Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero says he wants four more years in office. He formally announced his campaign today.
“I’m telling you folks … Lansing is on the verge,” the partisan crowd groaned, and then laughed, as Virg Bernero joked at his campaign kickoff.
He’s spent the past eight years as Lansing’s mayor. During that time, the city’s budget has shrunk as property taxes have dwindled. But Bernero says the capitol city’s economy is now rebounding from years of recession. The mayor highlighted recent announcements of expansions at General Motors and Jackson National Life Insurance.
“Just in my time as mayor, we’ve leveraged now a billion dollars of new investment. Ten thousand jobs in Lansing,” Bernero told the crowd at his campaign headquarters.
So far, Bernero faces little opposition to his bid for a third term as Lansing’s mayor.
If reelected, Bernero says, during the next four years, he wants to see a casino built in downtown Lansing.
“That’s going to put the icing on the cake in downtown Lansing … and continue to build downtown Lansing … as the cash register … the economic hub … for the entire region and especially the city,” Bernero says.
A federal judge has blocked the casino project. The judge found the project violates federal law and a state Indian gaming compact. The Upper Peninsula tribe behind the casino project is appealing the injunction.
