City of Lansing Services and Infrastructure
Infrastructure, like roads, sidewalks, bridges, sewers, trash and recycling, public safety, and other expected services for city residents is one of the most important basic needs furnished by the City of Lansing. Lansing staff will provide the services people rely on, will be responsive to the wants and needs of our residents, will make fiscally sound decisions, and will be respectful of each other. We will show our Lansing pride!
Public Safety
The Lansing Police and Fire Departments are responsible for the safety and security of Lansing residents, visitors, and workers. I have made changes and upgrades in these departments over the last four years in terms of staffing, diversity, and equipment.
When people call 9-1-1, they expect a response to their critical need. I have worked with the police department to ensure that the 85,000 calls they receive yearly are prioritized to address violent crimes, while still ensuring that police are assisting residents with daily disruptions to their lives.
Police officers are expected to act correctly and receive implicit bias and de-escalation training. There are several processes for citizens to provide complaints, including internal investigations, the Citizen Police Board of Commissioners, and the Citizen Investigator (which does not report to the police department). I also worked with the fire department to ensure they have the resources to quickly and properly respond to thousands of emergency calls. Lansing does not criminalize the homeless, substance abusers, or those with mental illness. I was the first Mayor in Michigan to create a social worker in the police department, and I proposed adding another in my latest budget. I also proposed utilization of community health social workers with our emergency response to ensure that calls coming in are routed to the correct place.
Community policing is a staple of Lansing, providing proactive assistance to citizens and businesses. When officers check in with residents and businesses, they promote public safety and help prevent crimes. As such, I added two new community policing areas in Lansing – one in South Lansing and one in Old Town/Northtown. I will look at further needs for community policing.
Fast response and access to emergency services is important. While calling 9-1-1 is still the fastest method to get police, the fire department, or EMS, I created the Lansing PD app to also report problems. This new technology, in conjunction with the traditional 9-1-1 phone number, ensures thorough access to emergency services for public safety.
Equipment for police, firefighters, and EMS has been modernized, including the purchase of new police cars, new fire trucks (including a ladder and pumper truck), new ambulances, and other necessities for our emergency services. This will ensure that we can address emergencies quickly and help people as best as possible.
I aim to fix old fire stations and create a new fire station to ensure that we can provide the best response. With the finality of a previous fire station bond, I will propose a new bond for a fire station and necessary repairs.
Diversity is important to ensure that police officers, fire fighters, and EMS are reflective of and work on behalf of the community. I have been intentional in ensuring that we have qualified and diverse police and fire departments that reflect the City of Lansing. This will continue to be a priority in my next term.
Transparency in public safety is also a must. I created a police transparency webpage where citizens can see police policy information, information on the Police Board of Commissioners and Citizen Investigator, crime statistics, the police programmatic budget, community policing information, police calls, officer training and education, and the police complaints and open data portal. All of this is important for the community to have faith in our police department to protect and serve the people of Lansing. I also proposed to add a new FOIA officer to ensure that public and media requests are satisfied as soon as possible, due to the length of time needed to review body camera footage and protect any innocent parties from having a breach in privacy.
Sustainability and Climate Change
Lansing has taken sustainability and climate change seriously throughout our development the last three years. When the federal government left the Paris Accords, I joined other Mayors nationally to show Lansing’s support for those Accords. I worked with City Council to initiate a Climate Action Plan, and I also started a review of City of Lansing Buildings to promote efficiency and sustainability within the city. I created the first City of Lansing Sustainability Officer, who has already made great strides in involving Lansing in national climate action efforts. We also continue to put city resources into necessary monetary and energy savings, like converting street lights to LED lighting all over the city and at Jackson Stadium.
The Board of Water and Light is also working on sustainability plans and is committed to assisting with climate change measures. While maintaining affordability and reliability of service for customers, they will be coal-free producers of energy by 2025 and are retiring the Eckert and Erickson coal plants. They also set a goal for carbon neutrality by 2040, which is the most aggressive plan in the state. And BWL is committed to 50% clean energy by 2030, including reductions in energy waste.
