Tagged: east lansing

Several Ingham County communities have taken a step toward creating a regional fire department.

Lansing, East Lansing and four other communities signed an agreement to begin implementing the first phase of the “Shared Services” plan.

Randall Talifarro is Lansing and East Lansing’s fire chief. He says getting local fire departments to work more closely together will improve fire protection to nearly 300 thousand Ingham County residents.

East Lansing city leaders are trying to decide what to do now that the city has decided to drop plans for a $105 million development project downtown. 

The East Lansing Art Festival is kicking off Michigan's outdoor festival season this weekend. Corinn VanWyck is the festival organizer. She says there have been a few changes to this year's festival because of construction going on in the downtown area.

"We've had to move the festival, slightly shifting it to the west and the north, so that has changed the footprint a little bit," she says.

Road closures can be found on the Michigan Department of Transportation's website.

A long stalled economic development project in East Lansing may get a push forward tonight.

The “City Center II” project has been in development for more than a decade.

This evening, the East Lansing City Council may decide to approve a pre-development agreement.  The agreement would set in motion a review of the $105 million project’s finances.

Mayor Diane Godeeris likes the development plan that calls for a hotel, theater and additional retail space in downtown East Lansing.

“We’re trying to look at this comprehensively," says Godeeris, "and (we) hope that we can have something that’s new and exciting down there.   But (we) want to make sure the risk to the city is minimal as possible.” 

Godeeris says it would probably take several years for the ‘City Center II” project to become a reality, if the project’s financing backing eventually wins the city council’s approval.

Michigan State University officials are stepping up their efforts to convince Congress to fully fund a major scientific project on the East Lansing campus.

MSU was expecting the federal government to provide 52 million dollars for the next construction phase of the ‘Facility for Rare Isotope Beams’, or ‘FRIB’ for short.  But the Obama administration is only budgeting $22 million. 

Mark Burnham is an MSU vice president for government affairs.  He says university officials are talking with influential members of Michigan’s congressional delegation , including the chairman of committee that control federal spending on technology.

"We have other members who are key important members of Congress, in both the House and the Senate, and so we want to make sure we’re working through the entire delegation," says Burnham.   

Today, a state senate committee passed a resolution encouraging Congress to fully fund the FRIB project.

Michigan State University wants the world to know that evolution science pioneer Charles Darwin was a rock star first.

The MSU Museum on Sunday afternoon presents its annual Darwin Discovery Day and this year's theme is "Darwin rocks!" It also marks the opening of a new exhibit entitled "It Started with a Rock Collection: Charles Darwin, Geologist."

Officials at the East Lansing museum say they have received a rock collection from the Shropshire Geological Society in England, where the young Darwin started his collection and scientific investigations.