issue, that incident happened in front of Harper's brew pub.
Anna Liz Nichols:The question is, because that that woman, My Anna Collins, was 20, is how did she get into any of these bars and what led to her or any any person in that area getting over served? Because there's all these broader conversations. But what you were about to say about the progressive base, when we talk about the people who have been railing against the police department during city council meetings, who have been leading community efforts to to monitor police, that's a real thing that happened during this welcome week is several members of the community took it upon themselves to act as a a boots on the ground watch group for the police department, make creating relationships with the students in the bar area, informing them of of their rights should they have an interaction with the police. Those people, not only are they consistent, city council, commenters, they're also the people leading a lot of these city commissions. You talk about, like, one of the most prominent voices in this has been Cath Edsall.
Anna Liz Nichols:At this last city council election, she ran for city council. She's on the East Lansing Police, Independent Oversight Commission.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And I I mean, I think that the city so it's not just the Police Oversight Commission, the Human Rights Commissions that have have had issues with city government. I think those have been the most visible. Again, the city's voted to strip the power from both those commissions. They've said that it was because of legal reasons for the Human Rights Commission, and then it was because of, a bargaining agreement for the police department because of the oversight commission.
Lucas Day:There's been arguments from both of those commissions that they've gone farther than they had to and that the city has not explained all the changes that were made to those commissions. I can tell you just because I get information from them, like, as far as, like, what they're given trickles down to me and the media and, you know, the public. Like, those those ordinance changes have made a difference. We know less about the police department because of those ordinance changes. But it's also the, parks commissions have their budget slashed after they went through the whole budget process two years in a row.
Lucas Day:They're very upset with the city government because of that. And why that matters isn't because you might lose the 30 votes from the people on those three commissions. It's because those are the people that, you know, the community members know. These people tend to be active at volunteering at city events. You know, they're the people that coach the kids' sports teams.
Lucas Day:There's you know, the city's most active and engaged volunteers. And if those people are out and some of them on the the police and over in the police oversight commission, human rights commission are out on this income tax, they've told me. Like, I've been asking this question for more than a year now. How do you feel about the income tax? And I've heard from people on both of those commissions that they're all the way out on it.
Lucas Day:But even if they're still gonna vote for it, like, you these are the people that you want, you know, sharing your Facebook posts that are encouraging people to vote for. These are the people that you want talking to their neighbors about it and encouraging them to vote for it because these are the people that, you know, other people in the city know know about city government. Like, it's your most it's the most trusted voices in our community, you know, in certain pockets. Like, everyone's not going to be that engaged in what happens in local government. We, you know, we see that at local elections where you get maybe 30% turnout where you're getting, you know, 70% of these bigger elections.
Lucas Day:So you need the people who are engaged with city government to be advocating for for this, I think. You need them to be talking about how, you know, it makes MSU employees pay in the city government, about the benefits that the city is going to try to communicate to its residents, but it's going to face a hurdle because people are not going to go to all those meetings. You know, you're gonna have a limited population that's actually hearing the information you want them to. And, I mean, it's not just the city commissions. Like, I I think back to 2024 when there was a charter amendment going through about some rental regulations.
Lucas Day:Like, that was some of the most heated interactions I've seen between city, officials and, residents at public meetings. Like, at one point, then council member, now mayor Eric Altmann, suggested calling the police on the people that were pushing the the for this amendment, that were going to door to door for this amendment. He I think he's prefaced it with if they harass you or if, they're bothering you, something like that. He said call the police. And I've heard from people that were, again, these peep not all these people around city commissions, still very engaged in city government.
Lucas Day:Some people took that as a threat. They thought that was an abuse of power. And I wonder how that trickles down to, you know, that that amendment ended up passing. I wonder how that trickles down to the people that supported that. And are we going to see that again this year, with another charter amendment that would switch city elections from odd years to even years that I think, again, may get heated between city officials and the residents pushing for it.
