East Lansing

East Lansing has slow progress as officials try to improve parks

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The City of East Lansing is just over one year into a five-year plan that aims to improve parks and recreational facilities in the city, but not much progress has been made towards their end goals.. “We didn’t have much in terms of capital investment,” said East Lansing Director of Parks and Recreation Tim McCaffrey. “We focused most of our attention on continuing the operation of the department over the last year. So not a lot in terms of investment like upgrading equipment and parks and things like that but more of maintaining over the last 12 months.”

The East Lansing Parks, Recreation Open Space and Greenways plan was adopted by the East Lansing City Council in February 2015. The plan shows details of how the city hopes to invest in and improve its parks and recreational facilities by the year 2019.

East Lansing

New security cameras in East Lansing elementary schools will be installed in next few weeks

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Max Benoit
Entirely East Lansing

The Elementary schools in East Lansing will be getting a security upgrade soon with the installation of several new security cameras. At the East Lansing School Board meeting on March 28, East Lansing Director of Technology and Media Services, Christian Palasty, discussed plans of installing new security cameras in all of the district’s elementary schools. “We’re adding them to just get better coverage,” Palasty said. “One of the principals came up to me and said that it would be good to put them in a couple of spots that didn’t have much coverage.”

The installation of the security cameras are a part of a technology plan that started from a bond that was issued back in 2012. The end goal of the technology plan being to upgrade and expand on the district-wide network infrastructure.

East Lansing

East Lansing City Council and school board look into future shared services

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By Max Benoit
Entirely East Lansing

The East Lansing City Council and East Lansing School Board met on March 21 to start discussions on future possibilities of shared services involving the parks and recreation department. “What we talked about this evening is some of the shared services that do exist and we are looking at ideas that we could possibly expand on,” said Tim McCaffrey, who is the director of parks and recreation in the city of East Lansing. Part of the discussion between the school board and city council revolved around looking into opportunities that exist for shared services that would expand on the current relationships. “The city built the soccer complex. Part of the relationship now is that there is no cost associated with the use for the soccer complex for the high school soccer program,” said McCaffrey.

Arts & Entertainment

Stars of East Lansing High School’s musical ready to perform

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By Max Benoit
Entirely East Lansing

After months of preparation, the stars of East Lansing High School’s production of “Legally Blonde the Musical” are glad that it’s finally showtime. The lead actors were excited to get out and perform the first of their five shows on Wednesday, March 16. “Finally being on stage was one of the best feelings. It was like the fruit to your labor,” said Matt Wiesner, a junior who plays the role of Emmett. Wiesner was one of the stars of the show along with fellow junior Samantha White, who plays Elle.

East Lansing

East Lansing residents react to presidential candidates ahead of Michigan primary next week

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By Max Benoit
Entirely East Lansing

With Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton the clear

frontrunners in the presidential race, some East Lansing residents are worried about the upcoming Michigan presidential primary. “I can’t believe Trump is making a spectacle and doing as well as he is doing,” said Randy Shepherd, a resident of Lansing who is retired from General Motors. “I mean it scares me honestly.”

Shepherd said that it is Trump’s inexperience with politics that has him nervous. “He’s doing way too well,” Shepherd said. “Yeah he runs businesses and makes money, but I don’t know if he honestly would be good at running a country.

East Lansing

People from all over Michigan enjoy MSU's Destination Auction

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By Max Benoit
Entirely East Lansing

Hundreds of people gathered at MSU’s Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center to find bargains on great travel packages and other items at Saturday’s Destination Auction. The Destination Auction took place this past weekend and featured both a live auction and silent auction. It is the premier fundraising event for the School of Hospitality Business at MSU. The 25th annual event was run entirely by MSU students and raised money for the School of Hospitality Business as well as the alumni association and two local charities. “We donate to the Junior League of Lansing and the MSUFCU Institute for arts and creativity at the Wharton Center,” said Sammi Miller, a senior in the School of Hospitality Business as well as the chief executive officer for the event.

East Lansing

East Lansing commuters enjoy low gas prices while they can

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By Max Benoit
Entirely East Lansing

The gas prices in East Lansing have plummeted below $2 a gallon, and residents and commuters are enjoying it while they can. “I hope that it never goes up again,” said Andrew Cusmano, an East Lansing resident for the last five years while attending MSU. “When I was in high school, it was nearing five dollars a gallon. That was just absurd.”

Cusmano added that if there are low gas prices, that is one less financial burden that he has to worry about. “I drive five, maybe six days a week and I fill up my tank once every couple of weeks,” Cusmano said.

East Lansing

Five questions with Michael Popovich

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Michael Popovich
Home town: Grosse Pointe Woods
East Lansing resident since 1997
Works at the East Lansing Public Library as a Librarian Assistant

What do you do as a Librarian Assistant? I hired in as IT (information technology). As tech services type stuff, like doing computer work, and they found that I was really good at doing reference so now I’m like a reference librarian here. But I do a little bit of everything. I do tech work, I help with all the computers and such, I help patrons if they have any problems on the PC’s or with their own equipment, I do one on one training with them for computers or tablets or phones or cameras.

East Lansing

Presidential Primary Election Falls in the Middle of MSU Spring Break

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By Max Benoit
Entirely East Lansing

The Michigan presidential primary is March 8, but so is Michigan State University’s spring break. Spring break for MSU runs from March 7 to the 11 with the presidential primary falling in the middle. Whether the timing of spring break will significantly impact the presidential primary remains to be seen, but Christian Gray, a 22-year-old senior majoring in political theory believes that the conflicting events will have a negative effect on voting. “A lot of students are going home or going on vacation,” said Gray, who is currently leaning toward Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. “That’s kind of where their focus is rather than, you know, playing a part as a voter.