Citizens Protest "Subversion of Democracy"

Photography credit: Thomas Baumann 

Chanting “East Lansing’s not for sale!” and “Hey, hey, hey, Bailey’s gotta stay!,” about thirty East Lansing residents (plus several young children) participated in a “Save Our City” protest tonight outside City Hall.

The protest took place in the hour before City Council’s weekly meeting. City Council members apparently entered the building through the back, avoiding the protesters.

Organized by the PAC Neighborhoods 1^st, the picket drew people upset about the closure of the Bailey Community Center and about the City Manager’s proposal to change the City Charter on land sales. A common theme among those I interviewed at the protest was that City Council has been subverting the “will of the people” and the democratic process.

When asked why she was participating, Carol Edmunds told me, “I’m just really upset with all the different things this City Council has tried to do.” She named particularly the closing of Bailey. On this topic, her partner Dan Edmunds added, “They don’t seem to take into any consideration what the neighborhood associations recommend.”

Carol Edmunds also said she was also there to object to the attempt to change the City Charter after the City Manager didn’t get the public authorization he wanted to sell three city parking lots to a developer. She told me, “It seems to me that changing the rules when you don’t get what you want is taking a page from the Koch brothers’ playbook.”

Judith Bridger also expressed significant frustration with the Council’s recent actions: “There seems to be a blatant disregard by the City Council for what the citizens and community of East Lansing really want.”

Brian Smith told me he has “to question the motivations of our leaders when they don’t listen to the people. I don’t like situations where I feel like the people are being bullied.”

Kelly Tesseris hit the same chord: “My concern is that the City Council is trying to circumvent the decisions that are being made by the voting public. So we vote something down and now they want to change that. This is not an example of democracy. And I am absolutely against anything like that.”

Gordon Taylor told me he was at the protest “primarily because I am concerned about efforts to change the City Charter so that only three people can decide to sell public land. This subverts democracy. That’s the main reason I’m out.”

Taylor also asked why, if the Bailey building has been unsafe as the City administration has claimed as a reason for closing the daycare, the City didn’t fix this long before. He said it “still could be done if we did what was right by our children.”

Nicole Zaremba was at the protest primarily to object to the closing of Bailey’s daycare and community center. “I don’t want [Bailey] to turn into what the Park District Area is like,” she told me. “I know what the city has done with buildings in the past.” She suggested that the money that will have to be used to maintain a closed building be invested in an open community center building.

Mark Sullivan told me he was there because he was trying to encourage more citizen engagement. He said he was “trying to make the citizens of East Lansing understand that there are important things happening and they need to make known what they want to have happen with their elected officials.” He said, “I just would like to see more people get involved, to weigh in, and make their voices heard. Tell city officials what they want to have happen.”

During the protest, many drivers passing along Abbot road honked horns in support and gave the protesters thumbs-up.