Possible Lansing & East Lansing merger?

Jared

If I didn't predict enough in the City Pulse article towards the end where I said sometimes it seems that Lansing would like to be East Lansing and vice versa, WILX reported last night that Virg Bernero has been talking now about a possible merge between the cities. East Lansing's mayor, Sam Singh, says that could possibly be a decade off.

Singh is waiting for Lansing to get under control its pensions and other liabilities first.

Virg would like to see this done within the next few years, but Singh is open to the conversation. Any such event would require voter approval.

Here is a link to the article: Mayor presses merging EL and Lansing
There is also the video portion as well.

Banker0422

I watched the interviews last night and was amazed by how on target your article was. It was as though the interviewer read it and ran with it.

hood

In other metro areas where cities and their surrounding communities merged it has been greatly benificial. They are able to attract more jobs larger facilities, it really helps to put them "on the map." Thats besides the savings of consolidating services. The one thing that would kill this idea entirely, merging the school districts along with the cities/townships. In order to keep peoples support the school districts must remain individual, for now.

MichMatters

I heard this, and it wasn't a surprise. Bernero has thought from day one that this area would greatly benefit from merging or consolidation, and as we all know, he's not afraid to say what he thinks.

Even as a Lansingite, I think we'd be much better off merging with the remaining pieces of Lansing Township first to test this, because I do happen to agree a bit with Mayor Singh that Lansing does need to get its house clean, first, before taking on something so incredibly ambitious.

Really, this would be huge, as city merging, annexation, and even consolidation are VERY rare things in Michigan, and to our detriment if you ask me. What I'd like to see is a careful merging over time instead of an all-out merging in a short time. Perhaps, that means first consolidating services with a few surrounding areas to see how it works out, and continue to consolidate into we're practically merged and only then officially make the merge.

The fact is that cities are receiving less and less revenue sharing from the government, and most of Michigan's cities continue to lose residents to their surrounding townships, so it's about time to start thinking things such as consolidation, annexation, and even mergers. Actually, it's something that our state government should have made more easy for citie LONG time ago like in most other states, but as population moved to the townships, so did political clout, and they've effectively built up social and economic walls around our cities. IMO, it's time for state government to balance this equation, back out, and give some powers back to cities.

hood

Has anyone seen the firetruck that says "Metro Lansing Fire Dept" on it? Anyone know whats up with that? It's based out of the downtown station.

Jared

I saw it when I was riding my bike near the Stadium District. I think it is used by the dive team, which is shared between East Lansing and Lansing.

mindbender

We have a dive team? Awesome...

I guess I shouldn't say we. After all, I live in Delta Township and am not a real Lansing citizen.

MichMatters

Actually, it was just last month that the Lansing Police Department, Eaton County Sheriff's Department and the Ingham County Sheriff's Department announced they'd be consolidating dive teams to form a regional dive team. It will be known as the Capital Area Dive Team, so they are definitely your dive team, too.

Now, if only Lansing city could get Eaton and Clinton Counties to actually help pay for the airport they use but refuse to help fund.

cliffordzang

Wow, I thought that Eaton and Clinton already helped fund the airport. I thought that's what the Capital Region Airport Authority was, but reading about it now I see that it's just Lansing and Ingham county. Pretty sad seeing that the entire airport is within Clinton County.

sabatoa

10-11 years ago I co-wrote an op-ed to LSJ that they published. We were touting this very idea way back then. We included the lecherous townships surrounding Lansing, not just EL.

Does anyone know, without having to lookup, where this has been successful in the past?

hood

Louisville, Ky has had some success I heard, It seems I heard of some other ones on the Urbanplanet forums also, but I can't remember off the top of my head.