Remarks by Erik Altmann
304 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 13
“OK, so let me restate my motion based on the discussion, which is not yet been seconded. OK, so the motion is to defer further consideration of this item to our December 8 meeting with two intervening deadlines. The first is to send any requests for additional information to Director Kenney by November 9. I believe is what we agreed. And then for my colleagues to please send me their shortlist and evaluation criteria to the extent they're comfortable by December 1, at which point I will collate and arrange for them for all those materials to and forward them to the city manager who will then…”
“Okay, so motion by Altman, second by Grigsby. Any further discussion?”
“There's only one. There's only the December 8th meeting.”
“There is a December 16th discussion only meeting. Yeah, 15th. 15th, thank you.”
“Councilmember Singh, are you here on the 15th?”
“Of December? Yes. Okay. So I'm going to amend my motion. I'm going to ask unanimous consent to amend my motion from December 8th to December 15th. I think we all need to be here for this discussion, and we'll plan to have a special meeting then on December 15th. And I understand the timeline, but I will tell you straight up, I'm not concerned about the timeline we're talking about. That's just me. It's just one view. So I'm going to ask unanimous consent to amend my motion to defer this to a meeting on December, a special meeting on December 15th.”
“Well, we don't know because we haven't voted on my motion yet.”
“Well, any further discussion on that? So any objection to the amendment to move it from December 8th to December 15th, to a special meeting on December 15th? Yeah. OK. All right. So the motion is amended to change from December 8th to a special meeting on December 15th. Any further discussion of the main motion as amended?”
“Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. And this item is deferred as outlined in my motion. I apologize for that. Give hands. Not at all.”
“Grigsby. Motion by Altman, second by Grigsby. The amendment. The amendment was by unanimous consent. Was there a second? Don't need one for unanimous consent. Any further questions about the procedure before we all turn into pumpkins?”
“good question all right that brings us to item 5 which is a German is there a motion motion by Grigsby second second by Meadows all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries we are adjourned at 8 o 9 p.m.”
“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.”
“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…”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“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.”