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City leaders in mid-Michigan communities are grappling with public meetings that stretch late into the night while they consider hot button issues that draw the public’s attention.
Recent City Council meetings in Lansing and East Lansing have drawn hours of public comment on topics like data centers, housing and police.
About half of the East Lansing City Council’s meetings since October have adjourned after 11 pm.
East Lansing Mayor Erik Altmann said having meetings go late makes it difficult for both residents and officials to participate.
“We had one person who didn’t like a decision we made tell us, ‘You know, you made that decision at 11 o’clock at night when nobody was watching,’” Altmann said. “Well, yeah, but that’s because we had two hours of public comment.”
Altmann said City Council members will likely discuss making changes to the structure of meetings.
That could include starting meetings an hour earlier, at 6 p.m. Altmann said going any earlier than that could create a separate issue, since many people have day jobs that end at 5 p.m.
It could also mean reducing the amount of time each speaker is given from five minutes to the three minutes used by nearby public bodies.
“I think that would ultimately improve public participation, because it would basically give more people a chance to speak at the podium,” Altmann said. “It does suppress public involvement if you have to wait three hours to get to the microphone. I think that’s a real issue.”
Altmann said public comment could also be split into two sections, with one segment at the start of meetings for comments related to agenda items and another round at the end of the meeting for comments on other topics.
That would allow city staff who have to present on agenda items to begin presenting earlier in the meeting, since they would only have to wait through the public comment period related to agenda items.
The city of Lansing already splits public comment into two sections.
Ivan Droste is a regular participant at Lansing City Council meetings. He said the concern in Lansing is that public comment doesn’t start until after special presentations given by city staff or other relevant parties on agenda items, which don’t have time limits.
“If you’re a multimillionaire who wants to come build a high rise or a data center in Lansing, City Council has all the time in the world for you, and you get first dibs,” Droste said. “But if you’re a Lansing resident who might be impacted by this project, you have to patiently wait your turn and you get three minutes.”
Droste said public comment can, at times, start more than an hour after the meeting’s scheduled start time. And if you’re one of the final speakers to be called to the podium, that can lead to even more waiting.
“It may be that when you show up for a seven o’clock meeting, it might not be until 10, 11 p.m. until it’s your turn to speak,” Droste said. “And for many people, it’s just not feasible to sit around and wait for three, four or five hours to have an opportunity to speak for three minutes.”
He said taking public comment before the presentations would allow presenters to respond to questions and concerns raised by residents.
Lansing City Council President Peter Spadafore said having the special presentations before public comment helps inform the public commenters.
“If you’re there to learn about an issue and speak about an issue, it gives you an opportunity to hear about it, comment on it and then have us deliberate on it,” Spadafore said.
He said a question someone has might be answered by the special presentation, or the presentation might introduce a new concern that they can respond to in their comments.
Spadafore said the late night meetings are few and far between – the Lansing City Council has adjourned after 11 p.m. twice in the past six months – and are largely driven by what’s on the agenda.
He said he and Lansing City Council Vice President Trini Pehlivanoglu regularly meet with office staff and the clerk to plan agendas so that no single meeting is too packed with items of interest.
“What often can get lost is that these are business meetings,” Spadafore said. “We do have to conduct business. There are things that need to get done. So, we’ll stay as long as it takes to get things done.”
Droste said elected officials taking action late in the night isn’t ideal but said it’s not as big of a concern as easing barriers to public participation since the meetings are recorded and posted online.
“If the agenda is such that the meeting has to last several hours and there’s no getting around it, then it’s really just a question of what do we want to prioritize. And in my opinion, public comment should take priority,” Droste said. “Having the votes themselves take place late into the night is less of an issue than forcing regular working people to sit around for hours to get their opportunity to speak.”
Spadafore said long meetings can be a drag for City Council members who have day jobs, but elected officials know what they signed up for and want to encourage participation.
But Altmann said the issue is bigger than an inconvenience. As the meetings get later in the night, he said it “makes it difficult for us to govern.”
“It is harder for people to watch the decisions live in action if they’re happening at 11 p.m. or midnight, and that’s not ideal,” Altmann said. “It’s also not ideal when you have people who are working all day trying to think through complex issues when you’re tired; that’s also not ideal.”
