A group of citizens in Grand Haven, not affiliated with the Board of Light and Power, has created an organization called the Board of Light and Power Charter Change Coalition (BLPCCC). They have circulated a petition and collected enough signatures to have an initiative placed on the November 2023 election ballot in the City of Grand Haven. If passed, the initiative will remove the Board of Light and Power’s long-standing responsibilities to provide reliable, cost efficient electricity to the tri-cities area and re-make the BLP as an advisory to the Grand Haven City Council.
On June 19, 2023, Mike Westbrook, Chairman of the Board of Light and Power, gave public comment at the Ferrysburg City Council Meeting.
“I understand your council will hear a presentation later tonight regarding the city charter change. If approved this November, this amendment would dissolve the elected Board of Light and Power, and place the electric utility solely under the control of the Grand Haven city charter for city council.
It’s first important to understand that the Board of Light and Power is a technical body with the immensely important goal of providing reliable service at the lowest possible cost to people of the Grand Haven area including the people of the City of Ferrysburg. The BLP is not a political body. We are non-partisan, and frankly we never have been. The BLP is elected to six-year terms for a reason. It can take years to understand the extreme complex nature of an electric utility. You can’t learn that in just a couple of years, or a recent appointment. Each Grand Haven mayor has a two-year term, which is why by its very nature, city council can become somewhat political.
When ratepayers turn on the lights, they expect the lights to come on. They expect heat to come on when they turn on the furnace in the winter. These are basic and incredibly important needs that we all share, and it is not something that we should play politics with. It is also important to note that no risk analysis has been done on what may happen if the Grand Haven Board of Light and Power is dissolved. The organization spearheading this amendment has presented no hard data or research on exactly what could happen. The reason no data has been presented is simple. It’s because there is no knowledge of any publicly owned utility that has ever dissolved a municipal electric utility, according to the president of the American Public Power Association (APPA). []
Reliability at the Grand Haven Board of Light and Power has increased substantially over the years, to the point where now it is one of the most reliable public power utilities in the nation, and rated by the APPA, which is excellent. That is something we can all be proud of. The BLP is performing significantly better than both state and national averages when comes to outage tracking, restoration, and overall system reliability. We have been doing tons of things to upgrade our transmission system with our capital improvement plan. The BLP has improved its reliability while decreasing its rates several times over the last six years. In fact, we just approved the 2023 budget, and we actually decreased our budget. I think it was a sliver. It wasn’t much, but we actually decreased in a time of high inflation, which is something I know all of you are dealing with.[]
Again, there is absolutely no telling what would happen to ratepayer’s utility bills if this were approved. UKNOWN. It is also important to understand that the BLP is a community owned and locally controlled utility. What this means is that money in our budget is not our money; it’s our ratepayer’s money. Injecting any form of politics into a utility that is providing reliable, affordable, and sustainable, service to our region seems kind of foolish to me.”
This ballot initiative could have a significant effect on the customers of the Grand Haven Board of Light and Power. When you go to the polls this November, make sure you are armed with facts. Do your research and be an informed voter.