Who Is Behind ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ Vote Campaigns?

As reported for ELi yesterday, dueling “yes” versus “no” campaigns have emerged over the November ballot question asking East Lansing citizens whether the City should be allowed to sell three parking lots in the Park District planning area. Today we report on what we have learned regarding who is behind the “yes” and “no” campaigns.

The “No” campaign:

“Neighborhoods 1^st” is conducting a door-to-door “no” campaign and also plans a mass mailing. Neighborhoods 1^st is a Political Action Committee (PAC) according to Don Power, the person to whose address the group is registered. Power says there are eleven people working door-to-door for Neighborhoods 1^st on the parking lot ballot question. The group advocates for a “no” vote because they say a “yes” vote would be fiscally irresponsible and is premature and thus dangerous. (Neighborhoods 1^st’s handout on the ballot question is reproduced in PDF form here.)

According to Power, he and fellow East Lansing resident Jim Anderson are principals in the PAC. (Power was elected to East Lansing City Council in 2011 but served only ten months before resigning.) Power told me that there are eight members of the PAC’s board but he refused to name the other six members.

Power says the PAC is also becoming actively involved in East Lansing school board elections, favoring four particular candidates. Eventually Power plans to have his PAC issue periodicals possibly to be called “Council Watch” and “Township Watch,” to push for fiscally responsible local government. Power told me, “we want a place for people to be heard, and to make certain if they don’t want to listen to us, we will make certain they do listen to us.”

Power says his PAC will not accept corporate or organizational money and that the board members have no financial conflicts of interest in the ballot question except that one board member owns a condo in the Valley Court (Park District) area. He again declined to publicly name that board member or the rest of the board.

The “Yes” campaign:

“East Lansing Park District Committee” has sent out a mailer to residents of East Lansing (as reproduced in PDF form here). According to a communication I received today from Colin Cronin, Vice President and co-owner of DTN, “DTN has created the East Lansing Park District Committee with me as the committee’s treasurer.” DTN is the development company looking to purchase the parking lots for redevelopment, and East Lansing Park District Committee is a ballot question committee, i.e., a state-registered political organization that seeks to influence voters.

Cronin added, “DTN is the sole backer of the committee at this point, but if local members of the community are interested then they are more than welcome to donate to the campaign and help us out!” I asked Cronin why he did not just put DTN’s name on the “vote ‘yes’” mailer. He said they were advised by their public relations firm to form a committee.

I talked to Joe Manzella of that public relations firm, Truscott Rossman. Manzella indicated that “we were required to do a ballot committee because we say ‘Vote Yes.’” When pressed on the question of why the mailer did not make clear that “East Lansing Park District Committee” and DTN are both led by Cronin, Manzella pointed me to a new webpage that was put up today, following our report yesterday. That new page openly names Cronin as being “behind the ‘YES’ campaign.”

Manzella also told me, “for the rest of our mailers we will try to make sure that people know Coliin and DTN are behind it. We definitely didn’t mean to create confusion on this already confusing issue, thanks for bringing it to our attention!”

Some question remains as to whether a “no” vote on the ballot will lead to DTN pulling out of the project area. The newly mounted webpage tells voters that if the ballot question fails to pass, “DTN will not be able to move forward with the planning process for its proposed redevelopment.”

But my conversation with Cronin today suggested there is some doubt on this issue: “If the vote does not pass in November, I really can’t say if we would or wouldn’t withdraw our proposal at this point, but we would certainly stop spending money pursuing it, so it would most likely put the whole project on hold for at least another 12+ months, and one huge risk for this project is timing as it relates to construction costs, interest rates, etc.  So, our decision to walk away or not is a question, but everything would definitely be put on hold.”

Cronin shared the latest renderings of DTN’s plans for the area. Click here to view the PDF.

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