Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the East Lansing City Council discussion-only meeting of Tuesday, October 13th, 2026. It's 6 p.m. The meeting will come to order. Could we have the roll call, please? Council Member Whalen.

Here. Mayor Altman? Here. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Moved by Meadows. Second. Second by Whelan. Any discussion of the agenda? Okay, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries, the agenda is approved. That brings us to communications from the audience. I have no slips. Is there anyone in the room who would care to address the council from the public? If so, please approach the podium. Seeing none, do we have any callers?

Okay, that concludes communications from the audience. Brings us to communication from the council. Council Member Whalen.

Hi, yes, thank you. I just want to report one thing. We'll have one meeting before this event takes place, but I thought it was important to point it out because I know that a lot of us are struggling right now in our community when it comes to groceries. But the Greater Lansing Food Bank has distributions coming up throughout the city of Lansing, but they will be doing that here in East Lansing October 22nd at 4 p.m., at the University Lutheran Church, 1020 South Harrison Road. So anyone who may be in that situation, identification and proof of residency is not required. But you're encouraged

Yes, I just wanted to mention that we had an East Lansing architect and artist, Kristen Pinnock, who won $100,000 at ArtPrize in Grand Rapids. So very exciting. She offered a sketch diet, a year of drawing everywhere I ate. So just highlighting how many talented community members we have and a source of pride of winning that award. that big show out in Grand Rapids.

Thank you. For my part, I will just mention that the Lansing State Journal had a story published yesterday entitled, Lansing considers cracking down on noisy modified vehicle exhausts. I want to read the key points from the top of the story. Lansing officials are proposing amendments to the city's noise ordinance to address loud vehicles, particularly those modified to sound like gunfire. The proposed changes would allow police to issue citations based on noise being, quote, plainly audible, unquote, from a certain distance, removing the need for decibel readers. And the ordinance also address

Yeah, I want to note that we received a letter this week from one of our citizens also talking about this issue of the loud noise and asking us to take action with regard to it. But I just want to anecdotally give my own, which I think a lot of people know that we live about 60 feet off of Abbott Road. And there are times at night where our walls you know, vibrate from loud noise that probably from motorcycles generally, but also some vehicles and it could be any time of the day or night. So.

yeah yep and um thank you for noting the email that we got city council account those emails are valuable because they keep the issue on our radar and they they make sure that we stay focused on this so i want to thank the person for writing and encourage others to write in also this is something that we continue to think about it's a hard it's a hard problem to make progress on but um to the extent that people can help keep it on our radar and we keep it on our own radar that's that's important City Manager.

Thank you. So that brings us to the first of our discussion items tonight, item 3.1, discussion of bond authorizing resolution for capital improvement projects. Directors Kincaid and Drenke.

Questions for staff or for Bond Council? Yes.

I assume the prioritized projects are either prioritized They're prioritized due to either legal reasons or just state of wear and tear, safety, health concerns.

I have one other thought, but if someone else has anything or if you're ready to move on.

Okay, I'll interject a question, which is, so I drove the aquatic center and the soccer complex parking lots. Sure. They feel worse than they look. They don't look that bad, but when you drive over them the cargo Right. So When were they last repaved about 25 years ago? Okay, so that's on par. Mm-hmm For the soccer complex. There's that area to the south.

That was going to be my next question, is can we do stuff about stormwater? Because those are big parking lots.

did your question come to mind yeah okay go ahead for the what's it called the debt payment on the borrowing the seven hundred thousand dollars a year how in the impacts to our budget that roughly breaks down To what, 15% general fund, 23% parks and rec, and 62% water sewer? Does that make sense?

I reviewed it and I approved it and I... And then so my question is for budgeting moving forward, recognizing that there's already been cuts to some of those areas in the current fiscal year, sustaining that type of cut, recognizing we're borrowing for these critical projects.

I have a couple of questions. So first of all, thank you for the preliminary plan, which was helpful. And also thanks to our bond counsel for the letter, which describes the various options, which I thought was very helpful. Audrey, you mentioned the two trenches. I was eyeing the three issues, option four, because it has a considerable additional savings of $800,000, and it seemed like the only cost at some level, which I'm not sure is a cost, is that the debt payments then start right at the beginning as soon as the bonds are issued. Is that correct, with the wrapped debt?

