Newly elected Mayor of East Lansing Mark Meadows called the Nov. 17 East Lansing City Council meeting a night of new and old.

Meadows, who said he considers himself more old to council than new, wore the same tie he wore in 1995 when he was first sworn into East Lansing City Council.

After being unanimously elected to the position, Meadows downplayed the importance of his role as mayor.

“I think that my position as mayor is just kind of running the meeting and it’s the five council members that will move things along,” Meadows said. “I think that there’s a common objective among the council members.”

Issues of council member ethics is one issue Meadows and his colleagues would like to address “right out of the gate.”

Although, Meadows said the most important issue to address is that of the vacant buildings on the corner of Grand River Avenue and Abbott Road.

Council has plans to potentially change the city’s dangerous building ordinance in order to allow the city to start addressing the issue of the vacant buildings, which was on the mind of many residents while Meadows was campaigning, he said.

Meadows said the vacant buildings need to be addressed quickly because is it is the first thing people see coming into town from the west. The city needs a signature project in this area built from a community vision, Meadows said.

He also had ideas for other development in the downtown — he said East Lansing needs a mixture of housing projects in the downtown area, noting the city needs people who are here throughout the whole year, as well as partial-year residents.

“You need different types of money being spent in the downtown area in order to support all the businesses,” Meadows said.

Also during his campaign, Meadows talked about alcohol on college campuses.

“It’s the city and the university’s role to address the problem and not just here, but at every college community,” Meadows said.

During his time as a representative Meadows sponsored House bill 4393, which allowed for medical amnesty for some incidents involving alcohol and minors.

Meadows said there are currently too many minor in possession tickets being written in the city. A lot of that is state statue driven, but the city can deal with the issue of underage drinking differently, he said.

“I think we can loosen up a little bit in terms of that and I would rather see us take a kid home than write him a ticket,” Meadows said.

With the three recently elected council members sworn in, Meadows said the plan is to move forward and start solving the issues in East Lansing.