Infrastructure
Fixing local roads and sidewalks is a top concern for Lansing residents, visitors, and workers. Lansing has 400 miles of roads and approximately $300 million in need for repair. At the same time, we receive approximately $12 million in road dollars from the state and federal government from the gas tax, and just under another $2 million from our local millage. Through my strong relationship with the state, I will be an ardent voice to allocate more funding towards our roads. For the first time in many years, I was able to allocate dollars from our general fund for road fixes. But these costs pose significant challenges, as road fixes are very expensive (about $1 million per mile of completely repaired roads). Thus, fixing main roads is a main priority such that all residents can get where they need to go. I have also made it a requirement that we spend our road dollars on road projects, which was not the case previously. Since becoming Mayor, we have successfully fixed Pennsylvania, Pine, Kalamazoo, Seymour, Miller, MLK, Delta River Drive, Capitol Ave, Michigan Ave, and Aurelius. We have also fixed several roads in the Moores Park Neighborhood and surrounding MLK as part of our sewer separation project. For neighborhood roads, we used the Lansing Connect system to ensure potholes are addressed 48 hours after they are reported (weather permitting). In my three years, we have filled around 10,000 potholes. I will continue to work with other Mayors throughout the state for additional infrastructure funding for local roads so we can Fix the Damn Local Roads!
Further, I am proud I have been able to dedicate dollars and utilize new technology to fix our sidewalks. My administration was able to utilize machines that slice the edges sticking up on sidewalks for better aesthetics and smoothness. We know there is work to be done, and we thank residents who we rely on to report these through the Lansing Connect app or website, or by contacting my office and alerting the Citizen Advocate.
Lansing for many years dumped sewage into the Grand River and Red Cedar River. I made it a priority to come up with a plan to stop this practice. My public service staff and I re-started a plan to utilize the Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) process to separate storm water and sewage. I worked with the federal government to show that Lansing can end sewage dumping and keep our rivers clean. I will continue to separate sewer and storm water pipes throughout the city until we no longer dump sewage into our rivers.
Fiscal Health and Legacy Costs
Lansing has some of the highest unfunded liabilities in the state, and I inherited these costs which ballooned in the past 15 years. These are pension and retiree health care costs that are subsidized by the City of Lansing general fund. In the most recent year, $42 million of the $150 million budget went towards pensions and health care for retired employees. I am proud that my administration has been able to reduce this by $3.5 million per year by making structural changes to retiree health care that did not affect benefits to those who served the city. I am also proud that we have been able to close the retiree health care system by creating health savings accounts for new employees after retirement, thus preventing long-term liabilities for the city. Along with City Council, we created the first Chief Strategy Officer who will continue to work in tandem with the Lansing Financial Health Team towards solutions on legacy costs and systems efficiencies. I encourage crowd-sourcing solutions with the state, City Council, unions, and any others. We will remain vigilant in looking for ways to reduce budget concerns while providing services necessary for Lansing residents to thrive.
Employee Health Care Committee
As the City of Lansing negotiates healthcare benefits for its employees, I plan to create an Employee Health Care Committee along with our city unions to negotiate benefits for all city employees, improve our offerings, and save taxpayers money. While we currently meet with our unions regularly, this committee would consist of representatives from each union who meet to provide input on benefit programs and other issues. Ingham County currently takes this approach with its employees and has been able to successfully negotiate uniform health benefits while keeping costs low.
Mayor/Council Relations
Elected officials must treat each other with mutual respect to do good work for the city first and foremost. I am proud to promote decorum and collaboration with the Lansing City Council, offering monthly brownbag meetings with Councilmembers as an avenue to share updates and concerns. I also regularly attend City Council meetings and listen to what my fellow elected officials as well as the public have to say. Healing the former combative relationship with the City Council allows us all to move our city forward together. While we don’t always agree, we’re always able to work together to solve problems. In addition to attending City Council meetings, I attend constituent contact meetings that Council members hold, working with Council members as problems arise. I am especially proud that I have only had to issue one veto in my time as mayor so far (which was a line-item veto in the budget for a Neighborhoods position). Cooperation with all City Council members will continue over the next four years as we grow the City of Lansing.