So what seems appealing to me about actually going with the wrap that option is that then our debt service payments are known and we can't pretend that they aren't going to raise late and go up later. Right. So they're known from the start as soon as our, the issues go out as opposed to saying, well, okay, we got clock cashflow relief now, but then down the line, our payments are going to go up. It seems like for budgeting, it's easier to, to know upfront what those payments are going to be, but somebody can correct me if I'm wrong about that.

So my suggestion was going to be to go with scenario four, which is the three issues and take advantage of the bank qualified on all of them and maybe give us even more flexibility. But if somebody wants to tell us that's not the best option, that's fine too.

Well, I don't want to challenge the thought, you know, that was, I leaned towards that myself. But I do have a question for you because the, as I recall anyway, that when we bonded for the, The softball complex and the aquatic center, we don't spend our money immediately. So there's a revenue element with regard to this, or there was at that particular time. I'm not sure these bonds qualify in the same way and that there will be revenue associated with them, but have we calculated the revenue that we would have over the period that we would have these bonds out? Because if there is a significa

So, and thank you for that detailed response. You know, when we're talking about one swimming pool, basically, it's a whole different deal than having the multitude of projects that we're talking about here. And so your recommendation would also be item number four, is that correct? Am I taking you correctly on that?

So, Councilmember Meadows and Mayor, so for you, when you talk about your preference of four, you're leaning towards four, is the primary difference maker between three and four the interest?

For me, it was, but the comments about present value now make me wonder about that. Mr. Meadows, did you have?

Yeah, that frankly doesn't change my mind because ultimately, at least based on the chart that we've been provided, you know, we save about $800,000 over the life of the bonds by going with four as opposed to three. At least that's the way I'm looking at it here. Yeah, maybe it's $900,000 in terms of the total debt service that we're paying for. So I think personally that That's our least expensive proposal here. And it also, you know, to the extent that there is either other revenue or we decide that we aren't going forward with some of the other projects that have been listed, you know, by i

haven't it already on the books so I think that's why I I'm leaning towards that one so and I apologize so the front-loading aspect of that with where we are financially this year next year and kind of some of the challenge we got coming up from your perspective are you thinking that that's the better route for us as opposed to the phase-up

And that's kind of where I'm leaning towards in regards to those concerns.

Yeah, so that highlights the cash flow issue, right, thinking ahead to sort of structural trends that we can predict a little bit with our pension payments. And so it makes sense to take advantage of that potentially. And also, there's the the present value idea, right, which is that $1 out the door today is worth more than $1 out the door 30 years from now, which is not factored into that $800 $800,000 savings.

So are you proposing to provide that to us, this option five?

Well, I'd like to see that personally. So that sounds like a deeper dive on the cash flow issue, essentially, right? That seems to make a lot of sense if we have the time to do that. Unless our CFO suggests otherwise.

And so you would consider the difference between scenarios three and four to be at the level of giving guidance as opposed to passing a motion?

But you are waiting for, we, there is a formal motion that we need to adopt, right? Which,

So can we have option five before us, uh, by next week, by next Tuesday? Is that putting too much pressure on you?

Well, personally, I have the greatest confidence in our CFO. So it's not that, it's just I feel that council has to express its view as to what we need to do going forward. I hate leaving it sort of in limbo land and us not knowing exactly where we're headed at some point in the future. It sounds like that's the way the resolution is worded right now.

So we could have this on the agenda for next week, which would give you the go-ahead to continue the planning, right, essentially. And then we could be prepared by November 17th to give the final guidance about the structure. assuming we have some more information about how to do that. So I lean toward this idea of planning around what the budget will bear, recognizing that there are trends that we can predict that will have a substantial effect on the budget, and if we can structure the debt service to be complementary to those predicted changes, I think that makes a lot of sense to me. That'

So just to put on the record where I'm leaning at this point, of the options before us here, I'm back to preferring three for the reasons that our CFO indicated, but sort of a hybrid five that was an even tighter match to our budget projections makes sense if there's time to develop that before the 17th of November is my thinking. But if people want to weigh in, now's the time to weigh in.

