ASMSU officials will address East Lansing officials with recommendations for changes to the city's party-noise ordinance at the next council meeting.
Members from MSU's undergraduate student government passed a bill during a Student Assembly meeting Thursday night to present five clarifications and revisions to the policy.
ASMSU Community Affairs Director Lynsey Little said council members have expressed a desire to wait for the policy to have been enforced for at least one year before they would act on changes to the ordinance. But some ASMSU officials couldn't wait that long.
"We know that we had some time to create revisions," Little said. "But we didn't want to wait because we wanted to stay on top of this while it was still fresh."
City officials said the ordinance, passed eight weeks ago, was created to limit both dangerous and loud parties in the East Lansing community.
The policy defines party noise as having at least two party indicators, which include entrance fees, kegs, live entertainment, loud outdoor music or having more than one person per 20 square feet of habitable living space.
The ordinance mandates jail time and fines of up to $1,000 for the most severe party-noise offenders.
The proposed changes to the ordinance will not change the policy's intent to limit large and dangerous parties but will add clarity to broad language within the ordinance, Little said.
"The intent was good," she said. "But these are problems that need to be solved in a better fashion."
Eliminating jail time was the first recommendation to improve the ordinance, said Kevin Glandon, Student Assembly vice chairperson for external affairs.
The ASMSU recommendation suggests the council change the policy to include groups of party indicators. They created three new conditions from the council's original five.
Under the new amendments, all three indicators would have to be present at a party to be fined for the ordinance.
East Lansing City Councilmember Bev Baten said once ASMSU has had the legality of the proposed amendments looked over, she has no problem with considering the changes to the ordinance.
"I have always been open to what students have to say and I have no objection to taking the ordinance and reworking it," she said. "Once ASMSU asks for a work session, hopefully we can reach a final interpretation of what we are doing with the ordinance."
Student Assembly representative for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Glenn Sterner voiced his approval of the changes during the meeting before the bill passed by consent.
"What we wanted to do was to get the students' voices heard, and I think that this makes a great statement to the city," he said.
