Schor, Swope back proposed charter; Council candidates differ

Two years and $275,000 after narrowly approving the first review of Lansing’s City Charter since it was adopted in 1978, Lansing voters will choose Nov. 4 whether to accept the results.

Voters narrowly approved a November 2023 ballot proposal calling for a general review. They elected nine review panel members out of 36 candidates in a May 2024 special election. The city allocated $500,000 for the process.

About $225,000 remains, City Clerk Chris Swope said. Voters must accept or reject the entire proposed charter in November. If it fails, the review commission can technically take another two go’s at it, although the time the state allows for the process would probably limit it to one more attempt.

The charter can be amended — and has been by voters seven times in its 47 years — without a wholesale review.

Swope was an initial skeptic of a general review, but he has come around. He said it allowed considering “more options.” One that was key with voters to getting the overhaul on the ballot was to consider shifting from a strong mayor system to a council-manager form of government, in which the City Council elects a manager to serve a mayoral role. In the end, after considerable debate, the commission unanimously chose the status quo.

Another was going to an all-ward Council instead of four wards and four at-large seats. Instead, the commission opted for just adding one more ward.

The lack of sweeping changes made the proposed charter controversial among candidates.

Swope and Mayor Andy Schor, who opposed a charter review two years ago, said they support the proposed charter.

“The charter commission did a lot of really good work,” Schor said. “They made some really good updates.”

Schor said he supports adding a fifth ward to void ties and that he was not worried about electing the Council all at once, as the new charter would do, because the system works elsewhere. He also commended the Commission’s precision in updating outdated language.

Swope, who is also the Charter Commission’s clerk per Michigan law, commended the reform that would allow people with some felony convictions in the last 20 years to run for local office, saying he has seen a good candidate barred from running. If voters do not want to elect a candidate, he said, they can make that choice.

He also likes making the mayor more accountable by requiring the administration to make a strategic plan and to post more information on taxes and debts.

Council candidates were more divided.

“It’s a step backward for the city,” said Julie Vandenboom, an at-large City Council candidate who fell just short of being elected to the Commission. She said she will vote against the charter.

Vandenboom wanted an end to at-large Council seats.

“The fewer individuals reporting to a single Council representative, the better the relationship that Council member is going to have with the constituents,” she said.

Heath Lowry, now running for Council in the 4th Ward, also plans to vote “no.” Lowry also ran well in the Commission race.

He and Vandenboom both said the mayor, being elected by the whole city, essentially occupies the at-large role, rendering at-large members moot.

Lowry’s 4th Ward opponent, incumbent at-large member Peter Spadafore, supports the changes, most notably the fifth ward and independent auditor, which he called “really important.”

“I’ve lost track of the number of times we’ve hired an internal auditor in the seven years I’ve been here,” he said.

The 2nd Ward candidates, Erik Almquist and Deyanira Nevárez Martínez, disagree. Almquist opposes the charter and wishes commissioners had moved to a council-manager system. Martínez is leaning toward a “yes” vote, though she is concerned about potential “pendulum swing elections that turn over an entire Council” if the whole Council is elected at once.

 Jeremy Garza, the 2nd Ward member who is running at-large this time, said he “probably won’t support it.” He, too, is nervous about elections that turn the entire Council over and believes at-large seats should be done away with.

“Eight or nine wards would have made more sense to me,” he said. “Adding one ward doesn’t make any significant change.”

At-large candidate Clara Martinez said she supports the changes, saying it was clear to her that the commissioners’ work was well-researched and resulted in the best balance.

At-large candidate Aurelius Christian did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

Schor’s opponent, Kelsea Hector, said she did not support the charter, preferring more wards. She said she was undecided on whether a city manager system would be preferable.

At an informational community meeting at Foster Community Center, commissioners said the proposed charter was based on community input and represented the results of both research and casual interviews with citizens. Despite community advocacy for a council-manager system, Commissioner Joan Bauer said most people she had talked to preferred a strong mayor.

“Talking to people in grocery stores, all the places that I run into people, I was surprised by the number of people in our city, probably because of our history of a strong mayor, they wanted to elect the mayor,” she said. She said around 75% of community members preferred that system.

But not every community member votes. In the last mayoral election, only 18,000 did. That means a group of disproportionately civically engaged citizens will decide the proposed changes’ fate.

Despite that, Ingham County Commissioner and political consultant Mark Grebner said he thinks the charter will pass. While “two or three thousand people” are likely to share similar opinions to the candidates, he thinks most people don’t know the first thing about it.

“Roughly one quarter of the total vote on the charter is going to be people in varying degrees of cluelessness,” he said. “They barely know it’s on the ballot, probably. And for the people who are clueless, it really comes down to how they feel about the general idea of a revised charter.”

The ballot simply reads, “Shall the charter proposed by the Lansing Charter Commission be adopted?”

Doesn’t that sound like you’re supposed to say ‘yes’?” Grebner asked.

He said voters tend to accept ballot proposals when they generally trust their municipal government, whereas they tend to reject such proposals when their government has a reputation for being corrupt or untrustworthy. In Lansing, where voters tend to pass millages, he’d be surprised to see the revised charter fail.

“Let me tell you, most voters do not have an opinion about the charter,” he said.