In Surprise Meeting, Council Moves on Marijuana Regulation

Above: East Lansing's City Council in a photo taken in November 2017.

With little public notice, East Lansing’s City Council held a surprise “special meeting” this morning, moving forward on possible regulation of medical marijuana sales in the City.

The City Clerk’s office tells ELi that three members of Council were present – Mayor Mark Meadows, Mayor Pro Tem Erik Altmann, and Ruth Beier. The three voted in favor of a motion to set a public hearing for October 30 on Ordinance 1416a, a draft law aimed at deciding where medical marijuana provisioning centers (retail sale operations) can be established in East Lansing.

The way this morning’s meeting played out highlights continuing tensions among Council Members over transparency. City Council Member Aaron Stephens chose to skip the meeting this morning, telling ELi, “I was stuck between a policy I wanted to move forward and on a process I thought was not transparent.”

According to staff at the City Clerk’s office, notice of this unusual meeting – with only one item on its agenda – was published on the City’s dedicated agendas page and in paper notices posted at City Hall. But no special notice was sent out via the City’s social media accounts or its press release system, and ELi was unaware of the meeting until after it happened.

Stephens tells ELi, “I found out about the meeting on Wednesday of this week.”

Council Member Shanna Draheim tells ELi that, earlier this week, the mayor "asked about my availability and I let him know I was in a day-long meeting....I told him it was fine to go ahead without me if he could get a quorum."

By law, the City must give at least fifteen days’ notice for a public hearing on Ordinance 1416a. So if Council wants to do a hearing on October 30, it had to hasten to vote to set that public hearing, via a public vote of at least three members of Council.

But why didn’t Council simply do the work of setting this public hearing at an earlier regular meeting, as part of normal business?

As ELi reported, on September 4, Council Members Shanna Draheim and Stephens tried to set a public hearing for Ordinance 1416a for October 16 –next Tuesday’s regular meeting.

Draheim and Stephens said then that they were concerned that if East Lansing didn’t put in place regulation of provisioning centers before the statewide November 6 vote on legalizing marijuana, East Lansing might lose some significant ability to control the issue.

But with Meadows and Beier away on leave, the third member present at that meeting, Altmann, effectively vetoed Draheim’s and Stephens’ attempt to set the public hearing.

At the time, Altmann said that “we don’t know if there are three votes for this version” of the marijuana ordinance, so, “we can take another month to find out whether there are three votes for this.”

In response, Stephens strongly criticized Altmann for wanting to hold a public hearing only if he knew in advance how the vote was likely to turn out.

Draheim expressed deep frustration with not having been advised clearly that Altmann would be able to veto any attempts to move forward if the two leaves of absence were approved by Council. Draheim called the scene a “bait and switch.”

Draheim, who works at the Michigan Municipal League, also warned strongly at the September 4 meeting that East Lansing could risk losing legal control of marijuana regulation that it could otherwise have if it didn’t act before statewide actions.

The issue of the state gaining control over local decision-making – legally called “preemption” – is something Draheim deals with frequently at her job. In fact, Draheim tells ELi she missed today's meeting because she had an all-day meeting on preemption.

Draheim also said at the September 4 meeting that businesses were waiting to figure out what investments to make or not make in East Lansing, and that Council should deal with the matter once and for all, after over a year of public hearings and discussions.

But Altmann responded that he thought that Council would have more information after the November statewide vote, so he did not see the downside of waiting. At that meeting, City Attorney Tom Yeadon did not back Draheim’s concerns about preemption.

Now, it appears, Council does believe it needs to move on marijuana regulation before the November statewide vote.

This morning, Beier, Altmann, and Meadows also voted, in a separate surprise meeting, on a rezoning issue involving a major commercial property on Abbot Road. That rezoning saw a public hearing back in July.

Because Council voted on September 12 in an unannounced agenda item – over Draheim’s objections – to start its meetings later to accommodate Beier’s fall class-taking schedule, all five members are now expected to attend upcoming meetings.

Of the five Council members, only Stephens and Draheim responded to requests for comment on this morning’s meetings.

Note: Shortly after this article was published, Draheim responded to request for comment and we added her response.