Thanks for checking us out.  You can find earlier questions and comments, and make a comment, by scrolling down below this week’s question.

It’s a brand new year.  What do you want us to do?

Each year in January the city commission starts its strategic planning.  This is where priorities get set, plans get made, and dollars get allocated in the next budget.  You can see how this worked last year by checking out this link: http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/commission/GoalsStatus110309.pdf.  You may see things that are important to you, and others that are not.  You can also see what got done, what got worked on, and what didn’t move very much.  Should we keep working on these items, or shift focus elsewhere?

What should the City’s top 3 priorities be in 2010?

Please scroll down to reply, and thank you for sharing your comments!

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Biomass and TCLP’s Renewable Energy Plans

Traverse City Light & Power is our electric utility.  It is owned by the residents of Traverse City and run by a board of volunteers appointed by the city commission.  Since decommissioning the old coal power plant on the bay, and shutting down the Boardman River hydroelectric dams, TCLP has been purchasing 95% of our electricity from coal-fired power plants downstate:  one owned by the Lansing Board of Water & Light, one owned by Consumers Energy, and one by Detroit Edison.  The rest comes from a natural gas plant in Kalkaska (4%), and the windmill on top of the hill on M-72 (1%).

Over the past two or three years, TCLP has been moving to diversify its future sources of power.   TCLP now plans to obtain 30% of our electricity from renewable sources in the near future.  Renewable sources are those that are replenished in a human lifetime, instead of over a geological time frame of thousands  or millions of years.  TCLP is currently looking at a mix of wind power, some solar, landfill gas, and biomass.

Biomass energy comes from burning plant material, such as crops grown for that purpose, trees, waste wood, and other components.  (Sometimes tires and solid waste are classified as biomass, but TCLP is not considering these sources.)

A presentation of TCLP’s energy needs and strategy to meet them is attached.    Generation Sources Presentation – Study Session 12.01.09.

You can hear a recent conversation about this issue here:  http://ipr.interlochen.org/points-north-live/episode/5778#comment-133

Renewable Energy, take 2. Recently, TCLP signed a contract for 10 megawatts (MW) of wind energy from Heritage Wind Energy near McBain.  http://www.heritagewindenergy.com/.  TCLP will pay a price that starts at $105 per megawatt hour (MWh) for this energy, which is considerably more than the current price for energy from coal ($30 to $60 per MWh), but less than current Michigan price projections for energy from new coal ($133 per MWh).  The Heritage wind contract, and a landfill gas contract the TCLP already has, will allow the utility to meet the 10% renewable energy requirement of the state’s clean energy law.   A summary of this law is http://www.michbar.org/journal/pdf/pdf4article1576.pdf.  The biomass plan is about going over and above the 10% requirement of the law, and trying to achieve 30% renewable energy, which if accomplished would be the highest percentage of any utility in Michigan.

Energy Efficiency, take 2. Comments here and on facebook raise good points about energy efficiency as a way to help meet our energy needs in a cost-effective way.  TCLP currently plans to meet state law efficiency requirements of 1% cumulative savings per year.  The Michigan Public Service Commission cites data from Wisconsin to suggest that Michigan utilities should be able to achieve savings of 1.3 to 1.9% per year.  A good summary of this data is at http://efile.mpsc.state.mi.us/efile/docs/15996/0190.pdf, on pages 26 to 29 of the pdf.  As TCLP goes over and above the requirements of state law for renewable energy, it might want to consider the same approach for energy efficiency.

What do you think? Post a comment here (scroll to the comment box down below), click the link under the Blogroll on the left to email the city commission, or email chrisbzdok@gmail.com and I will direct your comments on to the TCLP board.

 

Grand Traverse County Sheriff and City Police Dept – week ending November 28, 2009

Traverse City residents are also residents of Grand Traverse County.  As county residents, we help pay for the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s department.  We do not currently receive services from the Sheriff’s department other than at the jail, and through some mutual aid responsibilities.  Two areas that have been discussed are:

Road Patrols. Based on a per capita breakdown of the 2008 budget, Traverse City taxpayers pay a share of the county’s road patrol budget that adds up to over $600,000 per year.  Yet we receive no road patrol services from the county.  Instead, we pay over $3.6 million for police protection from the Traverse City Police Department, a budget which includes road patrol.

Community Police Officers. The County also provides community police officers to townships who request them.  The townships pick up roughly 75% of the cost of these officers, and the County picks up roughly 25%.  The County could be asked to provide this service to the city.   We could try a pilot program for using County community officers to meet some of  our city policing needs.  A pilot program could mean 2 to 8 officers to try it out.  The city would be protected by the same number of officers, but at a lower cost to city taxpayers.  By keeping the pilot program small at first, it could allow operational issues like chain-of-command and call responsibility to be worked through.

Would you support asking the GT County Sheriff to take over a portion of the road patrol responsibility in the City that is now handled by the Traverse City Police Dept?  Would you support a community police program in which some City police positions were replaced by community officers provided by the GT County Sheriff?  Are there other collaborative efforts between these two law enforcement agencies that you would support? 

For more on this topic, click on the COFAC report under the Blog roll on the home page (left side of the screen and scroll down).  You can also check out this Record Eagle story:  http://www.record-eagle.com/local/local_story_325075548.html or this video from TV 7-4:  http://www.upnorthlive.com/news/video.aspx?id=365426.

Waterfront/Parks – week ending November 21, 2009

The Bayfront Plan was completed through a public input process a couple years ago.  http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/departments/planning/finalfinal.pdf.  It calls for enhanced pedestrian crosswalks on Grandview Parkway to help people safely access the beach, and amenities such as new and improved restrooms, children’s play equipment, walkways, an ice skating rink, a children’s splash pad, improved concessions, places for canoes and kayaks, and beach and trail improvements.  (The play equipment, rink, concessions, and splash pad are planned for the zoo property, which is currently used for storage.  At this time, no structures are proposed for the open space, in order to protect the bay views.)

So far, none of the amenities listed in the plan have been created due to lack of funding.

The Brown Bridge Trust Fund, which comes from oil and gas revenues paid to the city, will have a balance of more than $12 million at the end of this fiscal year, and last year took in royalties of more than $500,000.  Interest from this bank account goes into the city’s general fund, but the savings cannot be touched except by a vote of the residents.

Would you support using up to $3 million from the Brown Bridge Trust Fund to fund waterfront and beach amenities like these?

***To answer, submit a comment below, send an email to chrisbzdok@gmail.com, or click on this link to send an email to all the city commissioners:  http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/City_Commission/

and, THANK YOU!