lansing

In the middle of a tight re-election campaign, Michigan Congressman Mike Bishop took time Thursday to escort a top Trump administration official around a Lansing development project.

A recent poll showed Republican Mike Bishop holding a slim lead over Democratic challenger Elissa Slotkin.  Slotkin has raised more money than Bishop in the traditionally Republican district.

There are plans to turn a run-down Lansing golf course into a $100 million mixed used development.

The rough on the old Waverly golf course has been growing wild for years. The city closed the golf course in 2007. City voters agreed to sell it in 2012. 

City prosecutors in Lansing recently dropped 50 misdemeanor cases after the city council accidentally let hundreds of ordinances expire last year.

The Lansing State Journal reports that as a result, the defendants in those cases won't be prosecuted at any level.

According to city officials, the alleged crimes were non-violent. The most common charges were trespassing and providing false information to a police officer.

There’s a new tool that Michigan cities can use to better understand their health care needs.

The NYU School of Medicine has developed what they call the City Health Dashboard, which looks at 36 key measures and drivers of health.   

Marc Gourevitch is the Dashboard’s principal architect. He says health problems like opioid abuse and obesity are tracked on the dashboard.

“Not only looking at health itself,” says Gourevitch, “but some of the things that cause health, like housing and transportation and air quality. So we try to bring all that together.”

Lansing’s mayor is putting the sale of city hall “on hold”.

Last year, former Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero picked Chicago-based Beitler Real Estate Services over three other developers, to turn Lansing city hall into a new hotel. 

Lansing officials settled on the idea of selling city hall, since the estimated $55 million cost of renovating the aging building would be cost prohibitive.

This past week, Lansing’s Catholic bishop introduced a special panel that will examine issues of race in the diocese.  

Gov. Rick Snyder wants a federal disaster declaration for eight Michigan counties affected by severe flooding last month. He's asking the federal Small Business Administration to study the damage caused by heavy rainfall and snow melt Feb. 19-21.

If approved, the disaster assistance program would provide money and low-interest loans to repair homes and businesses.

Lansing’s mayor is not ruling out some “pain” as the city deals with a rising legacy costs.

Lansing Mayor Andy Schor sat down with his Financial Health Team for the first time today to discuss ways of dealing with the capitol city’s long-term liabilities.

Lansing is one of several cities throughout the state dealing with flooding.

Mayor Andy Schor declared a state of emergency Wednesday. Several streets are still blocked off, making it tougher to navigate sections of the city.

John Estill lives right along the Grand River. Flood water covers his entire backyard and has made its way to his basement.

“We’ve got sandbags around the outside of the house, but it’s still seeping in, and we’re trying to keep ahead of it with pumps,” Estill said.

Estill says the drywall in his basement took the most damage.

Lansing officials are urging residents of several neighborhoods to evacuate due to possible flooding.

Mayor Andy Schor declared a state of emergency tonight.

Officials said residents should leave their homes by noon Thursday and stay away until the water recedes. They said rivers will keep rising until Friday.

Whitney Spotts lives near the river in the downtown Cherry Hill neighborhood and has experienced flooding there before. 

She said she and her husband are both musicians, and they are packing up this time.

Lansing Mayor Andy Schor is reopening, slightly, the bidding process involved in the sale of city hall. 

It’s been half a century since the federal government banned discrimination in the home mortgage industry. But a new analysis of mortgage data shows people of color are still routinely denied conventional mortgage loans far more often than white people.

An apparent administrative oversight means a still-unknown number of city laws in Lansing were wiped off the books - at least temporarily.

The city's regulatory ordinances that went into effect before 2007 were supposed to be re-enacted by last November. 

But that did not happen, and now the City Council is scrambling to fix the problem.

Under Lansing's city charter, the council must vote to re-enact its regulatory ordinances every ten years, or adopt a resolution to let them expire.

Lansing Mayor Andy Schor says Michigan’s Capitol City is in a “good place.”

Schor delivered his first State of the City address Wednesday. He took office January 1. 

Schor talked about new efforts to improve Lansing public schools, better connect with city neighborhoods, and promote arts and culture.  

But the mayor says infrastructure, especially crumbling city streets, is a problem.

“We’re going to spend what we have,” says Schor, “but what we have is not enough to fix all the roads.”

The Lansing city council will hold a public hearing Monday night on a proposal to sell city hall to a developer.

Chicago-based Beitler Real Estate Services proposes turning Lansing city hall into a hotel. It’s part of a complicated deal under which the developer would spend $42 million renovating the building. Beitler would also turn the old Lansing State Journal building into the capitol city’s new city hall.

A section of roadway in Lansing has been renamed after civil rights activist Cesar Chavez.

The Lansing State Journal reports that the city council approved the renaming Monday night of East Grand River beginning at Oakland to Washington and West Grand River beginning at Washington to Pine.

More from the Journal's Julie Garcia:
 

Monday night, the Lansing city council declared the opioid crisis a public nuisance. It’s a first step toward filing a lawsuit against drug companies.

Latino leaders and others told the Lansing city council during a public hearing last Monday night why the city should rename part of a city street after activist Cesar Chavez. 

The civil rights icon died in 1993. 

In 1994, Lansing officials renamed part of Grand River Avenue street for Chavez. But a public vote reversed the decision the next year.   

Marisol Garcia says the rebuke still stings.

“It does because I have children,” says Garcia. “For them to see that the city of Lansing is not accepting of an important leader to our community…it’s hurtful.”

If most people over the age of 65 will need long-term care, what will that look like, and will they be able to afford it? That’s what State Representative Jon Hoadley wants the state to study. He and other lawmakers are backing bills to measure that cost and come up with some funding options.  

Hoadley says people turn 65 every day, but the long-term insurance market is unstable.

“All that together means that a storm is coming,” he says. “We have an opportunity with this bill to get ahead of this problem.”

Sarah Slocum specializes in elder care for a nonprofit health group. She says the state needs to know what all that long-term care will cost.

“We’ve been working very hard in the advocate community, from the department, from the provider prospective to make improvements in long-term care,” Slocum says. “But the puzzle that we have not yet unlocked is financing and how to make that really work across the spectrum.”

The state report wouldn’t make recommendations, but it would outline some options for lawmakers such as tax credits and reinsurance to improve the marketplace. The bill received its first committee hearing last week.

The public will get a look tonight at four proposed futures for the site of Lansing city hall.

Developers bidding to buy Lansing city hall have four different visions for the property across from the state capitol.

One would renovate city hall into a hotel. Two other bidders would construct new towers on the current City Hall plaza, each featuring a hotel. The fourth proposal would tear down city hall and replace it with a hotel.

Developers will deliver 45-minute presentations starting tonight at the Lansing Center.

A developer is scheduled to be selected to buy Lansing city hall by the end of this week.

Four developers submitted proposals to the city. Mayor Virg Bernero says the winning bidder will be the one that makes the highest and best use of the property.

The future of Lansing city hall may rest with paperwork filed today.

Would-be developers had until 5 p.m. to submit their proposals for the property across the street from the state Capitol. The proposals will now move to a committee for review.  

Mayor Virg Bernero says the half-century-old building needs too much work to maintain. He wants to sell the building and use the proceeds to relocate city offices.

Lansing voters will take a step toward electing a new mayor August 8th. 

On Tuesday, Lansing will hold a mayoral primary election which for the first time in a dozen years will not feature Virg Bernero on the ballot.

Bernero’s decision not to run for re-election this year opened the door to five candidates seeking Lansing’s mayor’s office.