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East Lansing's Musical Chairs Continue With Seven City Council Members On November Ballot

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City of East Lansing

The game of musical chairs on the East Lansing City Council continues with seven candidates running for three seats in the Nov. 2 election.

Five candidates — Daniel Bollman, George Brookover, Adam DeLay, Chuck Grigsby and incumbent Dana Watson — filed this month to compete for two seats serving full, four-year terms.

There’s also a partial, two-year term coming open. That’s the seat vacated by former Mayor Pro Tem Mark Meadows. Both Meadows and former Mayor Ruth Beier resigned mid-meeting last year during a disagreementover terminating the city attorney’s contract.

The rest of the council appointed Watson and Ron Bacon to fill the vacancies until the next election.

Beier’s term, now filled by Watson, expires at the end of this year. But Meadows’ term still has two years left and now Bacon and challenger Mikey Manuel are running to fill the remainder.

Councilmember Aaron Stephens became East Lansing’s new mayor after both Beier and Meadows resigned.

But soon Stephens, too, is resigning.

Stephens told the rest of the council this month he will be leaving Aug. 11 for a graduate program at Harvard’s Kennedy School for Public Policy. Council members plan to appoint a replacement who will serve the last few months of Stephens’ term through the end of 2021.

East Lansing’s elections are nonpartisan. The deadline to appear on the November ballot has passed, but candidates have until Oct. 22 to run as write-ins.

Sarah Lehr is a state government reporter for Wisconsin Public Radio.
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