Board of Water and Light
The Lansing Board of Water and light is an asset to our city and region. I am proud to have a municipal utility that our citizens can count on and turn to for power and water. While the previous administration had proposed to privatize and sell the Board of Water and Light, I am opposed to selling the BWL and believe it is important to maintain as a City of Lansing, citizen-owned utility and asset. We must have a local municipal entity that prioritizes affordability for residents and is a good steward of the environment. The BWL offers 14% lower residential rates than its competitor, and works to keep rates as low as possible. BLW has also created the most aggressive renewable energy program in the state of Michigan. Selling the Board of Water and Light would be a long-term mistake for the City of Lansing.
3-1-1 One Call to City Hall
During my campaign in 2017, I talked often about the need to better assist citizens. City residents face a frustrating challenge navigating any number of departments and staff as they try to resolve their issues or voice their concerns. Upon taking office, I created a Citizen Advocate, who cuts through bureaucracy to ensure citizens receive efficient, thoughtful answers to their inquiries. In my 2021 State of the State, I announced that we are taking good customer service one step further through the creation of One Call to City Hall, a 3-1-1 line to direct city concerns to.
Transparency in Government
Transparency is an important part of government. Citizens deserve to know their government’s actions, while still ensuring privacy in criminal investigations as needed to help prosecutors do their jobs well. I regularly present information to the media and public using regular media releases, a newly created email list that provides media releases and neighborhood information, regular communication with members of the media and editorial boards, social media tools, and other forms of communication to share the happenings of city government. We’ve held many public meetings under my leadership, including for the roads and transportation plan, parks (including the Moores Park Pool and Reuter Park), Racial Justice and Equity, the flood of 2018, and many others. And I attend City Council meetings to report to the public and collaborate with Council. I’ve directed my legal staff to be as flexible as possible to grant Freedom of Information requests while still ensuring the privacy and legal requirements under the law. This open government and transparency policy will continue under my leadership for the next four years.
Police body camera requests are especially time consuming as hours of footage need to be reviewed and redacted to ensure that innocent people are blurred out or removed from any public release. In order to provide transparency and produce public requests as quickly as possible, I have proposed more staff to process Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests including a new FOIA officer in the police department.
The Lansing Police Department has been proactive in providing information to the public about policing in Lansing. Under my leadership, the department created a police transparency website which is found on the LPD website. This page provides information to the public on crime statistics, police complaints through our open date portal, and policing calls for the last year. The site also offers information on policy, the police board of commissioners and the independent police investigator, community policing, officer training and education, and the police programmatic budget. This allows the public to review the actions of our officers and police department.
Priority Budgeting
As Lansing addresses and improves its fiscal health and wellness, we will continue to review our overall model of budgeting. In my second year, we were able to break down costs programmatically to fully examine spending. We will continue this process and move to a full Priority Based Budgeting system. Under this model, we engage in a full review of the entire city organization—identifying problems, their costs, and their relevance by prioritizing each issue. While resources must be used for required costs, assigning priority to the wants and needs of the community through consistent input throughout the process helps address priority needs of the community.
Code and Premise Compliance
Inspections for proper living conditions in apartments is an important part of ensuring safety of tenants in rental properties. Additionally, ensuring compliance with city ordinances ensures that neighborhoods are kept up, property values hold, and residents have pride in their neighborhoods. In my first term, I moved Code Compliance into a new department and provided our code and premise officers with the tools needed to do their jobs successfully. I created two new premise positions and broke out premise inspections to have one inspector per ward with an additional inspector for corridors. I increased rental inspections and ensured that rental properties were being inspected with regularity. I also added a new city planner to ensure that we are able to locate residential, commercial, and industrial spaces in appropriate places, in accordance with needs and our master plan. I will continue to upgrade our compliance for the benefit of our residents and businesses, and to show visitors and residents alike that we have pride in our city.