(At the 46:00 minute mark at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5gpO7wmL8U .)
Joseph Parnell McCarter, Georgetown Township, volunteer leader of SaveTheCampbell effort.
An elected County Administrator with a home rule county charter is a common sense solution to address some of the major challenges Ottawa County faces. The political dynamics of Ottawa County are such that a County Administrator appointed by the Board of Commissioners is highly problematic. Candidates keep backing out, and now even the Double Haul search firm has backed out.
With an elected County Administrator, the Board of Commissioners could retain its policy-making and Administrator oversight roles. The dynamics between the Board of Commissioners and the elected County Administrator would be more constructive under this framework. Ottawa County is already used to an elected County Sheriff, County Prosecutor, etc. An elected County Administrator just extends that proven format.
A home rule county charter comes with the other advantage of more local control capability, which is especially useful now regarding the Campbell and electric utility services. MLive had an excellent recent article entitled “Why are Michigan’s residential power rates so high? ‘This is getting outrageous’“. It shows how high Consumers Energy electric rates are compared with alternatives, and just recently Consumers Energy has asked for one of the highest rate hikes in decades. In contrast, Ottawa County’s locally controlled utilities have much lower electric rates. For example, the article cites how Consumers Energy charges 18.8 cents/kilowatt-hour compared with Zeeland’s 10.4 cents/kilowatt-hour. The townships with Consumers Energy will need the assistance of the Ottawa County Board to get local control of electric, and a home rule county charter is arguably the easiest means to facilitate such.
We would also ask this Board to pass a resolution that Consumers Energy foregoes seeking cost recovery to keep the Campbell plant operationally available, but instead offsets those costs by reducing its Net Zero expenditures and delaying its Net Zero implementation, as well as seriously exploring providing an AI data center with some of the electric provided by the Campbell, in order that residential electric rates can be reduced. This would respond to Consumers Energy current course to seek cost recovery.
Thanks for considering these proposals.