Rewind week of June 17, 2026

It’s too cold to swim anyway. And even when it gets warmer, just tell yourself that until next year, when Lansing’s iconic Moore’s Park Pool could finally reopen. The century-old oblong pool, a template for the many community pools that exploded around the nation around that time, is one of the few surviving examples of a Wesley Bintz pool, built by the one-time Lansing city engineer. The attraction has been closed since 2019 and was expected to open this year. But construction complications have pushed back the timetable. The swim season is about 10 weeks long and since it wasn’t ready, Lansing Parks & Recreation Director Brett Kaschinske said the city decided to not try to push the opening for 2026. The renovations are being funded by a $6 million state grant given in 2024.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is on a week-long trade trip to Paris and Europe as she aims to pitch Michigan’s aerospace and defense industries, according to WEMU. The governor is in Europe at a time when the continent faces a pullback in U.S. commitment to the NATO alliance and amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Whitmer said she plans to use her trip to the Eurosatory conference to help expand Michigan’s aerospace and defense sectors.

A proposed data center in Vevay Township may be changing as developers likely look to annex the Vevay land into Mason, according to a memo from Mason City Manager Deborah Stuart and included in this week’s city council packet. Developers are seeking to turn nearly 400 acres of farmland into a data center that advocates say could more than double the city’s current tax revenue. The data center has been pitched as a $1 billion development, but the owners remain anonymous and secretive. Vevay Township officials recently unanimously rejected a Mason proposal to enter into a land-and-tax sharing deal under a 425 designation. Stuart’s memo indicates that developers plan to move the land into Mason borders without the city’s direct involvement, which would likely mean developers plan to get either 75% of the landowners or 20% of the city to agree to the annexation rather than a city-driven effort. Mason’s mayor and a council member face recall signature campaigns.

The National Weather Service has confirmed that a storm in the Grand Ledge area of Eaton County on June 9 qualified as an EF-0 tornado. The weather service, based in Grand Rapids, estimated peak winds of around 75 mph with a touchdown around 10:30 a.m. southwest of St. Joseph Highway and Oneida Road, with mainly tree damage, along with a storage outbuilding that was destroyed near Oneida Township Hall. Further property damage, minor and largely due to fallen trees, was noted along the path. The tornado lifted around 10:37 a.m. in a field east of St. Johns Chase Road and south of West Eaton Highway. It was at least the 30th confirmed tornado in Michigan this year, compared to a 30-year average of about 13 tornadoes a year.

Max Hondorp, a Life Scout from BSA Troop 293 at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, finished his Eagle Scout project at the Knights of Columbus Flag Retirement Ceremony on Sunday. The Lansing Catholic Central high school junior designed and placed two flag collection boxes in East Lansing to collect worn and damaged flags for respectful retirement in a Flag Day ceremony. Hondorp collected more than 100 flags.

If you didn’t get to know MSU Athletic Director J Batt in the past year, it’s already too late. He has taken the same job with the University of Kentucky following the recently announced departure of MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz. The one-two blow for MSU wasn’t unexpected; Batt and Guskiewicz were considered close and Guskiewicz cited frustrations with the board in his departure for the presidency of Clemson University in South Carolina. Batt’s contract at MSU was for about $1.8 million a year with annual increases and other perks. Guskiewicz’s departure triggered a clause that cut the buyout that the University of Kentucky will have to pay to MSU for Batt’s contract in half, from $5 million to $2.5 million, according to The State News.

MSU is arguably without its two highest-ranking officials, president and athletic director, in any real capacity as they both prepare for their next jobs. Laura Lee McIntyre, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, is the second-in-command to Guskiewicz and has been at MSU for less than a year. Tom Izzo, while not one of the 18 people listed as the university’s executive leadership, is another candidate for highest-ranking MSU official. The basketball coach has been through countless MSU presidents and interim presidents in three decades at MSU. Izzo told the Detroit Free Press that Guskiewicz may have been the best. “This is just self-inflicted. We just lost the best president that might have ever been here, maybe,” the coach said. “Sick of it.”

MSU board members Rema Vassar and Mike Balow were censured last week by a majority of the board for failing to sign a revised code of ethics. The ethics change was made at a hastily scheduled May 17 meeting that included a Hail Mary vote to double Guskiewicz’s million-dollar salary. Ten days later, Guskiewicz agreed to take a smaller salary at Clemson. Vassar and Balow, along with board member Dennis Denno (who belatedly signed the code), criticized the change and the new requirements. The censure means Vassar and Balow will lose perks including athletic tickets and access to some travel and other non-essential benefits, according to The State News.

Responding to what they say is a crisis of animal care in their community, a new group has formed in Eaton County with hopes of raising $2.5 million for a new animal shelter. Friends of Eaton County Animals is led by Nicole Christiansen, a county commissioner there, who told the Lansing State Journal that the group had raised about $10,000 as of early June. But she said the group understands that accomplishing their goals will be a long-term effort in the face of county budget cuts that impacted animal control operations. The Friends hope to send out grant applications by this fall. Residents have voted down tax proposals twice recently, cutting Animal Control’s budget by 55 percent and creating the growing need for services.

Parolee Maliki Pendergrass of Lansing pled guilty last Thursday to violating the state’s safe gun storage law, illegally possessing a firearm and felony firearm possession as a third-time habitual offender, after he was charged in connection with the death of a 4-year-old girl last January. He left a stolen, loaded, 9mm handgun under a couch that his girlfriend’s daughter apparently found and used to shoot herself, in an incident on the 600 block of Sadie Court in north Lansing, according to a document filed by police. Sentencing for Pendergrass is set for early July. Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane said in a release that the girl’s death was preventable and noted state law that requires unattended weapons be kept unloaded and locked with a device or stored in a locked container if a minor is likely to be present.