EAST LANSING, Mich. — East Lansing City Councilman Ron Bacon is running for the seat he was appointed to last year.
Bacon is one of two candidates running to finish out the last two years of former Councilman Mark Meadow's term. Meadows resigned from the council in 2020. Bacon was appointed to fill the vacancy until a new election could be held.
“I am now currently running for election into the seat that I currently sit in,” Bacon said.
Bacon graduated from Saginaw Valley State University.
“My undergraduate is in criminal justice and I have a masters in leadership," Bacon said.
He has 25 years of experience in the public sector.
“I work in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals for about 25 years," Bacon said. "I’m also locally here on several boards and commissions and I’m also a local high school football coach for East Lansing High School.”
Bacon is a defensive assistant coach for East Lansing. Varsity Football Coach Bill Feraco and they've worked together for six years and that Bacon's work ethic for the team has been more than he could've asked for.
"What we have here is a quality, authentic person who has a pretty good pulse of what's going on not only in the game of football, but life in general," Feraco said.
And Bacon has been an asset for the students, he said.
"When he sees something that needs to be addressed, he's always been one to address those things," Feraco said. "Whether they're in a football schematic way or probably more importantly when there's things that need to be addressed with the organization part of things with the kids."
Bacon said there are three issues he wants to focus on.
“I’d like to focus in on housing, economic recovery for both small business and local businesses, and just overall regional cooperation,” Bacon said.
Bacon said the pandemic gave the Council time to revisit codes and ordinances and he wants to continue that if he's elected.
“There was time to slow down and kind of look at where our inefficiencies were and I think we can continue on that path and try to revamp and remove all the redundancies and inefficiencies in our own process to make it easier to do business and live in East Lansing,” Bacon said.
He also wants to address issues caused by the pandemic.
“Moving forward, there’s labor shortages there’s a lot of other areas now that are caused by the pandemic," Bacon said. "That’s the next council's responsibility now to address what was caused by it.”
Bacon said what makes him different from other candidates is approaching things with an open mind.
“I’m really open to listening to all sides," Bacon said. "I don’t come with a particular method or agenda that I ride with. We’ll arrive at the best solution and I’ll listen to all sides.”
Bacon is running against Mikey Manuel for the two-year seat. Two other seats on the City Council will be up for grabs in the November election. Both have four-year terms.
FOX 47 will be profiling all the candidates for the November ballot.
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