Joseph Parnell McCarter, Georgetown Township.
I would like to congratulate the County Board for a successful start to the new term. I applaud the way you have streamlined Board meetings, including all members in not only the regular Board meetings, but also the standing committees. You have fairly allocated board assignments among members, and you have maintained participative comment periods. You have also adopted the common sense Commissioners Only invocations like most of the township boards do it, and your selection of interim administrator was sound.
But I would remind the Board again that the clock is ticking on our county Campbell plant that provides reliable electric to 1 million regional customers. The cautious thing to do is to quickly pass a resolution calling on Consumers Energy to delay its closure, because once closure and demolition begins in May 2025, everything becomes much more expensive and problematic.
All facts point in one direction: the closure should be delayed. The two preeminent experts on our regional grid, our regional grid operator MISO, along with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, are issuing urgent warnings about our region’s electric grid and advising delay in closure of coal plants like the Campbell to avoid a dangerous situation for our regional grid. Michigan law recognizes the need to delay closures when grid problems would result. The “national energy emergency” program of the new Trump Administration calls for coal plant closure delays, recognizing growing electric demand. Five township boards in the county have already passed resolutions- almost all unanimously- and there is good reason to believe more are on the way. Michigan law gives municipalities legal powers over electric when they choose to exercise them, as exemplified by how Grand Haven, Zeeland, and Holland all successfully have municipalized electric. The County can and should join Wolverine Power in legal action to delay closure, if Consumers Energy and MPSC fail to heed a resolution request.
Since legal action may well be necessary and soon, I would encourage this Board as soon as possible to obtain qualified top notch corporate counsel that the Board majority can trust, but that respects the reasonable concerns of the Board minority.
The immediate objective of the “Save The Campbell” effort is to save the Campbell from 2025 closure and demolition, but the second objective very much tied into the first is getting local control of electric for the rest of Ottawa County which does not yet have it. I would encourage this Board to start considering the significant advantages of our County adopting a home rule county charter patterned after Macomb County’s, which offers our county many advantages, including local control of electric.
Again, congratulations for a successful start, and thanks for your consideration of these requests.
(Comment at 50:50 in the Commissioners Meeting at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0JoD5mjrtU&t=14432s . )