Lucas Day:At at the first meeting, the people push where the city council voted to put a caption on it. The people that are pushing for it accused them of meddling in the election. Like, I I wonder if we're headed down that path again, and it's just gonna create farther divisions within the city.
Anna Liz Nichols:This is, at this point, just about communication methodology of how do you communicate with your local community about what you feel is the value of renewing the income tax, what you might do with it when for months they have the community members have begged you to comment on these policing issues, have urged you to have open and honest dialogue about issues that were important to them, and they have not been satisfied with the results of that. The there's I would say in recent weeks, especially with council member, Chuck Grigsby, he has started using his, you know, comment time during, city council comments to offer his thoughts on a lot of the concerns citizens have had, but I'm not getting the impression that anyone's really satisfied with the limited responses they get from those council members willing to talk. Certainly not satisfied with those members of city council that it's as if no one spoke during public comment.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And, I I mean, I think that they're beyond being able to communicate their way out of that issue. The approach the city's taken to the city council has taken to policing has been we're going to take a more active role in writing police policy. I just don't think that's going to address concerns because the the the complaints right now is that the police the leaders in the police department are not holding their officers accountable even for things that, you know, people in the oversight commission and activists, the NAACP think explicitly breaks policy. They don't think there's accountability at the top.
Lucas Day:So if you rewrite the policy, you're not fixing that broader issue of accountability. And as for the Collins incident with a 20 year old that was punched by the officer outside of Harper's, I I I think that, again, we're recording this on Thursday. I think by the time this is out, we'll probably have seen that footage. It seems on some of these policing issues, they they released these press releases and new information at about 04:50 on Friday. So I would not be surprised if we have that by now, and maybe, I mean, that's gonna revive that conversation.
Lucas Day:I certainly expect that footage to come out. Even if it doesn't come out on, between now and when this is published, it's gonna come out at some point unless they totally reverse course. And so so that discussion, even though it's toned down a little bit, it's it's coming back in the near future, which shows how long these conversations continue. And the point I was trying to make about some sort of organized opposition from your progressive voter base that you may or that you probably need for this to pass is that it is much easier for, you know, a few residents to communicate, de invest in East Lansing. Progressive vote on the income tax is no, which is not my opinion.
Lucas Day:Again, I I'm just saying this would be my fear if I was a city leader is that you get this organized op opposition. Whereas the city has this enormous hurdle of explaining to people why it's good for them to pay in to the city, and they have to explain complicated systems like long term back or long term liabilities for the city and, you know, why the income tax, hasn't paid down all the pension debt, which has stuff to do with markets and things that I've been reporting on for years, I still don't fully understand. Like, the just the communications hurdles for somebody that wanted to oppose the income tax are so much so they're they're just so much easier to overcome than the city has in front of them where they have to explain all these complicated systems. Like, if you give somebody an excuse not to spend money, they're probably gonna take it. And if there's yard signs against us, I'd be very worried about from that from the city.
Lucas Day:If there's Facebook posts or groups about opposing census income tax, I'd be very worried about that from the city's perspective. And I think we just saw this play out in my city, Lansing, with the Lansing shuffle vote. The Lansing was trying to sell the Lansing shuffle property to the developer that they'd worked with. I know the the mayor came out in support of this. Many of the I I call them progressive aligned nonprofits in the city opposed this, and, you know, they put out their voter guides and say how they're voting.
Lucas Day:Lansing Shuffle vote failed. I don't think that the Lansing the average Lansing voter at the August election really knew much about land sales or even that much about this proposal, but they saw people that they trusted say don't vote for it, so they didn't vote for it. And I I think that could play a role in the income tax renewal.
Anna Liz Nichols:Yeah. It's the city finds itself in a tough position to figure out how to deliver on, you know, construction and programs that that citizens need and want. One of the the issues you've been covering recently is how the city plans on addressing recent years increasing, flooding in people's basement, the storm water. It's getting worse with with, harshening weather conditions. It seems like this the consensus is more people than really before have been experiencing adverse consequences of the the repeated flooding.
