To the casual Grand Cafe Sir Pizza customer Monday night, it appeared something was going on, but truth being told, it was a little bit more then just a few friends getting together. The Greater Lansing Hispanic Chamber of Commerce sponsored a Meet and Greet and about 50 people gathered to welcome Vincent Delgado who was just recently appointed to serve on the Lansing City Council. Delgado is an Assistant Dean for Civic Engagement with Michigan State University’s Residential College in the Arts and Humanities. He is known also for co-founding the Refugee Development Center in Lansing and at one point co-chaired the Ingham Power of We Consortium. There were plenty of Leaders from the Latino community who showed up to welcome and get a chance to talk with Vincent about issues they would like to see addressed. One of the questions that could be heard was if he was going to run for the seat when its term ends? Delgado has already made it known that he does intend to run for a full term later this year in November when the seat is up for election. In this day and age of people needing to see “advocates, teachers, politicians, representatives, etc. who look like us”, his intentions to run was a good news to many. Delgado also replaces Quinney as the only male on the Council as the other seven are women.
Not since January of 2003 has a Latino served on the Lansing City Council. Its been 12 years since Tony Benavides graced the Lansing City Council. For the Latino community, its felt like a generation. Vincent Delgado was formerly sworn in on Monday, February 23, 2015 and thus fills the seat that had been held by Derrick Quinney who resigned to become Ingham County’s Register of Deeds. He beat out 24 other candidates for the seat until January 1, 2016 which was when Mr. Quinney’s term ended. His bio on the Lansing City Council website states that Vincent received a Masters Degree from Western Michigan (4.0 GPA), but also uses the words “With a passion for local government” to describe himself. Delgado certainly appears to be well qualified to help lead a city which is never short of budget woes, school district issues, and the continuing saga of the Board of Water and Light. But on a Council that seems to be well known for Pro-Virg and Anti-Virg factions, lets hope Delgado can manage to be Pro-People while navigating the political waters well enough to position himself for the November elections. To reach Vincent Delgado: http://www.lansingmi.gov/Derrick_Quinney (note: City of Lansing has yet to change the website url to Mr. Delgado.) Greater Lansing Hispanic Chamber: Jose Yanez President 517-974-2238
