- Dan Bollman is one of eight candidates running for an open East Lansing city council seat in the November election.
- Bollman said his top two priorities are reestablishing full employment in City Hall and making neighborhood amenities available to more people.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
It's a crowded race for the November election in East Lansing with three open city council seats. There are some big issues for the city to address. Over the course of the next week, we will be introducing you to all eight candidates with a series of four questions.
Our seventh candidate is Dan Bollman.
Background:
Bollman has been an East Lansing resident since 2007 when his wife was offered a position at Michigan State University. He is an Allen Park native, an Eagle Scout and holds three degrees from the University of Michigan. Bollman was the Historic Preservation Coordinator in Kalamazoo for five years and part of the Ann Arbor Historic District Commission.
In East Lansing, Bollman has been part of the Historic District Commission and on the Marble Elementary Parents Council. In 2019, he was appoined by Governor Gretchen Whitmer to have a seat on the State Historic Preservation Review Board. Currently, he's on the East Lansing Planning Commission and has been for eight years.
Bollman founded East Arbor Architecture in 2008, a small architecture fire in downtown East Lansing. He's also working at Michigan State University as a professor of construction management.
Question & Answer:
Q: What would be your top two priorities if elected to city council?
A: "The first thing I'd like to work on is to reestablish full employment in City Hall. Over the last year we've lost, I like to say, about a century's worth of institutional knowledge or expertise in our upper management. I've served eight years on the planning commission, and the four people that we would have had most contact with, through my work on the planning commission, have all resigned in the last year. So they're slowly starting to build that back up again. In fact, we've got a new principal planner who's outstanding, has moved from Grand Rapids. So we're slowly starting to build that back up, but the people that left had a great deal of knowledge about our specific planning procedures and our zoning code, and so as they start to slowly move their way up that ramp of expertise, we know it's going to take a little bit of time.
Second thing is that, I like to talk about the neighborhood that I live in. We moved here 16 years ago and we live in the Bailey Neighborhood. It's relatively small, lots relatively close to one another, but we have access to the public schools. Both of my daughters have walked to school, my older daughters a senior, my younger daughter is a freshman, and so, the older daughter, for 13 years, has been able to walk to schools. So the amenities that are available to us in the neighborhood that we live in, access to the schools, to the library, to parks, to the community center and all the downtown shops. I'd like to find a way to make those amenities that I have grown to love available to more people. Now the trick is to do that while maintaining the character of the neighborhoods and it's a difficult balance. But I'd like to see that more young families and visiting professors and young professionals find a place to live that could enjoy those amenities as well. So I'm an architect, I know how to do those things and know that they can be done and I'd like to see us implement those those policies that might encourage greater access to those amenities."
Q: The turnover rate in the city has been high the last few years. What would you do as a council member to encourage employees to stay in the city?
A: "So part of my background, I was actually worked as a city employee in Kalamazoo in the early 90's. I worked in the building department for five years, I was the historic preservation coordinator in Kalamazoo. One of the things that I take away from that is, during a Sanctuary City Commission, they have a commission, they're not a council, but a City Commission interview, one of the candidates had said, we need to look at our other staff members as our local experts. There's sort of a wide variety of topics. These are the people that no name it. Financing or public works or public safety or parks and record planning and zoning. So we have to respect that they've got either expertise or experience. Many of them have degrees in those fields. Encourage them to do good work, to work through the city manager to make sure that their their effort is appreciated. And I like to say that we allow them the luxury of an error. We ask them to do great things and they don't quite hit it. We move on from that, we find a way to make sure it doesn't happen again, and move forward from there."
Q: Affordable housing and student housing are always hot topics in the city, but with downtown space so limited, how would you want to see those addressed?
A: "There was a project that was proposed for that 500 block of Albert Street. As you know, I sit on the planning commission. So we reviewed that. My take on the way our comprehensive plan and our zoning code reads, that project was actually a really good fit for that area. We were looking to increase the number of people. This actually comes back to my first point that that would actually provide access to those amenities that I really enjoy in the neighborhood to have much more people. I like to say, I like to round it up and say there's about 150 potential people that could have lived there that I really believe that in order to create that that walk ability that we all talk about, we all want to see, you actually have to provide for people that are walking. It's enough to say that we've got businesses and there's a certain amount of risk in the loss of parking and I think that we could have and we still could address that. But in order to create walk able places, you have to bring people that ultimately will bring the businesses, that will bring more people and so on. So I was very much in support of that project. I was disappointed to see that it got passed over by counsel. I think that there's still a possibility that that could come back around again, perhaps in a slightly different form."
Q: Why should people vote for you this November to serve on the city council?
A: "One of the things that I draw the line into the differentiation between myself and the other candidates, and this actually expands to the members of current members of council, that my background experience with the planning commission, and my work as an architect, my job as a professor here of construction management. I've got more experience with with economic development and planning, zoning, good urbanism, architecture, good design, real estate principles, construction, finance, then again, any other any of the other candidates that are currently running in any member of current council."
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