- Erik Altmann is one of eight candidates running for an open East Lansing city council seat in the November election.
- Altmann said his top two priorities are rebuilding the city's workforce and looking at ways to reduce carbon emissions.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
It's a crowded race for the November election in East Lansing with three open city council seats. There are some big issues for the city to address. Over the course of the next week, we will be introducing you to all eight candidates with a series of four questions.
The sixth candidate is Erik Altmann.
Background:
Altmann is no stranger to East Lansing City Council serving from 2015-2019 as the Mayor Pro Tem. In the 2019 election, Altmann was two votes short of being re-elected. He has also served on the East Lansing's Historic District Commission and Planning Commission.
Altmann is currently a professor in the Psychology Department at Michigan State University. He and his wife have lived in the Bailey Neighborhood for 23 years.
Question & Answer:
Q: What would be your top two priorities if elected to city council?
A: "The first priority is rebuilding the city workforce, which has had a lot of departures the past couple of years. The current city council has made some very bad decisions that I think scared a lot of people out of city workforce. So, we need people on council who are experienced running an effective government. I have that experience. I was on the council before from 2016 to 2019, the city ran smoothly there during that period and we have to go back to that. We need stable leadership at the top of the organization before we're going to be able to rebuild the rest of the organization. That's my main priority.
Climate Action is my other priority. We need to do more to reduce carbon emissions and also we need to do more to upgrade our infrastructure to deal with severe weather events."
Q: The turnover rate in the city has been high the last few years. What would you do as a council member to encourage employees to stay in the city?
A: "The first thing we need to do is make sure that the governing body is stable and transparent and that explains their decisions. And a lot of the rest is going to fall to the city manager because that's the professional that the City Council hires to run the city. What the next council needs to do is give the city manager two tasks. One is to figure out what caused the exodus of city staff and there needs to be a report that gets published because the community is following this issue very closely they deserve to know what happened. And then there needs to be a rebuilding plan and it's up to the city manager to devise that plan, but then that needs to be submitted to the community for discussion into the council for approval. And then the council needs to hold the city manager accountable for progress on the plan. So, a lot of the work is going to be done by the city manager, but strong oversight by the council is going to be an important part of it."
Q: Affordable housing and student housing are always hot topics in the city, but with downtown space so limited, how would you want to see those addressed?
A: "We have enough student housing in the downtown proper. I would like to see more high rise student housing, East of Bogue Street and South of Grand River Avenue, that's a good area for more high rise student housing and there's clearly a demand for it. We've seen the stories about students lining up for signing release day and so people want to live in those kinds of buildings. So, the current city council turned down a project in that area that they shouldn't have turned down, but I hope the people who proposed that project come back for a second try. In terms of low income and moderate income housing, there's only so much we can do. We can make sure that areas are zoned to appropriately. There are some areas that we can rezone that are good locations for that kind of housing, but then developers have to come forward and propose it. So, we can't build the housing ourselves. We can't afford to subsidize it, we don't have the money, but we can make sure the zoning is correct and so we can pay attention to that."
Q: Why should people vote for you this November to serve on the city council?
A: "I'm going to be a boring and competent council member and we need that after all the high drama of the past couple of years. People want to see the good effects of government they don't want to hear about stories on the front page about the latest disaster. And we got to focus on services, we got to focus on infrastructure, we got to focus on making sure that the needs of city residents are getting met and that's what I'm going to do. And I know how to do it because I've done it before. I've got a track record."
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