Absentee ballots are already in the mail in Lansing for the Aug. 8 primary election, when voters will decide the nominees who will face each other in November’s general election to determine half of the eight-member City Council.
Two at-large incumbents, Carol Wood and Patricia Spitzley, are stepping down at the end of the year. Wood will end a 24-year career on the Council. Spitzley has served two terms after first being elected in 2016.
In the other two races, First Ward incumbent Ryan Kost and Third Ward incumbent Adam Hussain are seeking reelection.
Absentee ballots started going out from Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope’s office last week for the nonpartisan election.
In the at-large race, eight names will appear on the ballot. However, Olivia Vaden has announced she will not campaign, effectively withdrawing. She made the decision after it was too late to remove her name from the ballot.
The seven other candidates have a variety of backgrounds: a bank manager, two state employees, two educational employees and a former community college student and neighborhood activist. The top four finishers in the primary election will move on to the Nov. 7 general election. The top two vote-getters will win four-year terms.
The candidates for at-large, in the order in which they filed their paperwork with the City Clerk’s Office, are: Nicklas W. Zande, 21; Jody Washington, 66; Keshawn Mitchell-Roland; Farhan Sheikh-Omar, 28; Tamera Carter, 40; Missy Lilje, 47; and Trini Lopez Pehlivanoglu, 43.
In the First Ward, Ryan Kost won a narrow victory in a special election in November. He beat incumbent Brian Daniels, who was appointed in February 2022 to replace Brandon Betz, who had resigned with a little under two years left on his term. Kost is facing a fight to earn a four-year term.
He has two opponents. One is D. Taft, 48, a perennial candidate who is suing the city for racial discrimination, among other claims. The other is newcomer Michael John VandeGuchte, 29, a team leader at Meijer who has lived in Lansing for 10 years. The top two vote-getters will advance to the November election.
In the Third Ward, which is southwest Lansing, incumbent Hussain, 41, has drawn just one opponent, 22-year-old King Robertson. Both men will automatically advance to the general election in November.
City Pulse sent questionnaires to all the candidates by email on June 23. The questionnaire had five questions. The full survey responses will be at
lansingcitypulse.com.
Zande and Mitchell-Roland did not respond to the inquiries.
As the questions were being put together, polling found public safety was a top concern for voters. After approving a $175 million bond proposal to build a public safety complex as well as a frustrating couple of years of shootings and other violence, it’s no wonder. How to address public safety at a time when the core practices of law enforcement are being challenged, evaluated and changed to fit into a more progressive frame is something that Council members will face.
In the First Ward, Taft is proposing the Lansing Police Department invest in a fleet of drones to monitor the city and “provide situational awareness to law enforcement by allowing them to promptly identify a threat and improve response times.” He believes that investment would lead to faster resolution of criminal activity and a reduction in crime overall. He didn’t identify how he would pay for the technology and software necessary, nor the staffing to operate the drones.
Deploying drones may also violate privacy rights in Michigan. The state Supreme Court is set to hear a case next session challenging the constitutionality of the use of drones for zoning and ordinance compliance in northern Michigan. Lower courts have ruled that drone use to monitor a dump was not an illegal search, but the state’s top court could decide differently.
The other two candidates in the First Ward differed from Taft’s ideas. Incumbent Kost noted public safety issues stem from a depleted police force and difficulty in recruiting and retaining officers. He noted that the most recent budget included sign-on bonuses for new hires at Lansing’s Police and Fire departments.
VandeGuchte said he wants to bring back an old-school community policing model through foot patrols.
At-Large candidate Sheikh-Omar is aligned with a contingent of voters who believe public safety is much broader than crime intervention. He wants to see more innovation to reduce the underlying causes of crimes, from poverty to substance abuse.
“It requires listening to residents and addressing policing strategies and areas of concern,” he said.
Candidates Washington, Carter, Lopez Pehlivanoglu and Lilje had similar responses, calling for strategies and funding to address the systemic issues underlying crime.
In the Third Ward race, incumbent Hussain pointed to the work conducted with neighborhood organizations and community groups to address crime in an area once symbolizing violence in Lansing. That work has informed the creation of ordinances, the deployment of the City Attorney’s Office to crack down on nuisance properties and “data-driven policing.” His opponent, Robertson, said he’d focus on community engagement and community policing activities.
Any response to public safety concerns in the city will also have to address funding initiatives. The city is facing a structural deficit that it barely skipped over this year by backfilling the budget with unspent dollars from funded but not filled positions in the city. Spitzley called it “smoke and mirrors” budgeting.
Carter, who is a banker, wants “to establish a multi-year budget forecast and continue to bolster the rainy day fund.” She also called for the elimination of redundancies in the city. Washington, who served two terms as the First Ward Council member before losing to Betz in 2019, said all the city’s assets, excluding the Lansing Board of Water & Light, should “be on the table” in looking to reduce budget issues. Lopez Pehlivanoglu said she would ask that departments identify what can be cut, aside from employees, to reduce the budgets of the city’s 12 departments. In the longer term, she would advocate for more revenue sharing from the state — money that was reduced in the 2000s to stave off an economic crisis that fell into the Great Recession. Those cuts resulted in drastic reductions in city operations and staffing under former Mayor Virg Bernero’s leadership.
