I have read a letter to the editor in The City Pulse that calls people who want to save the garden "myopic blatherskites"! and "Luddites"!,people who of course have no idea of how an electric utility works. Wow way to use the dictionary! This guy sounds like an grumpy old man to me, his father worked for Detroit Ed. so he knows all about it. We have to choose, do we want electricity or a garden? If garden supporters love nature so much they should go and live off the grid! Of course we can not have both. Or perhaps the garden supporters should pay the extra money that it would cost to put the substation somewhere else! I would assume that this fellow who lives in East Lansing does not go to REOtown, and may have never even visited the park. I am just pointing this letter out because it was so nasty, but also may represent the views of the folks at the BWL and the mayor's office. The citizens should just shut up, and the us do what we want! Sorry no way!
The contractors for the BWL are really doing some drastic utility cuts through the trees all over town. Some streets that had shade over the whole street now are in the blazing sunshine. Where once you saw an archway of tree bows, now the trees are cut in half, with no branches over the street and all you notice is the utility poles and wires running down the street. Here in REOtown they cut some really big trees along the river trail on both sides of the river. The Grand Tower building now towers over the neighborhood, made visible by the loss of the trees that shaded the trail and apartments on the other side. There is a huge black walnut tree right next to the bridge on the trail, that they cut right through the middle of, and near by cut down all the small trees and shrubs and just left it a big mess. The cottonwood trees there were over 60 feet tall, that walnut tree has to be over 100 years old. I believe there is way to have trees and electricity. They are being overzelist and careless and even heartless, it would seem that speed was the only thing they take in consideration. Sorry you know I'm a tree guy!
The solution to cutting down the trees is to bury the power lines. Lansing, and the State of Michigan government, need to make large-scale infrastructure plans to move power lines underground. The changes will create jobs for the work needed, and create a more stable electrical infrastructure for the future of the state.
I agree. It makes me wonder how much it cost to trim all these trees, or when we have a wind or ice storm. They had a really bad ice storm in Eastern Canada in'98 which took weeks and weeks to recover from. With the climate change Mid Michigan could see an ice storm like that, even worse than the one we had around here a few years ago. Putting utilities underground would be a great solution, to many problems. and could be built as part of a street rebuilding plan. I think there would be different challenges underground but would pay for itself every time there was a bad storm.
LANSING - The Lansing City Council on Monday signed off on a plan to put an electrical substation on a piece of park land bordering the downtown area.
In the face of strong opposition from a coalition of activists, council members approved resolutions that will allow the Lansing Board of Water & Light to build its proposed $27.9 million Central Substation at the southwest corner of South Washington Avenue and West Malcolm X Street.
The gross thing was that it wasn't even a close vote: 7 to 1. I'm kind of at a lost for words. I know who is not getting my votes anymore in city council elections, that's for sure. Crazy thing is that I never voted for Carol Wood, and this has basically flipped me to her. The other funny thing is that while the historical nature of the site was certainly one of my reasons for opposing this, my biggest reason was simply that there were other in-your-face obvious options. That they wouldn't even show their work in claiming to have considered these is insane to me.
Finally, whatever pride I had in BWL as a municipally owned utility is gone. The entire point of having a municipally owned utility is to prevent the kind of thing that just happened, here. They did all of this good work with the cogeneration plant in REO Town and then squandered all of their goodwill with this? THIS is the hill they wanted to die on? Well, I'm through with defending them.
Anyway, the group opposing this says they are considering a lawsuit to challenge the legality of the special land use permit granted for this project. It's a hail mary, but I guess this isn't technically a done deal if they file. And, this wouldn't start construction until next spring.
It really saddened me to hear this from the city council. The mayor said he was glad sanity prevailed! Were the opponents insane? They painted such a dark [literally] picture of, it must be build it on the garden or something terrible would likely happen, that it was a choice between having electricity or a park. One councilperson said "it's not about the garden, it's not about the park, it's about electricity! We can't live without electricity!' Wow are we that close to having no electricity? The BWL guy said he did not want to gloat, but!, it was a great victory! For whom? Gum it up with litigation I guess is the only way left. That has worked with other projects, it's too bad now they will be spending money defending a stupid idea.
