Bath Township officials are claiming the MSU students who filed petitions to annex more than 1,000 acres of land to East Lansing were receiving the direct help and financial assistance of city officials.

The students, Jonathan Rosenthal, a business administration and pre-law senior, and Lynsey Little, an interdisciplinary studies in social science junior, as well as city officials have denied those accusations.

Rosenthal is the former lobbyist for East Lansing concerns for ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government. Little is an employee at the East Lansing City Attorney’s Office.

“Obviously they have open communication to city officials,” Bath Superintendent Scott Adkins said. “We know there’s been some interaction.”

East Lansing officials and the students say the city’s involvement has been restricted to basic advice about the annexation process.

“Say what you want, but I think it is a complete insult to think that a couple of middle-aged white guys on the East Lansing City Council convinced these independent-minded students on student government that they were going to be our puppets and manipulate this annexation,” East Lansing City Manager Ted Staton said.

“For anybody in that township to say that, reflects their ignorance about student government, student leadership and politics.”

Township officials also have said state annexation laws are unfair and need to be changed. The petitions calling for an annexation only included about five people’s names because so few people lived in the area at the time. The petition was filed May 2.

The proposal would annex 1,056 acres of Bath Township land east of Chandler Road into East Lansing. The land includes Melrose Apartments, 16789 Chandler Road.

East Lansing would get an additional $190,000 per year in tax revenue if the annexation is approved in an Aug. 6 election by city voters and residents of the disputed land.

But Staton and the petitioners insist the annexation is not about money, but about the well-being of the residents.

Melrose resident Sean Heiney said public safety is an important issue. He said it took township police 45 minutes to respond to a call he made after he heard screams from the parking lot near his room.

“Someone was being harassed, so we called central dispatch and told them it could be life threatening,” Heiney said. “Forty-five minutes is an unacceptable amount of time for a response.”

But the township superintendent rebuked that claim.

“There has never been a 45-minute response time that we’re aware of,” Adkins said.

Staton said East Lansing could help with any public safety coverage problems to the apartment complex.

“We’re two minutes away and we have at least seven full-time firefighters 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Staton said. “If you’re a volunteer firefighter in Bath, you’re likely to be home in bed when they call, and you put your clothes on as quickly as you can, hop on the fire truck and go.”

Rosenthal said if the township cannot provide services now, then it won’t be able to when 1,000 vacant acres included in the proposed annexation are developed.

But Adkins said because so few people live on much of that land, there are no realistic worries about public safety on much of the disputed area.

“If the issue is over 1,000 acres with nobody on it, it doesn’t make sense to worry about 1,000 vacant acres,” Adkins said.

Adkins said Friday at a press conference for annexation law reform that the police officer-to-student ratio in Bath Township is 1-to-750, whereas in East Lansing that number is worse.

“I think (Adkins) is just trying to flash numbers, hoping that people won’t figure it out,” Little said, adding the township is not ready to handle the about 3,200 people who could live at Melrose.

“I feel they’re trying to discredit us because we’re 21. They’re trying to treat us like little immature people.”

Little said the township’s claims that she and Rosenthal received financial incentives from East Lansing are false.

“We did not receive any financial incentives, we initiated this with the city,” she said. “It’s getting to the point where they’re trying to ruin my character.”

Staff writer Kurt Ludke contributed to this story.

Kristofer Karol can be reached at karolkri@msu.edu.