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East Lansing police officers will soon be able to ask people lingering in parking structures to move along after City Council members approved an ordinance Tuesday to prohibit using parking facilities for anything other than their intended purpose.
Officers would first inform people of the requirement and ask them to leave the parking structure but could write a ticket if they don’t comply.
Councilmember Mark Meadows noted police would not be able to arrest someone for violating the ordinance.
“We rely entirely on them showing up on a stated date to challenge the ticket or pay the ticket,” Meadows said.
City Attorney Steve Joppich said violators could be given multiple tickets if they still don’t leave the area after being given a first ticket.
If treating it as a civil infraction proves ineffective, he said City Council members could consider increasing the punishment.
“If it’s not working, this is actually under a section of ordinance that most of the violations are misdemeanors,” Joppich said. “This is specifically called out as a civil infraction as a first step to try and resolve the situation without making it criminal.”
The ordinance was amended to note that temporarily using a parking structure for shelter during emergency events would not be considered a violation.
The ordinance was recommended by Police Chief Jen Brown and passed 3-2. But another of her proposals was rejected shortly after.
City Council members voted 4-1 to reject a controversial ordinance that housing advocates warned would criminalize the city’s unhoused population.
The proposal started as a ban on camping in public spaces. But an alternative considered by City Council members would have instead focused on conduct prohibitive to city events, like if someone was sleeping on a stage where a concert was scheduled.
Meadows said he would not support the original or alternative ordinance because both would have treated violations as a misdemeanor.
“I’m not interested, and I’m not going to vote, to criminalize the activity of likely unhoused individuals,” Meadows said. “And I realize that this is broader, that this applies to other circumstances as well, not just to unhoused people, but it can.”
Councilmember Steve Whelan said he was struggling to decide how to vote after hearing public comment on both sides.
“I think we’ve narrowed this ordinance intentionally to avoid other unintended consequences,” Whelan said. “But now that we’ve been talking about this for three months, I’m not sure that we’ve gotten to the place we need to be with it, even though I’m concerned about some of the concerns downtown.”
Meadows proposed delaying consideration of the ordinance to late April so that city staff could develop new language treating it as a civil infraction, which he said he would be more likely to support.
But Mayor Erik Altmann said the months of discussions City Council members already had since the ordinance was proposed last year were enough.
“I have heard, several times now, suggestions for changes to these ordinances that made me think we were converging on something, and apparently we weren’t,” Altmann said. “And I’m not interested in kicking the can again.”
The motion to postpone consideration of the ordinance failed 2-3.
Mayor Pro Tem Chuck Grigsby voted in favor of postponing but said it was unlikely he would support any version of the ordinance.
“I just don’t think this is the answer,” Grigsby said. “I don’t know how you can rework this in a way that really addresses the concerns I’ve brought up and most of the feedback we’ve gotten on this. I just don’t see a version where I’ll be on the other side of this.”
Altmann was the lone City Council member who supported the proposal.
Brown quickly left the room after the vote, using an exit behind a roped off section for city staff.
City Council members could review the existing section of city code that would have been amended, which currently prohibits lying, sleeping or sitting in a parking structure or city-owned restroom for purpose of using the structure as a shelter.
