- Lansing City Council recently released its attendance report for 2024.
- It shows among 8 council members, there were 6 tardies, 55 excused absences and 4 unexcused absences reported.
- Watch video above for more.
Conversations about the Lansing City Council's attendance are circulating across the neighborhood.
It all started after a document, highlighting council members attendance at all standing committee and council meetings for 2024 was released earlier this month. It shows among 8 council members, there were 6 tardies, 55 excused absences and 4 unexcused absences reported. Individually speaking, some council members wracked up more than 10 absences.
“There are valid reasons to be late, there are valid reasons to be absent, but when we're talking about 10 plus absences it makes me wonder where your priorities are at,” said resident Kyle Richard.
So what does council have to say about this? We reached out to several members who directed me Council Vice President Adam Hussain.
“There were times a few years ago, where I felt like I couldn't use the restroom at a committee meeting without losing quorum because we were always down a member,” Hussain said.
Hussain said this has been an ongoing issue for years. Take last year for example, council had 11 tardies, 77 excused absences, and 5 unexcused absences.
So is there a penalty when it comes to council's attendance? According to the city's charter, there could be.
“It's referring to committee assignments, censureship those kinds of things,” Hussain said.
But Hussain said it’s hard to put those penalties in place because there's nothing in the books that explains what's unacceptable when it comes to attendance, which is why, in the past, council drafted an ordinance to define that.
“The spirit of it, says you must attend this amount of meetings, here's what an unexcused absence looks like, etc,” Hussain said.
It's unclear, when or if that ordinance would actually past. Meanwhile, neighbors are hoping for a concrete solution to help council attendance improve.
“Being there in person, actually interacting with the community face to face, I think it’s an important part of being a public servant,” Richard said.