I don't want to weigh in right now. Three and four were the ones that I was looking at originally anyway. I haven't necessarily changed my mind about four, but as the description of this potential number five that we could go forward I think makes a lot of sense for us. But also based on the CFO's comments a little bit earlier, I'll just note that we need to get working on the income tax, and we should have that on the ballot for our public to potentially resolve as soon as we can.

I have one last question. Steve, you had mentioned, and this went over my head a little bit, you'd given a scenario where there was a $10 million bond and a 4.5% interest rate, and that meant $450,000 that we weren't spending. Was that assuming 4.5% difference between

Okay. Good. So do we have, I think, sufficient direction for our next business meeting and then November to weigh in on details of the structure? Are we all comfortable with where we're at? Yep. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the presentation. Next item is a pretty natural segue, the Financial Health Review Committee's final report, CFO Kincaid.

I'm sorry. Is the chair going to be sitting with you?

And I'd like to welcome the chair of the Financial Health Review Committee to the table. And thank you and your team for all your work.

So the recommendation is that the city report all fire protection related expenditures. Are there other things that we're not reporting? Okay. Jill, is that something that came up in the discussion about are there things that may be slipping through the cracks?

Okay, thanks. Okay, sorry to interrupt, please.

management and accessibility to the community is going to be a key, huge tool for us to be able to then look at some things down the road when it comes to income tax and the push to that. And I think you talked about transparency within that. A lot of times when it comes to not just East Lansing, but a lot of municipal websites, I mean, there's so much information there. And I can't speak for everyone, but I know sometimes when you go there, you're almost defeated with that amount of information and where to look unless you have the background of that. But I think generally for most residents

The DDA funds that have been committed, that's year to year, right? It's not a long-term agreement.

It seems like if they're funding something, it should be a long-term commitment, I would think.

We approved their budget, correct? Yeah.

But that is an issue, right? Because if the DDA changes, right, then they, and that would wreak havoc with a position that takes a long time to recruit, and you want to keep the people there, you know, in perpetuity, right? So that is an issue.

I mean, for my part, we spend money on a lot of things. And our legal budget is a pretty small proportion of that. So I'm not sure why we're focusing on that as opposed to focusing on other things. And I want to try to steer us away from the idea that our legal costs are a problem, because I don't think we're thinking about that right when people sort of make that allegation. I think, you know, we spend the money we need to spend to get good legal advice that saves us from a lot of other problems. So at some level I'm not opposed to, you know, making our expenditures transparent and obvious, b

But in terms of transparency, you know, personally, I'd rather see a quarterly report of some kind as to expenditures. I mean, we get updates with regard to the budget, and I think as part of that, the legal cost should be part of that. I think it is the cost of doing business, you know. But I also think that an explanation of these costs would be good because I think some of the criticism that has been directed towards us ignores the fact that we had two separate contracts previously. And one was for $350,000 annually and was locked in no matter how much work was done. and people are looking

I just want to highlight a tail end of his comment that no two years are the same in terms of what the city may be facing legally. So I think how we present the information, because I'm pro-transparency, it is a part of our expenditures. But I think just having that right context, but that also means, because people will compare

backwards right so there has to be a snapshot of what the city was facing during those times as well just so you know it's an educated public so i was just going to say the same thing i think just you know with the climate that we're in now and some of the sensationalization of some of these different issues when it comes to that i think transparency and education tied in together is a beautiful thing

So we probably will want to cycle back to this, but I do have a question now while we're here, which is about the change from 60% pension funding to 60% long-term liabilities. So my question about that is, long-term liability is a pretty broad category, right? It could include, for example, bond debt, right? I'm not sure how that's going to play, because it opens the door while we can just borrow a bunch of money on bonds and then pay it off with the income tax. If the focus was really on paying off the OPEB, couldn't we just change the wording from retirement liabilities to retirement and OPE

Yep. And then the other question I had about the OPEB issue. So I understand that if we fully funded OPEB, then a switch turns on, and then we can pay current benefits out of planned proceeds, right? Do I understand that correctly? Out of the trust. Out of the trust. And that money would presumably... income earned on the investment that would then be spun off to help pay for the actual benefits. We can only do that once we have it fully funded. Up to that point, we have to just keep contributing and then pay the benefits out of a separate pool. Am I understanding that correctly?

