Note: ELi is instituting new weekly features! Today we introduce our new Wednesday feature, “Council Capsule,” which gives you a run-down of what happened at City Council the night before. Capsules will include major votes including tallies and reporting (as well as non-reporting) of potential conflicts-of-interest. Video recordings of Council can be viewed at the City of East Lansing website.

On Tuesday, October 7, City Council passed Ordinance 1339 which provides for private and public funding of public art in East Lansing. The vote occurred after a debate between Mayor Nathan Triplett and Mayor Pro Tem Diane Goddeeris about the state of the city’s finances. The ordinance ultimately passed by a vote of 3-1, with Goddeeris voting against and Council member Susan Woods recusing herself.

Twice this week, East Lansing has been visited by mammatus clouds and hail. Mammatus clouds and hail are not always seen together but they form in the same type of weather systems.

Mammatus clouds are puffy cloud structures that form under large storm clouds like the cumulonimbus clouds that dumped hail on East Lansing twice this week. The pictures above and below show examples of mammatus clouds in East Lansing following the hailstorm yesterday, October 6. These clouds share the same Latin root as “mammal” and “mama.” (Look at the pictures if the reason isn’t clear.)

Does BWL have the right to come onto privately-owned property and trim or remove trees without the owner’s permission in the absence of a written legal easement? The BWL Director of Communications is suggesting the answer is “yes,” but an MSU property rights legal expert says the details would be complicated.

I asked Steve Serkiain, BWL’s Director of Communications, to answer three questions, on the record:

The major reason given by the City Manager for the planned closure of the Bailey daycare is budgetary. Now a finance expert who is also a resident of Bailey has proposed to City Council an alternative budget that could, she says, keep the daycare running.

Photo credit: Jenny Stevenson Phtography

EastLansingInfo.org (ELi) has been up and running for about a month and the response has been tremendous! People all over town are sharing our articles and are talking about how refreshing it is to have an independent, nonpartisan news source focused on our otherwise-overlooked small city. The excitement is palpable, and the level of participation is terrific!

Advocates of a “yes” vote on the November ballot question—a question about whether the City Council should be authorized to sell three parking lots—say that this is necessary for development to proceed in the Park District (Valley Court) area. But it is possible the City Council could decide to long-term lease City-owned land, essentially bypassing direct-voter input on the question. A long-term land-lease was employed with the University Place (downtown Marriott) property almost 30 years ago.