ELi Takes a Break

Above: A Lenten Rose blooming in the author's garden this week.

ELi takes an annual spring break when East Lansing Public Schools and the City Council do, and that starts this Saturday, April 1. We’ll be back for you on Monday, April 10.

We had said that we’d hold our second monthly “ELi open office hours” gathering next week, but when we said that, we forgot we’d be on break. When we’re back from break, we’ll announce when and where this month’s gathering will be. The last one, at Black Cat Bistro, was a huge success, with about twenty readers coming to talk with us and each other.

While we are on break, please be sure to poke around and read what you might have missed while we’re gone.

Also, this is important: we want you to sign up for our email alerts so you never miss notice of a story. As Ann has explained, Facebook doesn’t let us easily notify you about all of our work. Signing up for one or both of our free email alerts is the best way to make sure you never miss a new article. Click here to sign up for email alerts. (You can always unsubscribe.)

As you might have figured out if you’re a regular reader, Team ELi is definitely ready for a weeklong break. The School Bond, Center City District, Park District, the City’s financial problems, many happy events at the High School—phew. No lack of work lately for this non-profit, non-partisan team dedicated to finding out and reporting what matters to the people of East Lansing.

I'd like to raise a shout-out to Chris Root, Jessy Gregg, Karessa Wheeler, and Eliot Singer for helping us provide comprehensive coverage of the big stories in the last few weeks, namely the Park District and Center City District redevelopment proposals and the School Bond election coming up. And as always, I’m tremendously grateful to our Managing Editor Ann Nichols for helping us navigate our way, over and over, to nonpartisan, noneditorial waters on these politically intense issues.

I’d also like to thank all of you who have sent kudos to us in the last few weeks for our reporting on stories like the BWL franchise fee, the big redevelopment projects, and the school bond proposal. It matters to us a lot when we get email like this one from yesterday:

"Just wanted to say how much I appreciate your articles and investigative journalism. It helps tremendously in getting to the heart of the issue, and allows me to form my own opinions. Thank you!"

Ann and I talk regularly about what a privilege it is to run an organization that provides to East Lansing what almost all cities our size lack: in-depth, honest, consistent coverage that isn’t trying to sell our readers anything other than a desire for knowing more.

ELi is incredible to me. Together, this town has created a cooperative news system that is inspiring local people to file Freedom of Information Act requests, to send in tips, to become full-fledged reporters of what’s around them.

Thanks to the community effort (and dollars) so many of you have put into ELi, we now have a system that calls us all to a higher factual standard when it comes to discussions of election issues and major governmental decisions. We’ve got people finding out about opportunities and about local folks they’d never otherwise know. We have an audience that wants in-depth information, that sends us corrections and details we didn’t know, that asks us how parts fit together.

It’s exhausting sometimes, but it’s also some of the most satisfying work I’ve done in my life. Thank you for being a part of this.