And, speaking of the devil, it looks like Virg could have his first serious re-election challenge according to a new poll that came out today showing state Rep. Andy Schor crushing Bernero in a head-to-head:
LANSING - If Mayor Virg Bernero decides to run for re-election next year, he could face some stiff competition, according to results from a poll released this week to the Lansing State Journal.
A telephone poll of 363 people conducted over two days this month by Lansing-based DiSano Strategies showed State Rep. Andy Schor, D-Lansing, had a 17.56 percentage point advantage over Bernero if the pair faced off in a mayoral race.
The poll, conducted Sept. 6-7, asked Lansing respondents who they would vote for if the election was held the day they received the call. Schor polled at 58.78% to Bernero's 41.22%. Other questions on the poll also tested support for Council President Judi Brown Clarke. None of the three have yet declared that they will run.
I've been a Virg fan from the beginning, but I've found myself in recent years apologizing more for him than supporting him. This issue could easily finally send me out of his tent, particularly since Schor would be an acceptable and competent alternative. Schor is a good man and good legislator. He's a little more nervous than I like my politicians to be, but he'd be FAR less dictatorial than either Virg or Carol Wood.
BTW, Judi Brown Clarke, another candidate I liked but who I've liked less after seeing in action it also polled, and runs behind Bernero and Schor in head to heads, and in a theoretical three-way primary she doesn't make the top two.
It seems like what ever populists appeal he had has turned into something else. The idea of using downtown parkland as a site for a substation should have never been considered in the first place. Then the idea that this land is somehow free would have never been part of the calculation. One council member said not one member of the Scott family even lives here, why should they care so much? Also that GM said they want that land free for future development, she would not want to jeopardize those future jobs! What? When I see the administration building sitting there rotting away full of junk, and huge empty lots all over town that sounds like a invalid excuse for this vote. I am willing to bet that there are going to be rate hikes even if they build it on the garden. people have framed this in such stark terms. We are the people and I think we should not be cast as anti-jobs, anti-progress, even insane.
I think this is showing that the BWL has too much control. They're basically blackmailing Lansing in to converting this park to a substation, and threatening rate hikes if it's not converted. But even if it's converted, where's the signed contract that says no rate hikes? It was the Eastwood DDA person who said "don't believe anything unless people are willing to sign a contract for it".
Comments
The gross thing was that it wasn't even a close vote: 7 to 1. I'm kind of at a lost for words. I know who is not getting my votes anymore in city council elections, that's for sure. Crazy thing is that I never voted for Carol Wood, and this has basically flipped me to her. The other funny thing is that while the historical nature of the site was certainly one of my reasons for opposing this, my biggest reason was simply that there were other in-your-face obvious options. That they wouldn't even show their work in claiming to have considered these is insane to me.
Finally, whatever pride I had in BWL as a municipally owned utility is gone. The entire point of having a municipally owned utility is to prevent the kind of thing that just happened, here. They did all of this good work with the cogeneration plant in REO Town and then squandered all of their goodwill with this? THIS is the hill they wanted to die on? Well, I'm through with defending them.
Anyway, the group opposing this says they are considering a lawsuit to challenge the legality of the special land use permit granted for this project. It's a hail mary, but I guess this isn't technically a done deal if they file. And, this wouldn't start construction until next spring.
I've been a Virg fan from the beginning, but I've found myself in recent years apologizing more for him than supporting him. This issue could easily finally send me out of his tent, particularly since Schor would be an acceptable and competent alternative. Schor is a good man and good legislator. He's a little more nervous than I like my politicians to be, but he'd be FAR less dictatorial than either Virg or Carol Wood.
BTW, Judi Brown Clarke, another candidate I liked but who I've liked less after seeing in action it also polled, and runs behind Bernero and Schor in head to heads, and in a theoretical three-way primary she doesn't make the top two.
I'm growing pretty tired of Bernero myself but I'll save my rant on him for a time when I have more energy.