Lilje, who has served on the Lansing Board of Education for nearly six years, said she, too, would look at cost-cutting measures.
“We need to increase accountability among departments to ensure operations are funded as necessary while also finding ways to cut costs,” she wrote. But she also said the city can’t cut its way to prosperity. Rather, it will require increased economic development. Washington said economic development would be a key goal of hers if she’s elected.
First Ward candidate VandeGuchte said he would like to see the elimination of overtime and unnecessary hours for employees, cost-saving measures like deferring upkeep of facilities and “Miscellaneous Budget-Balancing Tactics (Splitting payments, reducing paper budget by utilizing e-services, hiring collection agencies to pursue the outstanding debt, limiting employee travel).” Taft said he would hold town halls and have polls conducted to work with the Mayor’s Office to find cost savings. Kost called himself a “penny pincher” in his private life, something he would apply to his budget work.
“I am proud of the budget we came up with, and everyone, including Council and the Mayor’s Office, took a significant cut, but we will have to cut more,” he said. “We will have to go line by line, as I did for the ‘24 budget, and see what can be slimmed.”
With a shortage of affordable, safe housing in Lansing, the candidates were also asked how they would address the red-tagged housing crisis in the city. It’s a crisis brought to the forefront by Kost earlier this year.
Most of the candidates had some variation on the idea of holding landlords accountable when it comes to the red-tagged crisis. But the candidates also noted that there are multiple facets to the crisis, including a lack of housing availability and affordability that will require encouraging developers and landlords to invest in the city.
“We are marketing the little bit of contiguous, undeveloped land left in the city and exploring incentives and other tools to help with rehabilitation, renovation, and repurposing of older, blighted properties,” wrote Hussain. “We are working with state partners to secure more financial resources to support additional housing. These are, of course, but a few of the things we are doing/must continue to do into the future.”
(City Pulse asked all 11 candidates for the Lansing City Council who are on the Aug. 8 primary election ballot to write brief bios. Information has been edited for style.)
Age: 40
Education: Bachlor of arts in social science (law & society), Michigan State University; Master of arts in organizational leadership, Cornerstone University
Employment: Bank Manager, Lake Trust Credit Union
Age: 47
Education: Bachelor of fine arts, University of Michigan; Master of fine arts, Arizona State University
Employment: Paraprofessional, Ingham Intermediate School District; Adjunct professor, Michigan State University
“As a mom, special education paraprofessional, adjunct professor and school board member, Missy has years of experience working to improve the lives of Lansing residents. After being elected twice to the Lansing Board of Education, and in her current role as treasurer, Missy has been proud to oversee the improvement of education for the city’s students and passing balanced budgets. Missy is committed to fostering a governance process that is kind and respectful. She knows how to work across the aisle to tackle important issues and continues to build relationships to better understand the needs of Lansing’s residents.”
Age: 28
Education: LCC
Employment: Lansing School District
“The son of immigrants, Farhan was born into the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya. Violence first pushed his family out of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. Farhan currently works for the Lansing School District. He enjoys the constant exposure to different learners, ages and backgrounds. Working in schools has taught him how to do more with less while being adaptable and flexible to inevitable changes.”
Age: 43
Education: Bachelor of business administration, Cleary University
Employment: Process improvement consultant, MI Dept. of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs
“Trini Lopez Pehlivanoglu was raised on Lansing’s southwest side, where she and her husband John are now raising their own family. Trini is a proud graduate of Lansing Everett High School.
In 2018, she returned to college, and she earned her bachelor of business administration degree in 2020 from Cleary University.
During her 17-year career as legal support staff in county and state government, Trini sharpened her ability to address citizens’ concerns while working within the parameters of those offices. Today, Trini works in continuous improvement, with a specialty in tackling complex issues and finding collaborative solutions with staff and stakeholders.”
Age: 66
Education: Lansing Eastern High School and some college
Employment: Departmental specialist in the legal office of the Michigan Department of Corrections
“I am a lifelong resident of Lansing and have been involved in community service for decades. In 2012, I was elected to the First Ward, where I served for eight years. I continue to serve the community by the following: Chair - Endeavor House Ministries, Secretary - Ingham Community Health Centers, Secretary - Human Resources and Community Services Board, Member - Friends of Bancroft and Southwest Action Group, mentorship and advocacy for the homeless.
I have the knowledge, experience and a real plan to elevate Lansing for everyone that chooses to live here. I will hit the ground running.
Age: 21
Education: Lansing Community College student
Employment: None
Did not respond to survey or previous inquiries
Not actively campaigning
Age:35
Education: DeWitt High School
Employment: State of Michigan and First Ward Council member
I am a member of the men’s auxiliary of the VFW 701 and the North Lansing Moose Lodge. In my free time, you can find me working on my home, cleaning up a part of town and helping my dad in the garage. I have three dogs, Madison, Manhattan and Peche.
Age: 29
Education: Bachelor of science in fisheries and wildlife with a minor in conservation enforcement, Michigan State University
Employment: Team leader at Meijer
Age: 48
Education: Columbia College Chicago
Employment: Entertainment management
Age: 41
Education: Bachelor’s in education, Michigan State University; Master’s in educational administration, Central Michigan University
Employment: Social studies instructor, Waverly Community Schools
Age: 22
Education: In school pursuing pre-med
Employment: Med tech
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