But we can't draw until we're fully funded? I don't believe so, no. OK. So that's some sort of statutory thing that says we can't. Yeah. So suppose I almost got the sense from the discussion at the meeting and also from the report that as it stands right now, we're sort of wasting money, but I just want to check my understanding here. Because I don't think we are. So if we could in principle fund OPEB with a bond, and we talked about this way back when as one of the options first time around. So suppose we decided to do that, then we would pay off the bond with the money that we would otherwis

It would have savings to the budget. Correct.

Right. And the whole point is to get it fully funded so that we don't have to keep making those payments. Right. Right. That's sort of the whole point. Okay. Right. Just wanted to check my understanding. No, and I wasn't thinking about that. I just wanted to use that as an example of paying two different ways. You're paying the same thing.

We created our own presentations with regard to it. The city manager attended meeting after meeting within the neighborhoods.

That's our job. So I think at some point, and sooner rather than later, it would be good to have like a report on what we have received since the income tax was approved and who's paying that income tax because as we know about a third of that comes from non-residents within this community and I think that was valuable in the sales pitch that we made before. but also as to what we've been able to accomplish with regard to what I would consider to be a large, unfunded liability related to our pensions, which are constitutionally mandated. With regard to the OPEB that you have mentioned, that's

I wasn't here during that first push for that.

Yeah. And I always thought before I even got elected that that was going to be one of the most important things that we do the right way in that process to gear up for that. to get our community the appetite and preparedness of even considering it. Because I think honestly, from where I'm thinking, it's automatically a hard no right now, as opposed to what it was before. from the community from when I was campaigning so I think I absolutely agree with you a thousand percent that that process needs to happen sooner than later and we have a huge tremendous responsibility if in fact that is somet

I would just add, I think there's one step back in the planning before we formalize what the final proposal is and what we end up putting on the ballot, that we need additional community engagement to inform what the final proposal is. And I think launching off the work the financial health team did is, you know, there's a reason why you made a recommendation that that needs to continue. But we need to build off of that information before it gets finalized. So if I were building a public engagement plan and to get us off into a best foundation for success when it does go to the ballot, that's

Audrey, you were going to respond to some of these points, Steve's question about the...

And then looking at our city manager, as well as you, our CFO, but I mean, I would also look at the financial health team to say who's willing to volunteer with us as we do community engagement to, again, carry kind of the work the financial health team did as well. Yes, the website, yes, the transparency pieces that a number of us have mentioned, but I think that you need to build the bench, if you will. for that community engagement.

So the last time we did this, there was sort of a two-pronged effort. There was the city manager-led effort, and he worked tirelessly giving presentations in the community from people's living rooms to larger audiences. And so that was about nuts and bolts and the facts. And that was something that the city could do. And then there was a separate organization, which was a campaign committee. And that was something that the city couldn't do. I mean, we could do that. as residents and we did that but it was sort of a two-pronged approach and it wasn't and then there was fire right and to some ex

In terms of community engagement, people need to remember, it lost the first time it was on the ballot. It got a big no. And there were things learned with regard to that. And there was more information that was provided to the community with regard to it. Because some people even told me when we were going door to door on the second try... that they now understood exactly what this meant in terms of their own resources. And we probably didn't do as good a job the first time through in making sure that everybody knew that. And so the community engagement part at the beginning that Councilmembe

So that does seem like it's sort of squarely in the purview of the city manager's scope, but that's then another thing, you know, and we're engaged in a search. And I think that's probably an ongoing discussion that we have to assign high priority to? Council Member Singh, did you have?

Sorry, because I read it in the material somewhere, but the history of adding a surcharge to events at MSU, the state legislation removed collegiate sports. What's the history? I mean, I assume all the universities were against it. But is there another go that we can go put that on our list? as an opportunity to generate funds? And is there a mix of income tax and this to be thought of?

I have the mayor's, mayor, you often talk about people come into our community, they travel on our roads, et cetera. So I had that on my mind as we were kind of talking about revenue generation.

