Lansing Council approves reserve police officer hire and local vendor parking option, hears Highway 9/Main Street project funding update
by Joshua Sharpe
The Lansing City Council met in regular session Monday, July 6 addressing a variety of topics that included election code clean-up, transient vendor parking, preparations for Lansing Fish Days, police staffing, changes in pool staffing, city maintenance reports, and a funding update on the Highway 9/Main Street project. The council engaged in extended discussions about three significant issues, ultimately deciding to delay the advancement of Ordinance 211 for further adjustments, but approving a restricted parking arrangement for a local vendor, and hiring a reserve police officer.
ORDINANCE 211 RECONSIDERED
Ordinance 211 was on the agenda for a second reading and possible waiver of the third reading, but the council chose not to advance it as initially proposed due to concerns over whether the proposed election-code language aligned with other sections of Lansing’s city code. While reviewing the change in ordinance language, councilman Steve Murray questioned how that change fit with other city-code language that still referenced elections. He highlighted a section stating that the city shall conduct “regular, special and run-off elections as provided by law,” raising concerns that the new ordinance language might conflict with older provisions still in the code.
Further discussion clarified that the concern was not solely about the city’s desire to move away from the older election process. The issue centered on whether the ordinance would create conflicting language elsewhere in the city code. Not wanting to create confusion for future candidates, city officials, or residents trying to understand the process, the conversation shifted toward producing a cleaner version, with Severson indicating that the city would not proceed with the current version of Ordinance 211 that evening and would return with revised language.
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