Rewind: News from the last 7 days

Mayor Andy Schor’s submitted budget for the City of Lansing is nearly the same amount as last year, less than 1% higher, at $307 million with $182 million of that being general fund dollars. The general fund is about 5% higher than last year. Schor’s proposed budget asks for additional fire, police and code compliance workers as well as $7.5 million for wastewater treatment plant upgrades and $1.5 million for sidewalk repairs. His proposal outlines how the city plans to spend an estimated $1 million in new revenue through BWL payments, assuming the approval of a controversial data center downtown.

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Other proposals for Lansing’s fiscal year 2026-27 include $750,000 for parking system improvements and $50,000 for Jackson Field Stadium improvements. The budget includes a plan to spend $400,000 of that potential new revenue on firefighter equipment, training and personnel and another $400,000 on housing rehabilitation and related programs with the rest split between facade improvement and neighborhood grants. The city’s budget presentations and meetings have started with departments advocating for their work. There are budget hearings set for April 20 and May 4. The city’s fiscal year starts July 1. City council is required to make any changes and approve the budget no later than May 18 this year.

The NAACP Lansing Branch announced Tuesday that President Harold A. Pope is stepping down from his position as he runs for a State Representative seat in Michigan’s 74th House District. James McCurtis, Jr. will move into an Interim President role for the organization, effective immediately. “The NAACP Lansing Branch expresses deepest gratitude to Harold A. Pope for his tireless leadership and heart he has poured into the fight for justice and equity,” the statement added. “Mr. Pope will continue his longstanding support of the organization as a Diamond Life Subscribing Member of both the local branch and the national association.”

Lansing School District juniors are part of the first class to hit a major milestone in the city’s Lansing Save college savings account program. Two of the students, Xavier McKissic and Nautikah Garcia-Sams, were highlighted in a recent profile of the program by Fox 47 News. Students in the class are the first cohort to be fully funded – $500 per student with 730 students total – and that is the second program nationwide to reach full distribution. Some students, including Garcia-Sams, have kicked in their own money, which has grown to $1,200 for some. Fox 47 reported on a recent event at Eastern High, where students contributed to their own college savings account. The program is a partnership between Lansing, the school district, Lansing Promise and MSUFCU. There have been about 16,000 accounts opened in the 13 years of the program. Visit LansingPromise.org for more information.

It has been about a year since the end of the demolition of old Eastern High School in Lansing. The site will become the home of a UM Health-Sparrow behavioral health hospital, with the regents overseeing the system having approved in February the construction of an $83 million, 64-bed facility. It will serve adult and geriatric behavioral health care patients as well as introduce child and adolescent services to the area. UM Health-Sparrow Lansing President Ann Marie Creed told WKAR in February that there are plans for a “remembrance garden” near the site. “That garden will encompass the cornerstone from the old Eastern High School as well as arches from the old Eastern High School that we have saved,” she told WKAR. UM Health-Sparrow spokesperson John Foren told City Pulse on Tuesday that groundbreaking is expected this summer.

A 36-year-old Lansing man was killed, and five other people were taken to Lansing area hospitals with serious injuries after an SUV crossed into oncoming traffic on Saturday on W. Saginaw Street near Rosemary in Lansing. The SUV was traveling eastbound and crossed into the westbound lanes, striking a westbound vehicle and causing a crash with another westbound vehicle. Police said they believed speed and alcohol “to have been contributing factors” and have launched a criminal investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call the department at 517-485-1700. The police also received unconfirmed reports that the at-fault vehicle in the collision may have been involved in another nearby crash, having fled that scene.

A 28-year-old Lansing man died Thursday after his Range Rover struck a Ford F-350, ending a high-speed police chase that began when the vehicle, reported stolen in East Lansing five days earlier, was identified by a Livingston County Sheriff’s Office deputy while traveling east on Interstate-96 near Mason Road in Marion Township. The Range Rover exited the freeway and turned south onto D-19, reaching 120 mph after the driver failed to yield to a traffic stop, according to the sheriff’s office. When the driver tried to overtake and struck the front of the F-350 at the intersection of Swarthout Road in Putnam Township, he lost control and collided with a F-450 that was stopped on the shoulder of the road. The driver died after suffering critical injuries, but both drivers of the trucks were uninjured.

Clinton County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested two 18-year-old men in St. Johns on Monday after an extended chase that began when they tried to pull over a white Buick Enclave for reckless driving on Interstate-96 near Grange Road. The vehicle, which was recorded traveling at 110 mph, became disabled after deputies used stop sticks on it. The two men, from Detroit and Roseville respectively, then fled on foot but were caught by officers. They were taken to the Clinton County Jail on multiple felony charges. A third person was released with no charges. 

The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction of a man convicted in 2024 in connection to a 2012 sexual assault cold case. Marshawn James Curtis, 32, will continue to serve a sentence of 17.5 to 80 years for a first-degree criminal sexual conduct conviction stemming from a 2012 assault — a case that sat cold for years until the state’s push to process backlogged evidence kits. The conviction of Curtis is a direct result of the Ingham/Jackson Regional Sexual Assault Team. Established in 2016, the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative project, or SAKI, was designed to tackle a backlog of untested sexual assault kits across the state, providing a trauma-informed framework for re-investigation. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel praised the appellate decision, emphasizing the specialized work required to bring decades-old cases to trial.

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In his appeal, Curtis launched a multi-pronged attack on the trial’s conduct, arguing that his conviction was built on procedural errors. His defense team challenged several key elements, including that some evidence and testimony should have been excluded, that a witness for the prosecution was allowed to testify via videoconference and that Curtis’s sentence was at the top of the recommended guidelines — which he argued was disproportionate to the crime. The Court of Appeals, however, rejected each of the claims, finding that the trial court acted within its discretion and that the evidence remained robust enough to support the jury’s original verdict. Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane said the ruling is a validation of the rigorous standards maintained by local and state investigators.