The city also amended the Human Rights Commission budget to return the total of $2,000 in proposed cuts to their budget. 

For ELIPOC, that budget allows them to hire a consultant to analyze the use-of-force reports they get from police for the 2026 fiscal year. ELIPOC Commissioner Chris Root said that they’re “still working on completing a contract with a consultant to analyze the 2025 data” at the commission’s Wednesday meeting. 

Root is drafting the use-of-force section of the commission’s 2025 annual report, which describes that year’s work, review of complaints against ELPD officers, study of use-of-force incidents and observations about officer encounters with individuals in crisis, juveniles and people experiencing homelessness.   

Last year, they hired a consultant to analyze use-of-force spreadsheets created by ELPD and ELIPOC, which ELPD gave them access to in early January last year when they requested it. 

However, this year that process has been much more difficult. ELIPOC’s January request for the use-of-force spreadsheet including all aggregated 2025 use-of-force data this year was not fulfilled until June 4.  

ELPD does not plan to release a 2025 annual use-of-force report according to Root, after previously releasing them for the two years prior. As such, ELIPOC is the only source for this year’s use-of-force report.  

“They're not going to do one (a use-of-force report). If we don't get the spreadsheet and a contract with somebody to actually use the spreadsheet to do some serious analysis, then we're just going to go here without any information about use-of-force in this town,” Root said in an interview with The State News. “Is that really what the city and the police department want? Do you think that is going to be satisfactory to people in this town?” 

One concern listed in an analysis of the 2024 ELIPOC use-of-force report was inconsistencies in ELPD’s data gathering and entry methods.  

In 2025, Root said that ELPD changed the information they included in use-of-force reports multiple times, going so far as taking out descriptions of incidents including date and location information and replacing it with “two sentences that were just standard for every single incident about 'the police department follows practices and policies’” in November reports. 

In March, ELIPOC received much fuller information than in previous months, but information about officers’ gender and race was still left out, which is crucial to their reports. With muddled data from ELPD, there are concerns about how accurate ELIPOC reports can be.  

ELIPOC’s main concern remains to be the commission’s ability to perform their duties amidst what they call transparency issues with ELPD and the city.  

Before the proposed budget cuts, EL City Council moved to strip the Human Rights Commission of their investigative powers on May 26. This comes months after the ELIPOC was stripped of their investigative powers last year.  

The new ordinance revisions would also protect the city of East Lansing and all its departments and officials from any complaints filed against them by the HRC. Instead, the revisions propose, complaints against these individuals should be filed with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or the courts instead. 

In an email correspondence, HRC commissioner Matthew Boughton told The State News his opinion on the matter, expressing that in over 60 years, city attorneys have never had a problem with the HRC ordinance, and that in fact, they have readily participated in previous investigations without concern about it.  

“After being faced with the fact that the ordinance calls the HRC to investigate all violations fairly and equally, regardless of the perpetrators’ connection with the city, they now seek to curb the HRC’s powers,” Boughton wrote. “City Council and the city’s attorneys would rather disenfranchise people who are treated unjustly and then spend vast resources fighting against them rather than actually do anything to address systemic problems in the city’s policing.” 

The City Attorney Steven Joppich and EL City Council argued that independent HRC investigations into city staff violate the city charter. 

These changes come after an incident where ELPD pepper-sprayed two Black men on campus during welcome week in August, Lonnie Smith, 21, and Mason Woods, 22. 

ELPD sent a press release that named Smith and Woods after the incident, which violated a city policy that stops press releases from including the names of detainees unless a serious crime has been committed out of concern for reputational harm. The release was allegedly penned by Police Chief Jennifer Brown without going through the appropriate channels for publishing.

After the incident, the HRC issued corrective actions to the city at its May meeting, including that the city pay Smith and Woods $50,000 each for reputational harm and other damages, and that the city cover any ongoing medical, psychological and legal costs. 

The HRC voted to hold a public hearing on June 8 to gather community feedback on the proposed changes before the commission provides an opinion to EL City Council for consideration. 

At the city council meeting on June 2, members of ELIPOC and the HRC expressed their concerns about the proposed changes to the HRC ordinance. 

ELIPOC commissioner Robin Etchison raised concerns about EL City Council not reflecting the city it represents and that it is pushing the city’s human rights progress backwards while costing its citizens, adding “This is 2026, not 1926.” 

“You've talked about transparency and accountability, but everything I witnessed over the last going on five years with this city council and even some of the previous city councils, that all your actions are against transparency and accountability,” Etchison said at the meeting. “You actually dumbed down the ELIPOC commission. Now you're trying to dumb down the Human Rights Commission. What is the problem?” 

If the changes are approved, it would mark the second time EL City Council has moved to take powers from its commissions which deal with city employees in nearly a year, following the restrictions in ELIPOC’s investigative powers in 2025.  

The EL City Council has voted to introduce the ordinance amendments and could pass the changes at the June 16 meeting.