A growing number of East Lansing officials are stepping down from their roles in City Hall.
Several high-profile positions remain vacant or have a temporary replacement, including the city manager, city clerk and the interim director of human resources.
The city’s deputy police chief resigned earlier this month citing “unethical leadership” in the local government.
Alice Dreger is the publisher of the non-profit news outlet East Lansing Info. She spoke with WKAR politics reporter Arjun Thakkar about why the city is facing so many vacancies and how the departures impact residents.
Interview Highlights
On why individuals are leaving their roles in the city
There doesn't seem to be a single reason being stated, people simply state that they are moving on to a different job. But it's pretty clear that there's some source of central unhappiness in the city hall.
On how the vacancies impact service for residents
You know, the garbage is still being picked up. If you call the police department, they still answer the phone. You can go and do your voter registration. But we are seeing cracks in the system without a doubt...When Audrey Kincade, the interim or the acting finance director, came forward to bring forward the five-year financial forecast a few weeks ago, she made clear that she was overwhelmed and stressed out. I mean, she was actually to the point of tears talking about the difficulty of trying to do her job as well as being acting finance director. It's tough in City Hall right now.
On city officials' response to the departures
I think they are concerned, but Mayor Ron Bacon basically minimized it and said it was you know, just part of change and there was waves. What he said was that on a sports team, it's the name on the back that matters, not the name on the front, meaning it's the name of the organization, not the name of the individual. But...Interim City Manager Randy Talifarro had a very different view, and he spoke of the the emotional challenges and the difficulties everybody's facing. And he expressed a lot of sympathy for those names on the front, for those individuals whose lives are being disrupted with all this change.
Interview Transcript:
Megan Schellong: A growing number of East Lansing officials are stepping down. Several high-profile positions remain vacant or have an interim replacement in the role, including the city manager and city clerk. The city’s deputy police chief resigned earlier this month citing “unethical leadership” in government.
Alice Dreger is the publisher of the non-profit news outlet East Lansing Info. She spoke with WKAR's Arjun Thakkar about why the city is facing so many vacancies.
Arjun Thakkar: So, Alice, let's start with what positions are vacant in the city.
Alice Dreger: It would be difficult to give you a full list. But among them are, in fact, the city manager position, which is the top position in the city. But in addition to that: the city clerk, the deputy city clerk, the director of human resources—so the person who does hiring and firing for the city. The deputy police chief is stepping down. In addition to that, we have no current finance director, we have an acting finance director. That's just a sample, there are actually lower down positions as well that are vacant. It's a big list.
Arjun Thakkar: And why have these individuals stopped working with the city?
Alice Dreger: That's hard to say. A lot of them don't want to talk on the record, and they name specific jobs that they are moving to, and they all sound like good jobs. But this is an extraordinary number of people leaving and so we've been trying to find out with not a lot of success of what exactly is motivating such a gigantic wave of departures.
There doesn't seem to be a single reason being stated, people simply state that they are moving on to a different job. But it's pretty clear that there's some source of central unhappiness in the city hall.
Arjun Thakkar: And how long has this been an issue in the city of East Lansing of vacancies showing up in staff?
Alice Dreger: You know, there's always some turnover in an organization. So for example, the finance director, Jill Feldpausch, left last summer to take a job with Michigan State University's Federal Credit Union. That's an understandable shift. But most of the vacancies that are occurring have started since the beginning of the year. And they started around the time that City Manager George Lahanas had his contract terminated by the city council. But they don't seem to be timed specifically to that. And they've been going on and on and on. So the city is clearly having a huge problem with retention at this point.
Arjun Thakkar: When City Council forced out City Manager George Lahanas earlier this year, they said they wanted to move "in a different direction." Do you have any sense of what new direction they want to pursue?
Alice Dreger: No, they haven't really explained what that different direction is meant to describe. And I think that's caused a lot of frustration on the part of citizens because they want to understand, what is council's political agenda? You know, are they trying to move in direction A or direction B? What does (this) exactly mean? And they really won't say. Obviously, part of what they're trying to avoid is saying anything negative about Lahanas because he could bring a suit against them if they were to say bad things about him. But they've really left the voters hanging in terms of understanding why they made that decision at that moment.
You know, there was dissatisfaction brewing. Lahanas was having open arguments with council members in the council meetings, it was getting pretty tense and pretty ugly. But there doesn't seem to have been an explanation of what exactly the trigger was. And I would add the fact that they set up this interim deal with Randy Talifarro, the former fire chief, to come in and be interim city manager, clearly in advance of having terminated the contract with Lahanas, suggests that this was in the works for at least a few months. So something must have triggered it if they would be pursuing this change.
Arjun Thakkar: And how do these vacancies affect both city operations and services for residents?
Alice Dreger: You know, the garbage is still being picked up. If you call the police department, they still answer the phone. You can go and do your voter registration. But we are seeing cracks in the system without a doubt. And one example of that would be, there's a project that potentially could get a million dollars in funding from the MEDC, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, for rehabilitation of Valley Court Park downtown. And that's a problem right now, because there's supposed to be a grant agreement that is signed by March 15. Because the Planning Department has been so eviscerated, it's very difficult for the Planning Department to be moving that project forward and getting it to the point of having a clear grant agreement.
In addition to that, we're seeing some problems with the Freedom of Information Act responses coming out of the city. Marie Wicks, former city clerk, is working for the city in that position again and doing her best, but the lack of staffing in that department is definitely causing problems. And Randy Talifarro did say that he's got a candidate likely to be hired for the deputy city clerk, but that's not the city clerk position that Marie Wicks is currently filling. So we're definitely seeing some cracks in the system in terms of the stressors, I think there's no question.
When Audrey Kincade, the interim or the acting finance director, came forward to bring forward the five-year financial forecast a few weeks ago, she made clear that she was overwhelmed and stressed out. I mean, she was actually to the point of tears talking about the difficulty of trying to do her job as well as being acting finance director. It's tough in City Hall right now.
Arjun Thakkar: And in these last few seconds, we have what have officials said about the vacancies. Are they concerned about the empty positions?
Alice Dreger: I think they are concerned, but Mayor Ron Bacon basically minimized it and said it was, you know, just part of change and there was waves. What he said was that on a sports team, it's the name on the back that matters, not the name on the front, meaning it's the name of the organization, not the name of the individual. But Mayor, sorry, Interim City Manager Randy Talifarro had a very different view, and he spoke of the the emotional challenges and the difficulties everybody's facing. And he expressed a lot of sympathy for those names on the front, for those individuals whose lives are being disrupted with all this change.
Arjun Thakkar: Alice Dreger is the publisher of East Lansing Info. Thanks for your time.
Dreger: Thank you.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.