My memory is Detroit actually has a surcharge that they receive. So this happened. Sometimes there are laws that say only cities over 750,000 can do X, Y, and Z. But I think taking a leadership role on this as a community that gets other university communities within the state to ask their lobbyists also, we're likely to have a transition in authority in the State House this year. And maybe this is a great opportunity to get that prohibition removed through legislation. Because it's, you know, we've got a couple of family members that work at the university raising money. And the amount of mon

Wasn't the... the difference maker between being able to do something with the surcharge based off population. I heard that somewhere that cause we're under 50,000, that was the determining factor that limited us. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what's in my head when you were talking about how Detroit's able to do that and we're not fancy policy makers crafted.

So it didn't probably upset universities at the time. So they carved out university towns by population. those crafty former, Oh, sorry, Mr. Am I making that up though?

Okay. So I think, um, The conversation about the income tax needs to be sort of a continuing thing, I think, moving forward. And this isn't going to be the last time we talk about it at council. But I appreciate your words about how the horizon is shrinking.

I just had a general question just based off the comments you made with the city manager and the transition we have and how we're looking at that marketing plan or that push. I'm just trying to understand where we're at with how we're thinking about that is that just is that pending the new person coming in or is this something that we're working on now as we gear up for that and that be something that we're going to expect our new city manager to kind of come in and prioritize i'm just i'm just kind of trying to wrap that in my head to where how we're thinking about that

challenge I think whether it starts in earnest before that I think is up to us and maybe it's an ongoing conversation it depends on what our time horizon is right we have to think in terms of elections which election is are we going to do this and if you know we pick an election then we work backwards and that's maybe something we all need to be thinking about right now

I'm sorry, I had a question about number five, the talent incubator. So I didn't quite understand that recommendation. Jill, could you elaborate a little bit?

For the longest time, we had a user, an organization that was here for a lengthy period of time. During the conversations at the financial health team, I think it was looking towards can we run that type of program ourselves and utilize the auditorium as a local talent development, but also... to present shows based on that and utilize as a revenue source of some kind. So I think that was the nature of the conversations more than just trying to think of something to do with the auditorium.

Correct. some cross conversations both at the USC and then the Arts Commission as well in terms of you know there's there's a budding band like community MSU and I follow a few of them on tic tac it keeps me young The point being, there could be some interesting pilot ideas of during the winter, can we host a band? I don't know if that would be of interest, but I just want to connect some of the ideas and discussions happening at some of the commissions.

And then I had a question about suggestion for the higher non-resident fee where appropriate. It's a question that comes up a lot because it seems like an obvious thing to ask, but then there's some subtlety and some nuance, which is it actually There are some costs associated with differentiating the fees, right, which may offset that. So I was wondering if we have any sort of preliminary indications of whether this is actually a sensible thing. And this may be a question for either the CFO or Director Dranke. I don't know.

So it's more complicated than it looks, essentially. Always. Always. Well, we all know that, right? But it never hurts to make that point.

If you look at the second bullet, you know, the use of fund for specific purposes listed presented with proposed budget, this does go backwards. I don't think I've seen that. I didn't see that in 2015 to 2019, for instance, but that was the Ted Staten approach. There was always a list of options that were associated with using, you know, staff might like to do X. If council agrees this is how much it costs, but we're going to have to use fund balance to do that, then it's on us because it's on us anyway, but it's a lot more information than sometimes we've received in the past. And it's harder

Sorry, question. So they don't use our census number?

But isn't there an issue right now about that count? And maybe you should bring that up so the public's aware of that, too.

I was just wanting to reconcile how the state, if it's not based on the decennial census, then understanding that definition if it's separate than the federal count. But yes, there is a new rule proposed by the Trump administration that would really hurt college towns.

I would also say that we should ask the city attorney to weigh in on this. It requires the count of all, quote, free persons, meaning persons, not persons who are not actual citizens of the United States or anything else. It's everybody. And so the proposed rule is a violation of the Constitution. It hasn't stopped this administration any time anyway. But I think we should ask for an opinion of the city attorney on it.

I was going to jump in and say other revenue sources that you list in phase three that I actually am open to a street lighting special assessment. And I think how we create that, if it's on repairs, I mean, there's probably a way to be thoughtful in terms of recognizing people are paying property taxes, but there are additional needs that are street lighting. And the other communities of similar size that have done this is always a good comparison. I know Detroit has, but that's not necessarily helpful. Always state revenue sharing, that's an ongoing battle every year that hasn't been very fru

I have a question about that. We've been talking about in terms of what we're allowed to require in terms of a surcharge, right? That's been the conversation, but that's separate from what MSU might do voluntarily as a surcharge.

