Remarks by Erik Altmann
304 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 9 of 13
“I would suggest that if council members have questions, uh, that they would like to ask staff to address between now and then, um, please communicate with staff ideally with via the city manager discussion of the motion to postpone. I'll have conversations with the city manager. Any further discussion? Nope. OK, the motion is to postpone further consideration until October 6 meeting. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? This item is postponed till October 6. That brings us to item 5.1, consideration of a contract with Absolute Solar for construction of a solar array at the DPW State…”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“I just want to make one point, which is that the break-even point is 10 years, which is really quick. And then even if the feds renege, it's 16 years.”
“I'll just add for my part in terms of screening, there are other municipalities that put their solar panels front and center in front of their city hall. Like if you go to Meridian, they're very proud to display them. I'm proud to display this. So any further discussion of the motion? No. OK. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? OK. That authorization passes. Congratulations and thank you. That brings us to item 5.2, consideration of proposed ordinance 1575, amendments to chapter 50 of the city code, the zoning ordinance, and to chapter 4 of the city code to modify requirements…”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“That's great. So we leveraged their investment and their ordinance to apply to ours. Okay, super. I have some questions about the new adjusted parking ratios in 50-812. So there are a lot of little tweaks there. And did you have sort of an overall rule guiding the adjustments that you made?”
“OK. One of the more stark changes was to the requirement for Class A multiple family units. So it's now the proposed is half a space for an efficiency or one bedroom. And then two spaces per each unit with two or more bedrooms. So that's a maximum of two per unit. It used to be that that could go a lot higher, right? Three and a half spaces for four bedrooms and then one space per bedroom above four bedrooms. So that's a pretty substantial change, it seems to me. And I was just wondering if you could address why that seems appropriate.”
“Got it, okay. You're going up in parking requirements for funeral homes?”
“And then for commercial, for commercial recreation uses toward the end of that table, um, the old, the current version of the ordinance, uh, requires parking for spectators and now we don't require parking for spectators anymore.”
“It seemed pretty parallel. So tennis, racquetball, or handball courts, four spaces per court. Still four spaces per court. So I'm just wondering if we're anticipating. I'm not sure there's room to build a stadium with a lot of audience and so forth in East Lansing. But if that was intentional to drop that thing about space for spectators, that's fine. It just looked like that whole section fell off. And so that was the basis for my question. Okay. I have some questions about the waiver process. So this would create an opportunity for the zoning official to grant waivers of less than 25% and…”
“Okay. Probably cause there's no minimums for the downtown, right? There's a whole separate process for guaranteeing parking. Okay. Um, And then I had two minor suggestions in the proposed 50-812 sub 3 sub C. It makes reference to priority on-site bicycle parking. And when the time comes, I might want to propose an amendment to suggest priority on-site covered bicycle parking. If they're using it as a basis for a parking waiver, it needs to be covered because otherwise it's not really functional. And then I was also going to ask for feedback from staff about the suggestion in 50-821 where you…”
“theoretically planning commission granted them that waiver the site plan as a whole would still come to council it would just be then reliant on a reduced number of parking spaces if that makes sense it does make sense but I think the question I think my question still stands about whether one of the arguments that we got in the opinion from the city attorney is that the Planning Commission is advisory and based on that there's a question about whether they have authority to make decisions on their own And so I would appreciate a clarification on that point. And I think that's probably a…”
“You said that's correct. Does anybody else have any questions? Council Member Singh, it looks like you were. No. Okay. I didn't. i was going to make a motion unless mr grigsby did you have no i was just going to say um”
“So then I'll move to defer action on Ordinance 1575 until the November 17th, 2026 City Council meeting. Second. Motion by Altman, second by Whalen. Any discussion of the motion to defer? okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries that further consideration is deferred Thanksgiving celebration there we go that's great we're gonna take a short recess while we await the return of the mayor pro tem That means we've got to heat it up.”
“OK. Thank you all. We are now back in open session. Our next item is item 5.3, consideration of resolutions 2026-55, 2026-56, 2026-57, 2026-58, and 2026-59, establishing revised. finance department policies we are joined by mr geiger our finance administrator and mr torak our risk management administrator welcome gentlemen thank you good evening council we are here to present the update of five of our financial policies”
“Questions concerning procurement policy? Council Member Singh.”
“Any further questions on procurement issues?”
“Next item is delegated authority to approve contracts.”
“Questions concerning that item? Okay, next item.”
“So this would need to be amended? Correct. OK. Any further questions on that item? OK. Next item.”
“Questions concerning federal grant awards policy?”
“So $20,000 was 1994? Correct. So that's $45,000 today. Roughly, yeah. Inflation adjusted. And you argued that having one number was just going to be easier for people to remember across the board.”
“No, this is about whether it has to go to council or not.”
“And that was the delegated authority one, right? The second one, 2026 dash 56. And the one that needed an amendment was 2026 dash 58. The capital asset management policy?”
“On the drains. Is there any time considerations here, if we defer consideration? Or are there no?”