- Mark Meadows is one of eight candidates running for an open East Lansing city council seat in the November election.
- Meadows said his top two priorities are to replace the employees who have resigned and left the city and to look at the city's unfunded liability and work with council members on how to address it and move forward.
(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 second candidate is Mark Meadows.
Background:
Meadows is a long time East Lansing resident. He's an attorney with background in local government serving as the East Lansing mayor in 2019, a state representative and assistant attorney general. His time with East Lansing government began in the 1980's serving as a member of the city's Commission on the Environment.
A few short months after Meadows was elected to city council and appointed Mayor, he resigned during a council meeting in July of 2020 after council members voted to fire then City Attorney Tom Yeadon.
Question & Answer:
Q: What would be your top two priorities if elected to city council?
A: "My top priority is to replace the 50 people who have resigned and left the city. My second priority, would be to take a look at our unfunded liability. Check how it's been performing with the money that we're putting in from the income tax and if there is an issue about reaching our target any way, at the end of the income tax, start to talk with other council members as to how we should address this and take care of it going forward."
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: "For one thing, I think that part of the reason that we saw such a unprecedented loss of employees, especially at the upper end of the management level, is because we weren't complying with the charter necessarily and how we were dealing with employees and activities within the administrative service. So, I think we should take a look at that and make sure that council members are aware of what they can do and what they can't do. Also I think we need to do a wage and benefits study to make sure we're competitive with other communities in getting the best people to work for East Lansing."
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: "I'm a long-time member of the Board of Directors of Capital Area Housing Partnership, which builds low to moderate income housing, rents it, reconstructs homes, sells them to low to moderate income families and individuals. So, it's a big deal for me, and I'd like to see more of it within the community. A truly diverse community is income diverse, as well as other diverse aspects. So that's an important aspect for me.
There's sort of a good and a bad about student housing, which is that our student housing is incredibly expensive. So the more student housing you have, the more competition there is and it drives down rental prices, so it makes it more affordable for students. So, you got to balance that a little bit. We have a large number of student housing opportunities in the northern tier because those apartment complexes are not full because a lot of students want to be as close to campus as possible. So if we are building more student housing, we'll probably look closer to campus, but not in the downtown area. We already have sufficient student housing down there. I'd like to see more owned housing in that area and we'd have to take a look at it. The city doesn't own very much land down there, but we need to utilize that land to accomplish these types of objectives."
Q: Why should people vote for you this November to serve on the city council?
A: "I think right now, absentee and in November, people should vote for me because I have the experience to bring us back together. I think we're a divided community right now. We need to be unified and go forward with sort of a common purpose."
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