The “Save The Campbell” effort is not just seeking to make a symbolic statement, but to really succeed in thwarting the Net Zero agenda, especially with a focus on saving the Campbell plant in Ottawa County from planned closure and demolition. That plant is important, because it provides reliable, affordable and environmentally responsible electric to 1 million regional residents, and could even provide more at a time when there is such high demand for electric. It is within Ottawa County, so it is one that the County can control if it so chooses, unlike plants outside of the County.
One of the first things I did at the start of the “Save The Campbell” effort is discuss with one of Michigan’s preeminent attorneys in the field of municipal electric to ascertain the legal strength of various approaches. The plan at https://savethecampbell.com/the-plan-2/ was based upon that advice. It recognizes that leaning upon the following provision in the Michigan Constitution alone is unlikely to result in a win:
““Article VII,§ 15 County intervention in public utility service and rate proceedings. Sec. 15. Any county, when authorized by its board of supervisors shall have the authority to enter or to intervene in any action or certificate proceeding involving the services, charges or rates of any privately owned public utility furnishing services or commodities to rate payers within the county.”
The Michigan courts are not likely to let the Ottawa County Board, using that provision alone, to long delay the closure and demolition of the Campbell plant. The really giant legal tool needed to win this is the charter county option which gives a County Board the ability to municipalize electric utility assets in the county.
While I appreciate that the OI commissioners on the County Board are against the Campbell closure, their opposition to use of the charter option as a tool in the legal battle makes it very hard for the effort to really succeed in a substantive way. The following discussion on a local GOP bulletin board over one year ago shows the nature of that opposition:
I penned the response at https://savethecampbell.com/response-to-county-gop-leadership-objections/ to such objections of charter use in the “save the Campbell” effort.
We do not want the “save the Campbell” effort to end up like the Hambley case. I had warned the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners in Fall 2023 about the legal dangers of pursuing the Hambley termination, but my warnings were not heeded. I fear that the currently planned OI strategy as described in the recent County Board meeting (see 4:26:00 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz7jY4yIpY0&list=PLyDvvIv66xGdxnFV8qE1q-mhjSDl32WsD&index=4) would repeat what happened in the Hambley case, and not learn from it. It is why I have recommended to the Ottawa County Board what I have in my recent speeches to it, such as the one here.
Again, I very much appreciate that the OI contingent on the Ottawa County Board wants to take legal action to “save the Campbell”, unlike the majority faction now in control of the Board which effectively is willing to go along with the Net Zero agenda, but we just need to make sure the strategy we pursue is likely to succeed and not fail in the Michigan courts.
This is a legal battle we need to win, and to win it we likely need all of the legal tools available to us as a county.