My impression is it's sometimes a little hard to know exactly what something is costing the general fund, which is sort of, I think, what you've already said here, but that's also been my impression.

So number 22 looks like another board or commission. I would say, but I mean, the only way you avoid that heavy lift is to have continuity, right? Um, because you can't, even if a group met yearly, that's not enough to get it all loaded back up unless it's people who have experience with this on an ongoing basis.

Well, over the next decade too, it's really critical. I mean, the income tax could fail and we could be out, you know, like in terms of having that community engagement. So I would say in the short term, maybe six years, maybe, you know, that there is some value in continuity. And I'm just smiling because I just like to tease those who have maybe thought we've had enough commissions.

Well, I'm supportive of both these proposals, 22 and 24. And I'll just say that I think that we do have boards and commissions that meet on a periodic basis or as an unneeded basis. And I would look at that organization or that group in a similar manner, but maybe a quarterly, to get an update on where we are with the budget and see if there's any changes that they would like to make in terms of recommendations to us. Again, we have a group that's already been trained. I think we all, meaning the group members anyway, thought that maybe it should be a little larger group than, what were we, se

I just was going to agree with you. I think that the institutional knowledge, if you will, when it comes to that, the training, if we're going to add another commission, this is probably the one that we add. It's a no-brainer. Whether it's quarterly or irregularly, I don't know. That's a different conversation, but I fully support that. I'm not sure I'd be the one as liaison in it, so it's easy for me to say, but I agree with what's been spoken on in regards to the possibility of that being fruition.

So the last experience I had with a new board or commission was when we tried the Technology and Innovation Commission in 2015, 2016. And we ended up setting that up as a task force that ran for a year just to see if it would work. And it ran into some issues, and we ended up sunsetting it. So it was good that we took that approach and didn't just pass an ordinance and sort of leap directly into it. And so I guess part of me wonders whether that's not an approach that we might take here, which is do something a little less formal, set it up to run for a year or something, and see how it works,

i don't know what people think about that if we have thoughts from staff or so is the difference between the task force more so the time commitment of it as opposed to like an ad hoc type situation it was it was more that the the task force timed out after a year by default just by time just by time

as opposed to an ordinance that established the group in perpetuity.

And so it helped me out here. So when you talk about ad hoc commission, what is that usually based off? I thought that was also based off time or is that responsibility?

Well, so for the financial health team, this was an ad hoc committee that we established with certain time parameters to get a job done in a certain amount of time. What I'm envisioning, what we did the last time with a task force, is that it functioned essentially as a commission for a year. Met monthly, had a staff liaison, had a council liaison. They had a chair. They got to define their own agenda, their own trajectory. But then after a year, to continue... they would have had to recommend to the council that we think there's a reason to continue this, and so let's formalize it as an ordin

It's basically potato-potato, right? So what we did is we sunset it after a year.

But I would standardize it longer than a year, recognizing what is in front of us through 2030 on the income tax. So again, whether it's a six-year period or a decade, stabilize, create the commission. You can put a sunset date. Future councils could change it. I don't know if you're ready to sign up.

But I just look at, again, creating those terms for those members and then really continuing to seek that talented members to be a part of it, I think gives us a really important mechanism to get community engagement on our financial health.

And I think it's a little bit different than, you know, as I saw the technology task force, it was like where are we at and where should we be, you know, at some point in the future. And I think that's basically what the report sort of talked about. You know, I think this is a different deal. This is, you know, for one thing, our finances, we can predict whatever we want, but there's no question that every budget is guesswork. You know, it can't be anything but that because we can't really predict the future and what's going to happen, and that's why when you talked about... We thought we were

But there's costs to having a startup and then dropping it and then starting it back up, which is part of the point.

That's a lot of work to start a new commission. And I don't see how this particular group as sketched out here functions without a lot of staff input because they have to think through all the details.

But that can be handled with a recommendation from the CFO as to how she sees this actually functioning and how it should function. So I think that's worthwhile.

What's all the hours you logged getting presenting on all the facts?

So just, so I'm understanding what I'm hearing from you is the possibility of having Task Force Commission or what have you, are you saying that that would be helpful and coincide to what you're doing or you're saying that that would be an extra responsibility to manage in order to have it work in the capacity that we're talking about?

