After working in the background of several major elections, East Lansing resident Steve Ross is starting a campaign of his own.
Ross announced his candidacy for East Lansing City Council last week, with the election taking place this November. He graduated from MSU in 2008 with a degree in political science and during his time as a student, volunteered on the election campaigns of John Kerry and Barack Obama.
After graduation, Ross moved to Washington, D.C., to work as part of the White House Travel Office.
“It may sound cheesy,” Ross said. “But the people in D.C. aren’t that nice. I always thought that I would end up there, but I missed the community aspect of East Lansing.”
In 2009 Ross moved back to East Lansing and started his own business, SMR Strategies, a political consulting firm which works with progressive candidates running for public office. He lives with his wife in the Shaw Estates neighborhood.
“I’ve been in the area since 2010 paying attention to the issues,” Ross said. “And I like some things that have been happening and I don’t like some things that have been happening. I think I can be a valuable part of the discussion about where this city is headed.”
Ross’ campaign has “three main themes” that include making neighborhoods a top priority, improving the quality of life and investing in a downtown that works for everybody.
Regarding the downtown development, Ross said he supports the idea of building the area up and urbanizing but feels the residential neighborhoods are sometimes left out of discussions.
“We’ve got crumbling sidewalks, sewage and drainage issues,” he said about issues plaguing residential areas.
His campaign plan calls for high-speed gigabit Internet in residential areas, more neighborhood park maintenance and supporting green initiatives including single-stream recycling.
As downtown development continues, more businesses tailored to MSU students appear and Ross said he fears they may drive older residents to areas like Lansing and Okemos.
“I think some people see students as a problem, and they’re not,” he said. “We need to see businesses that are locally owned and bring people of all ages in.”
Balancing the development of businesses to diversify the economy and housing to retain students in East Lansing has proved to be a major focus of downtown development in the past few years.
As a City Council candidate, Ross said he understands mixed-use developments are needed with low rents in areas which appeal to students. However, he still wants to make neighborhood residents outside of downtown feel like their issues are just as high of a priority.
“There needs to be a balance struck,” Ross said. “The city has been giving a lot of tax breaks to developers that have a lot of money to build these developments around the city. That money is never going to go towards helping our neighborhoods. I’d like to see that money invested into improving the places where we live.”
Even before he announced his candidacy, Ross was talking to East Lansing residents about the issues they hope to see fixed.
“I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not an expert on every issue that will come in front of council,” he wrote on his campaign website. “I’m going to make every effort to not only listen to citizen input on important issues, but make sure it is incorporated into the decision-making process.”
City Council will elect three new members this fall, as well as a new mayor and mayor pro-tem. However, at the moment, Steve Ross’ only goal is to be elected as a voice on the council.
