East Lansing City Council voted to move downtown taxi stands back to their original Albert Avenue location and also created six additional spaces on the street during its Tuesday meeting at City Hall, 410 Abbot Road.
Police officials’ concerns about safely walking through poorly lit areas toward the M.A.C. Avenue stands prompted the decision. After business owners complained of possible congestion with proposed stands behind the Grove Street Ramp and in the alley behind city parking Lot 1 — a surface area lot on Albert Avenue between Abbot Road and M.A.C. Avenue — the city concluded the nine stands at the 100-200 block of Albert Avenue and an extra six on the street’s south side 300-block were the best option, said Nicole Evans, East Lansing city clerk.
“What it pretty much came down to is we tried pretty much every place we could to establish a taxi stand but were running into a conflict with our businesses,” she said. “And we don’t want to do that because the whole idea is to serve those patrons at these taxi stands.”
The stands will operate between 6 p.m. and 4 a.m. to offer most late night customers a ride home.
Dan O’Connor, East Lansing parking administrator, said he believed Albert Avenue was the best spot for taxi stands.
“They’re more visible and accessible to the customers of the downtown,” he said. “They looked at several other locations on M.A.C. (Avenue), south of Albert (Avenue), in the alley just south of Albert (Avenue) … they just looked to see wherever they could make it work and make it fit.”
Service charge tabled
Councilmembers approved people a $2 fee to access property and tax information online, creating a net savings of $4,810 for the city.
The city previously offered free property and tax information through Bath Township-based BS&A Software by paying the company an upfront $3,610 annual fee. The city rid itself Tuesday of this cost by charging users $2 per hit, with 80 percent of each hit going to BS&A and the remaining 20 percent — an estimated $1,200 — to the city.
Taxpayers still will be able to access their own records online for free and anyone can view records in person at City Hall. People still can look up who owns properties free of charge, but information beyond that point — such as outstanding taxes and assessed home values — is subject to the $2 fee.
Beard said he was hesitant to charge area residents who might just want to access such information to get a better idea of the surrounding neighborhood. He did, however, agree that shifting the system’s overall financial burden to the appraisers and realtors who use the service most frequently made sense.
Councilmember Roger Peters said any avenue to cut costs must be explored. He said although the amount saved through the proposal doesn’t seem like much, every penny matters as the city faces difficult budgetary choices.
“Right now we are so focused on saving money on everything we can that so called little things like this, they do add up,” he said. “We are going to have to focus on as many things as we can to help our budget situation and this may be one of those things.”
Support student media!
Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
Discussion
Share and discuss “Taxi stands return to Albert Avenue after E.L. City Council vote” on social media.