Anna Liz Nichols:As the city considers new and innovative options to figure out how they're going to pay for new infrastructure or or projects, it has to balance this history of, you know, back in 2017, the city council in East Lansing decided to place a 5% franchise fee, on Lansing Board of Water and Light customers, a franchise fee that the courts eventually found to be illegal, the Michigan Supreme Court, and and funds had to be repaid to to those customers that had been paying into that franchise fee. That's that does not inspire trust in the community, when the city considers new options of how to to pay for for things.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And, I mean, I I I just think it's important to reiterate again that I am not, like, opposing the some of the things that are on the table. Like, I'm not stating opposition to the storm water utility that I'm about to talk about, and I don't think the city should be making important decisions that impact their resident's life, mere merely a political basis. Like, the flooding sucks. My house flooded when I lived in East Lansing.
Lucas Day:My rental house, I lost almost everything that I had right before grad school started. I I went one one of the girls I went to grad school with, I was in a small program. She her car was totaled the first week of school. I've talked to people who recently bought homes in East Lansing. They had no history of flooding.
Lucas Day:They plan to do cool things in their basement, like put stuff down there for their kids, And they can't do that now because it's gonna flood, you know, every couple of years, and it's gonna ruin all the stuff down there. Like, the flooding is a very big deal to a lot of people in the city. Having said that, the the fixes are expensive, and not everybody else's floods. So it's gonna be controversial because everyone's gonna be paying for the solution. And, you know, the repercussions of flooding go beyond just basement flooding too.
Lucas Day:There's some public safety concerns about when it floods onto the roads, can the ambulances get through? So there are some broader concerns too. But the fix is 300 and some million dollars in today's dollars. These projects will probably be done over decades. Like, inflation's only going to push that up.
Lucas Day:That is six times the city's general fund budget. It's double the entire city budget. Like, we cannot pay for those those projects with money that we have in our pockets now. We need a new source of revenue, or the Lansing City government needs a new source of revenue to pay for those. And the solution that's been talked about, the solution of the city leaders and lawyers are currently working on, and the solution that I expect to go into effect at some point is a storm water utility, which is a new fee that residents, expect, will be paying sometime in the future to pay for these infrastructure projects, which, again, are important projects.
Lucas Day:They're going to be controversial. Like, anytime you're asking people for money, it's going to be controversial. And I I think that the city's put itself in a hard position because there's going to be confusion about this new utility because they're probably I I don't think there's gonna be a vote on it. I I think it's gonna be something that's implemented. Again, it's people are gonna be paying for services technically, which is infrastructure, so it doesn't need to be voted on.
Lucas Day:The city put in this franchise fee from BWL, which you mentioned. That was done without a vote. It looked really bad when it got to the court because the court called it disguise tax, which, again, just chips away at trust at local government. I think that that BWL fee is going to be related to the stormwater utility even though they're not really alike. Like, the stormwater utility is going to be paying for infrastructure.
Lucas Day:The issue with the BWL fee is the city was maintaining that it was paying for, like, infrastructure that was put in right of ways that supported BWL. Well, the money that was collected to that fee just went to the city's general fund. There is no calculation of how much the you know, it actually cost to put that stuff that infrastructure on the right of ways. So it's just getting the city money. They said, well, we need that money to pay for this, and they said, well, show us your math, and there was no math.
Lucas Day:And so so so, again, there's, like, a a political consequence of putting the storm water utility fee in place to pay for this infrastructure, you know, regardless of how necessary it may be because people are going to be asked to pay money for something. Gonna be people that don't like that. And then you just had this thing that happened the last year that ruling came out that already inspired mistrust in government. I actually think that BWL fee is the biggest reason that Parks Milledge failed in 2025. It was just a general sense sense of mistrust after that ruling came out.