Remarks by Erik Altmann
304 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 4 of 13
“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.”
“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.”
“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…”
“as opposed to an ordinance that established the group in perpetuity.”
“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…”
“It's basically potato-potato, right? So what we did is we sunset it after a year.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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…”
“And if they can provide logistics at some level, that would be helpful. But they are the county. Certainly.”
“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.”
“Welcome to the East Lansing City Council regular business meeting of Tuesday, October 6th, 2026. The meeting will come to order at 6.30 p.m. Could we have the roll call, please?”
“Here. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Second. Motion by Meadows, second by Whalen. Any discussion of the agenda? All those in favor say aye.”
“Any opposed? Motion carries. Agenda is approved. Is there a motion concerning minutes of previous council meetings?”
“Motion by Grigsby to approve the regular council meeting minutes of September 22nd, 2026. Second. Second by Singh. Any corrections to those minutes? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Minutes are approved. Communications. All written communications received by council are posted on the online agenda packet. When you email the council account, we get those messages in real time. But then at around 4 p.m. the evening or the afternoon of a business meeting, they're uploaded to the city council agenda packet and become part of the public record. Communications from the audience, a…”