Development and Planning

This week’s “Ask ELi to Investigate” is a follow-up to last week when we looked at why people voted “no” on the question of authorizing City Council to sell three parking lots. Today we’re looking at why 4,858 people (about 56.6% of those who voted) voted “yes.”

What were the 3,728 people who voted “no” thinking? That’s the question we’re tackling this week in “Ask ELi to Investigate”—why enough East Lansing voters said “no” (to authorizing City Council to sell three parking lots) to cause the measure to fail. We think gathering answers to this question could help citizens, City officials, and developers understand what happened as the City goes forward from here.

With 100% of the East Lansing Clinton County votes counted, and 94% of East Lansing Ingham County precinct's (16 of 17) votes counted, the parking lot sale ballot initiative appears too close to call.  Note that this means 94% of precincts have reported votes, and NOT that 94% of the votes have been counted.

The vote count at this point is 5,163 Yes (57%) and 3,891 No (43%).  A 60% Yes vote is required for the initiative to pass.

A more detailed article will be published shortly.  ELi is awaiting word from the City Clerk with a final vote tally.

A major point of contention between proponents of “yes” and of “no” votes is whether the Park District project put forth by DTN Management will go forward if the voters vote “no” tomorrow on the authorization of City Council to sell three parking lots. (ELi has explained separately why the blight at the corner of Grand River and Abbot is not the development at issue in this vote; read more here.)

Image: Screenshot from new electronic mailer.

This is a placeholder page for the Park District financial info from the City.

This is a placeholder page for the Park District FAQ from the City.

This week's Ask Eli tackles a question we've gotten in conversation with several readers one that can be summed up this way:

Does redevelopment of the blighted area at Grand River Avenue and Abbot Road depend on the parking lot sale ballot question passing?

The answer: The answer is an unequivocal "no." That is simply a different project.

Image: Mark Meadows and Vic Loomis

Council member Susan Woods says that when Mayor Nathan Triplett asked her to sign a letter going out to voters, she “had no knowledge that the mailer was financed by” a development corporation that stands to financially gain from the vote at issue.

In what appears to be a first, a group of sitting East Lansing City Council members has let a developer pay for a political mailing in which those Council members advocate for a “yes” vote—a “yes” vote from which the developer would likely financially benefit. The mailer apparently does not reveal that the developer, DTN, is funding this political advocacy letter from the Council group, instead only indicating that the letter comes from “East Lansing Park District Committee.”