Everybody agrees that the city of Lansing budget will be more and more troubled for many years depending much on the state economy. A big question is how the city can cut the budget.
One idea was shared by Mayor Virg Bernero last November when he took a handful of city leaders and others on a tour of the yet to be opened Lansing City Market. It’s an idea that deserves to be discussed, but it’s in danger of being shuffled aside with Bernero’s movement towards a gubernatorial campaign.
As the video below shows, during the tour Bernero shared that the Lansing Center brings events to downtown where participants stay in motels and eat in restaurants outside the city, including East Lansing and nearby townships. He said these functions bring “heads in beds” to these outlying businesses and, as a result, the county should help pay for the Lansing Center.
How much could be saved by transitioning the ownership and operation of the city convention facility to a county authority? Have there been talks to do this?
There’s precedent for doing this with similar action taken with Potter Park Zoo on the city’s south side. How much money was saved by the city in spreading the support base to a wider area? Here’s the video:
