The resolution to “Save The Campbell” prepared and unanimously approved by the Utilities Committee of the Georgetown Township Board failed to pass the newly installed Township Board in a 3 to 4 vote. (Here is video of the Board meeting in which the draft resolution was discussed.) It had been poised to pass by the old Township Board whose term recently ended.
It is our hope that the concerns expressed by those voting “no” can be addressed and a resolution can be passed to “Save The Campbell”. Here was my email to the Board following the vote, seeking to address those concerns:
“I want to thank the Board for the way you seriously deliberated the issue of the Campbell plant and our electric utilities. I was obviously hoping for a different vote result, but God knew better.
I hope you do not mind if I respond to 2 key concerns:
1. Are the Campbell plant and our electric utilities a Georgetown Board issue?
Yes. Please consider what the Zeeland BPW website says: “Zeeland BPW provides Residential electric rates that are nearly 58% below that of Consumers Energy and Industrial rates are approximately 20% below that of Consumers Energy.” (https://zeelandbpw.com/vote/)
Decades ago the leaders of Zeeland decided, and the community concurred, to stop using Consumers Energy and to locally control their electric; Georgetown has legal avenues to do the same. (One avenue would be to convert the township into a city [https://www.mml.org/pdf/charter_revision/chapter1.pdf] like Norton Shores did, and municipalize the electric.) Right now the Michigan Public Service Commission calls the shots of what Consumers Energy does and how much profit it makes regarding electric for Georgetown, but Georgetown does not have to let that be the case. Ottawa County, in which Georgetown is the largest municipality by a significant extent, has the legal ability (via county charter) to municipalize the Campbell plant and even all of the electric infrastructure in Ottawa County not already municipalized. Michigan law gives us that local power, and as our local leaders you decide how much we should seek to avail of it.
So as the elected leaders of Georgetown, you have significant authority and responsibility regarding local electric utilities. If the citizens of Georgetown are not being well served by the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) regarding our electric utilities, then we look to you to lead in addressing it. Expressing concern in a resolution is quite appropriate and even necessary.
If things go badly with our electric locally, then we have mostly ourselves to blame, because Michigan law gives us lots of local authority in this area.
2. Is the Michigan Public Service Commission serving the interests of Georgetown citizens well in its current management of electric utilities policy implemented by Consumers Energy, especially relating to the Campbell plant?
No, and it goes far beyond pricing concerns compared with Zeeland BPW. It is irresponsible for the MPSC to have us speeding in high gear down a path that our electric grid operator MISO warns against (https://savethecampbell.com/net-zero-goals-likely-to-turn-off-michigans-electricity-grid-per-study-of-the-mackinac-center-for-public-policy/ ). MISO warns against precipitous closure of fossil fuel plants (https://www.misoenergy.org/meet-miso/media-center/2024/oms-miso-survey-results-indicate-tight-resource-capacity-in-the-upcoming-planning-year/ ). It is especially troubling that MPSC/Consumers Energy plan to demolish the Campbell in 2025, because that means a poor decision cannot be readily reversed. Reliable electric can be a matter of life and death, and it is also important to our economic well-being. We should not be taking undue risks in this area, and we should not be the guinea pigs in a grand experiment. At a minimum the Campbell should not be demolished (even if partially or fully closed) for the next 5-10 years so that we can fall back on it if MISO’s warnings prove true.
Thanks for your service to the community, and have a blessed Thanksgiving!
Joseph Parnell McCarter
Georgetown Township, MI
SaveTheCampbell.com