Sparsely attended public hearings at East Lansing City Council meetings have one council member worried about the number of people speaking out about issues affecting the community.
Councilmember Bill Sharp said attendance at public hearings held during City Council meetings fluctuates depending on the issues being discussed.
"It's usually the NIMBY effect," he said. "(It stands for) Not In My Backyard. Put it in your backyard. If the NIMBY effect doesn't apply, you're not going to get many people attending."
Sharp said he's noticed a decrease in people attending recent public hearings.
"The council has sensed the feeling of the community and the desires of the community," he said. "We've smoothed over a few things so we don't have as many controversial issues as we've had before. We're listening to the people. My own gut feeling is there aren't the issues now that there used to be."
City commissions have held public forums on a proposed amendment to the smoking ordinance and the construction of cell phone towers on East Grand River Avenue and Trowbridge Road in the past few months. Both forums attracted small groups of speakers.
Under state law, City Council is required to hold public hearings at its meetings concerning topics such as rezoning property or setting up ordinances.
City Attorney Dennis McGinty said Michigan's Open Meetings Act requires all meetings of a public body to be held in public session and establishes notification of public hearings.
"Public hearings are established by lots of different laws," he said. "And those laws may have different or exclusive requirements. Any government that wants to rezone property or grant special-use permits usually has a public hearing. It depends on a particular enabling statute that sets up the enabling process."
The act also calls for public meetings' minutes to be recorded, in addition to other requirements.
"For example, if you want to put in a new street, you have to have a public hearing," McGinty said. "You also mail a notice to all the people that might be assessed. Different notice requirements apply for different restrictions. If you want to set up a historic district, you have to notify people in the district."
Mayor Mark Meadows said the council holds many public hearings because it is bound by law, but also because it wants to hear from the community.
"We do public hearings to give people the opportunity to speak," he said. "We go the extra nine yards. We have a lot of public hearings because we try to do everything in bright glare of the public eye."
However people can't be forced to attend, Meadows said.
"You can't really hold it over someone's head and make them come out and speak," he said. "If they feel strongly about it they'll come out and speak. It really just depends on the issue, but we give everybody an opportunity to speak no matter what."
Megan Higgins, an interdisciplinary studies in social science junior, said public hearings are important because they inform the community about issues directly affecting them.
"People should be concerned as a whole and should be there as a whole," she said. "Public hearings are definitely awesome because you can reach many people at one time."
Although Higgins said she has yet to attend a public hearing, the upcoming planning commission's East Village Master Plan public hearing on Nov. 9 has her attention.
"I don't know enough to have a valid opinion," she said. "I'd like to read more about it. I feel like anything that concerns MSU students should affect everyone in the community."
