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Commissioners press for nonpartisan guardrails as county considers Discover Greater Lansing partnership
Summary
A proposed Discover Greater Lansing partnership that would share county social-media content prompted concerns that county Facebook pages must remain strictly nonpartisan; at least one commissioner cited a recent partisan post on the county's engagement page and urged stronger safeguards. The transcript does not record a final vote on the concern.
Commissioners debated whether the Discover Greater Lansing partnership — which includes digital promotion, partner Facebook posts and shared web pages — would allow county Facebook pages to be republished in partner content and whether that posed a risk of partisan messaging appearing to be county communications.
"The Ingham County ethics policy also states that communications must not ... represent an official county position," Commissioner Schafer said, criticizing a February 27 post that he said endorsed a candidate on the county-branded Facebook page. "This should never occur on an official county government communications platform. Regardless of the party, we should never have partisan endorsements on a county Facebook page."
Other commissioners urged focusing on the contract before the board rather than on an unspecified social-media account and said specific complaints about individual pages should be brought forward through administrative channels. One member said the contract is largely for health-department and parks promotion and that the benefits for public information could be significant if the county's pages remain nonpartisan.
The transcript records the debate and calls for follow-up with the controller and board director but does not include a recorded roll-call vote resolving the specific social-media concern during the segment provided. Commissioners said they would follow up administratively and review the county's Facebook accounts as needed.
