I guess it pretty much goes without saying that this is a really good thing for downtown EL. A modest but nice looking building of an appropriate height/scale with ground floor retail, several hundred employees and a fairly large community space. It's hard to critique any of that
This is great and I'm so happy to see them move forward with 7 stories. It's been well overdue to have MSUFCU locate offices downtown. I would love to see Vertafore and First National Bank move offices downtown, both are currently located near Abbot and Saginaw.
Yeah I agree though there are still a few landowners that already have large assemblies. Most of the SBS block is owned by a single owner, and I think Metzger owns Peanut Barrell to Campus Town Mall. The lot behind Peanut Barrell is privately owned too and the city's lease expires soon.
Yeah, if a large majority of students decide to do a "skip year", we may see other landlords decide now is the time to tear down and rebuild bigger. Previously that would have meant they would lose 1-2 years of rental income and the math didn't work in the favor of building new. But if there is a temporary drop in housing demand, we may see more businesses decide now is the time to do the renovations or rebuilds so they will be more competitive when students return.
I was just reading their reporting. Wow this is a major change. Good to see the contract is still in place until October which will give enough time to properly bid this out.
Really surprising shift over there. I don't disagree with the termination, I do think that the city attorney should have been bid out sooner rather than just a few years ago. I haven't been a fan of how the current city attorney has handled a variety of issues, especially that whole driveway situation a couple years ago, as well as a retaining wall being paid for by city/federal funds outside of his private property.
I haven't agreed with a lot of how Meadows has handled things, too. Personally I think he and Beier being gone will be good for East Lansing. Those two aren't used to having resistance on the council, I guess when things got tough they decided it would be best to depart.
As an East Lansing resident, yesterday's news on the firing of Yeadon and the resignations of Meadows and Beier was nothing short of Christmas in July1!!! Yeadon, in my opinion, is a incompetent slimeball who was wasted hundreds of thousands (millions?) of taxpayer dollars. He's also a fraudster - along with the city manager - who tried to rip of the federal goverment, and ended up costing East Lansing over $100K. That alone should have been the end of his contract, as well as the city manager's.
I generally like Beier, as she is community oriented and genuinely cares about East Lansing. I also agree with Mich that she has gone from obstructionist to more of a progressive pragmatist over the years. However, she has at times been somewhat unprofessional, and that comes through in her activities on Council... for example, during the deer culling debate, she refused to even consider a cull because she (apparently) couldn't bear the idea of killing animals. Although this is a perfectly fine position for an animal lover to take, it is not exactly a professional position for an elected official who is in charge of solving a public health issue. And her comments about her fellow council members in the lsj article were really childish. But... considering she was planning to step down when her term was up next year, and that she generally supports fair and transparent government, I was surprised that she quit so suddenly over Yeadon's firing.
Meadows, on the other hand, was a career politician, and an irresponsible clown. As far as I can tell, he helped create the financially disastrous pension situation for East Lansing when he was on council in the 90s. And then he "solved" the problem during his second go-around as mayor by burdening all of East Lansing's current residents with the unpopular income tax bailout. It's no surprise that he quit now that he no longer had his crony Altmann to help pad the council votes and push his outdated, and fiscally irresponsible agenda. Keep in mind he was barely elected last fall (like by 2ish votes...), and then probably because of the quirks of the ballot. So he was a lame duck who was not interested in "serving" the public if he couldn't serve his own selfish interests first.
Overall, I have to agree with Gregg's assessment in the lsj article that Beier and Meadows basically "packed up their toys, and stormed off" when they didn't get their way. Beier's main argument seems to be that parliamentary procedures weren't followed and Yeadon should have been given the chance to correct the problems. How one changes systematic incompetence and illegal activities performed in the past is beyond me, however. Meadows argument was pure sour grapes though, as I detailed above. Good riddance to them all!!!
Finally, I really, really, really hope the city manager gets fired ASAP by the new council. After an thorough public investigation of his past ethically challenged and potentially illegal activities, of course. Keep in mind that he was complicit in a whole lot of Yeadon's (and probably others) bad behavior, especially during the Meadows years as mayor.
Comments
https://eastlansinginfo.news/with-the-public-ramps-bleeding-money-city-eliminates-free-2-hour-parking-downtown/
https://cityofeastlansing.civicweb.net/document/31290/Approve a lease agreement between the City and .pdf?handle=455D85AEE11C460CBF4817BA10DDB530
More history,
https://eastlansinginfo.org/content/future-bailey-parking-lot-uncertain
I haven't agreed with a lot of how Meadows has handled things, too. Personally I think he and Beier being gone will be good for East Lansing. Those two aren't used to having resistance on the council, I guess when things got tough they decided it would be best to depart.
I generally like Beier, as she is community oriented and genuinely cares about East Lansing. I also agree with Mich that she has gone from obstructionist to more of a progressive pragmatist over the years. However, she has at times been somewhat unprofessional, and that comes through in her activities on Council... for example, during the deer culling debate, she refused to even consider a cull because she (apparently) couldn't bear the idea of killing animals. Although this is a perfectly fine position for an animal lover to take, it is not exactly a professional position for an elected official who is in charge of solving a public health issue. And her comments about her fellow council members in the lsj article were really childish. But... considering she was planning to step down when her term was up next year, and that she generally supports fair and transparent government, I was surprised that she quit so suddenly over Yeadon's firing.
Meadows, on the other hand, was a career politician, and an irresponsible clown. As far as I can tell, he helped create the financially disastrous pension situation for East Lansing when he was on council in the 90s. And then he "solved" the problem during his second go-around as mayor by burdening all of East Lansing's current residents with the unpopular income tax bailout. It's no surprise that he quit now that he no longer had his crony Altmann to help pad the council votes and push his outdated, and fiscally irresponsible agenda. Keep in mind he was barely elected last fall (like by 2ish votes...), and then probably because of the quirks of the ballot. So he was a lame duck who was not interested in "serving" the public if he couldn't serve his own selfish interests first.
Overall, I have to agree with Gregg's assessment in the lsj article that Beier and Meadows basically "packed up their toys, and stormed off" when they didn't get their way. Beier's main argument seems to be that parliamentary procedures weren't followed and Yeadon should have been given the chance to correct the problems. How one changes systematic incompetence and illegal activities performed in the past is beyond me, however. Meadows argument was pure sour grapes though, as I detailed above. Good riddance to them all!!!
Finally, I really, really, really hope the city manager gets fired ASAP by the new council. After an thorough public investigation of his past ethically challenged and potentially illegal activities, of course. Keep in mind that he was complicit in a whole lot of Yeadon's (and probably others) bad behavior, especially during the Meadows years as mayor.