A person can't serve on more than one under our ordinance, but in terms of an ad hoc committee, there's nothing that prevents a person who's serving on the DDA from also participating and serving on something like that.

I appreciate highlighting that opportunity to serve. So I think this has been a useful discussion, and I suggest that we just sort of keep thinking about it as part of this whole process of trying to navigate our financial future.

I think so too. It's an opportunity for all of us to think about and it's an opportunity for the community to hear about it.

Because we're doing quarterly updates, budget updates anyway, right? So it could coincide with that. Great. We're getting quarterly updates from police. I think that's a good pacing for this stuff.

All right. Thank you for the organized presentation and the different phases. That was really helpful because it was a lot of recommendations, but there's a lot of works being done, and so this was really helpful context, and it answered all the questions that I had.

Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you for coming tonight. So then that brings us to item 3.3, discussion of 2027 Deer Management Program. Director Drenke, welcome back.

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Because, yeah, the permit's 80, but then, as you see there, you show there, 59. Is it that number? Is it more related to the capacity of the people that are doing it? Or is there another variable in there that? Because if the number's 80 and then we're trying to do this in a way that affects those numbers, why isn't it 65? Why isn't it 70, 75? So I was just curious about that.

If I'm just looking at that without that explanation, I'm just like looking, we're just doing reactionary stuff. We're not really managing. We're just reacting to try to. get through the next, you know, so the long term and just kind of really imagine it in a way that they really drive the numbers down when it comes to the overall population. So thank you.

I just had a quick question about when this comes back to us and we're looking at this overall, is there a way that we could see like a hotspot map of kind of where this is, or is that already included when it comes to... Can you say a little bit more about that? I'm just curious about where the problem is. You know, you talk about the hotspots or where they decide to... to do the calls. I'm just curious about where those areas are in our community.

I think I was misunderstanding kind of what the strategy is when they go in and do that because I don't know what the heck they're talking about when it comes to that, but I thought that the agency that does this goes into the spot where there's a lot going on. But you're saying, if I understand you correctly, they go into the areas they are allowed or have access to more so than particularly hitting a certain spot?

Northern Tier Trail, you know, they usually shut down or have in the past to use that. That's near my house, so I notice when the trail gets shut down, as well as we hear a lot of complaints out of, was that Walnut Heights? So Patriarch, the backside of Patriarch Park as well. just to put a little picture on that and I just want to highlight on this long-term strategy for the region I know the last time we talked about deer management and we or maybe it was two times ago we spent a lot of time from MSU or someone was here on behalf of MSU talking about deer management strategies and like the p

I asked this exactly three years ago. Why isn't Ingham County doing this? Why is it up to us? Because the whole vacuum model, so if we go into a park, kill a bunch of deer, that only works if it draws deer away from the neighborhoods where they're eating people's hostas, right? Certainly. But by exactly the same logic, then the next year we're killing Lansing's deer because they're backfilling the vacuum that we've created. This has to be done regionally for it to make any sense because otherwise we're killing Lansing's deer, Meridian's deer or something like that. Is conversations with the co

And if they can provide logistics at some level, that would be helpful. But they are the county. Certainly.

Well, I'm a big supporter of this. I will say that anecdotally, you know, my neighbors and others within the community have indicated that they're seeing more deer. And the fact that you're here tonight as opposed to what happened last year where the city manager forgot to bring this to us until January or whatever and we weren't able to run a program is probably the reason that they're seeing more deer. But Meridian Township has a program, correct? Yes. And what about Lansing? Do they have a program? Yes. All right, so that part of the region makes sense. But I'll just note that we're also in

think before we Thank you. Before we take the step of hiring somebody as a as a sort of regional coalition, it'd be interesting to know from the county's perspective why they think it's appropriate for them not to be involved in this. Because it really seems like it should be on them. Right. So any further questions for the director. Anything to add from the city manager on this issue? Okay.

So I guess we will see this again at some point on, uh, we'll plan to have it on the agenda next week for you. Okay, great. All right. That brings us to item four German. Is there a motion? Moved by Singh, second by Whelan. All those in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned at 8.26 p.m. Thank you, everybody. This was great.