"Save Our City" Protest Planned for Tuesday

A citizen-run protest on the theme of ‘Save Our City” will occur this Tuesday from 6-7 pm at City Hall, just in advance of Council’s next scheduled meeting.

The protest is being organized by the PAC Neighborhoods 1^st and advertised by the group East Lansing Citizens Concerned. Neighborhoods 1^st says the protest is directed at three issues:

1. objection to City officials’ plan to advance a ballot proposal to change the City Charter so that public land sales of valuable properties will be decided by a simple majority of Council rather than a supermajority of the voting public;
2. what the group says is a failure to conduct complete and “appropriate” planning process and “due diligence” on the PDIG proposals before spending or committing more public resources to the company’s large redevelopment plans;
3. the vote by three members of Council this week to close the Bailey child care program and the Bailey Community Center.

Mark Sullivan, co-chair of East Lansing Citizens Concerned and a member of Neighborhoods 1st, plans to attend the protest. I asked him today about what his objection is to the proposed charter amendment. Sullivan told me, “I think the three-fifths majority on sale of city property above the mandated value is wise. It seems to insure that valuable city assets should only be sold if there is a slightly stronger consensus than a simple majority.”

Sullivan also has a problem with the way this proposed change came about—in direct response to the City Manager’s disappointment over the failure to get authorization from the required 60% of voters to sell three parking lots to the developer DTN for redevelopment in the Park District area. Says, Sullivan, “I don't think changing the charter is a responsible way to handle having lost the vote.” He adds, “more responsible would be to build a stronger consensus in the community.”

I also talked this afternoon with Don Power, head of Neighborhoods 1^st. Power explained that Neighborhoods 1^st objects to the proposed charter amendment partly because they fear voters will not understand the right they will be giving up if they vote “yes” to hand over valuable-land sale authority to a simple majority of Council.

In our conversation, Power hastened to explain with regard to the blighted area, "We do want it developed, but we want to make sure the trust is there and the finances are there.” He added, “We have no problem with DTN as a company or with their track record.”

So why did Neighborhoods 1^st campaign against the parking lots sale in November, a sale that would have led to a development by DTN? Power says, “What we had a problem with was the process and also having Scott Chappelle lurking. And that had to be resolved before we went forward.”

Chappelle is the principal of Strathmore Development, the company that failed to bring to fruition the City Center II project at the same location where PDIG is now proposing to build. He is also believed to be the manager for the majority owner of PDIG and his associated companies are embroiled in numerous foreclosure actions, lawsuits, contractor liens, etc. (Read more here and here.)

Power told me about the failure of the parking lots sale to pass, “We are convinced that a lot of the votes we got for the ‘no’ had to do with the residual effects of City Center II and Scott Chappelle.”

Sullivan also objects to the way the PDIG proposals are being managed—or mismanaged—by the City. He told me: “I think it is not prudent to postpone the consultation with [external “due diligence”] consultants until after approval” of the project’s site plan. “Backing out is much more complicated than finding out up front who the city is dealing with, whether they have financial credibility, what the relevant track record is with comparable projects, and so forth.”

I asked Power if he expects people from the Bailey neighborhood to join this protest.

“We contacted the Bailey community,” he told me. “I think they’re very down because of the treatment and lack of respect that Council majority showed towards them [this week] — not listening to proposals that we think had the basis of a discussion for the future. They’re very down.” He said they may not have the energy to turn out again at City Hall, after last week when more than 20 of them appeared at Council to ask Council to keep the center open, to no avail. (No citizen spoke at Council to support closing the center.)

Power added that, “Our hope is to get them back up again and to encourage Council to pursue those and see where they go. We want a chance for them to truly be heard."

Council is expected to take up the Bailey issue again at their meeting this Tuesday at 7 pm. In addition to the vote to close the Center, last week’s Council meeting also included a separate vote to use a process called “strategic doing” to plan the future of the Bailey Community Center.

For background on these issues, see our report on the expected City Charter amendment and our background informational article on the City Charter and land sales; our report on the most recent happening with PDIG: and our report on Council’s vote to close the child care program and community center.

UPDATE: January 25, 11:30 pm, the line saying Chappelle "is the manager for the majority owner of PDIG" was changed to "is also believed to be the manager for the majority owner of PDIG." We base this belief on documentation filed with the State of Michigan last year (2014).

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