The Detroit News. October 25, 2017
Flint should take the water deal
Federal Judge David Lawton got it right in saying that the failure of leadership by the Flint City Council is “breathtaking.”
After dawdling for three months, the council finally this week approved an agreement that will keep the city on the Detroit water system.
But for only two years, at which time the whole process of vetting a water source will have to begin anew.
Mayor Karen Weaver had bargained a 30-year pact, assuring certainty for Flint residents and businesses that there would be no further disruption to their water supply for decades.
But the council waffled, even though the decision to remain with the Great Lakes Water Authority was clearly the best, and perhaps only, safe option.
In the end, the council acted at the point of a gun. Lawson had threatened to impose the agreement on the city if it did not make a decision to either remain with the Detroit regional authority or choose another source.
Council members said they were troubled by the length of the contract, which would lock in rates some members see as too high. They also wanted to hear from additional experts, which would require more months of delay.
But the pact put together by Weaver will begin saving the city $600,000 a month immediately on implementation. It will end the current situation of Flint residents paying for the Detroit water, while also paying off the bonds of the new Karegnondi Water Authority.
Lawton was correct in warning that the delay in decision making was placing Flint’s financial well-being at risk, as well as the health of its residents.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality sued Flint officials in late June, arguing that the Flint council was endangering the public’s health by failing to approve a long-term drinking water source.
The council could have voted to go ahead with its move to the Karegnondi authority.
But doing so would require extensive repairs to the Flint water plant, which would cost tens of millions of dollars and three and a half years to complete.
That’s too long to leave Flint in limbo.
Restoring trust in the city’s drinking water, destroyed in 2014 when a state-imposed switch to the Flint river as a water source triggered a lead crisis, is the top priority.
The continuity of remaining with the Great Lakes Regional Water Authority is the surest way to erase concerns about the safety of Flint’s water.
Even the Karegnondi authority is backing the Great Lakes contract, since it provides a vehicle for paying off Flint’s portion of the authority’s bond debt.
Weaver made the best bargain she could. City Council members may wish there were a better deal that would substantially lower water rates for residents.
But such wishful thinking contributed to the initial ill-fated water source switch.
The council should reconvene and sign off on the 30-year deal, which would be an important step in putting Flint’s water crisis to rest.
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Lansing State journal. October 26, 2017
New medical marijuana park smart, strategic move for Windsor Twp.
Windsor Township’s plan to build a 130-acre medical marijuana industrial park is both smart and strategic.
It seizes on the opportunity of this burgeoning industry, promises to create jobs, will bring in new tax dollars and sets the township on a solid foundation for future projects.
The development - called Harvest Park - also could make Greater Lansing and the state of Michigan a national hub for the production and inspection of medical marijuana.
“I think the location is perfect,” said Jeff Donahue, a Lansing native and Harvest Park Development LLC’s managing director. “It’s an area ripe for development.”
It’s also an industry ripe for development.
Studies show legal market sale of medical marijuana is estimated to become a $22 billion industry by 2020. Experts estimate Michigan could take in $700 million or more if opportunities like Harvest Park are realized.
The key for Windsor Township is the early collaboration on the concept between township officials and stakeholders. A June ordinance provides for licensing and regulation of the park. These parameters will allow for the development to proceed with clarity of expectations.
More: 130-acre marijuana park to be largest east of Mississippi, developer says
More: Lansing council passes marijuana ordinance, sets cap on dispensaries
More: Medical marijuana shops get a temporary reprieve from state
The industrial park plan includes 10 parcels for tenants - which may include medical marijuana cultivators, processors, secure transporters, testing labs and suppliers - and could create up to 1,000 jobs. It could be completed by spring.
Others in the region - most notably the City of Lansing - could take notes on this strategic approach to embracing a new industry. Lansing City Council debated an ordinance for over two years, which allowed dispensaries to proliferate and has created an administrative snarl now that state law caught up and rendered them illegal.
Now Lansing has a mess to sort out. What happens next is anyone’s guess.
Windsor Township, on the other hand, created a plan, secured buy-in and is moving forward openly. Medical marijuana, legal in Michigan and 28 other states, is here to stay and patients need to know they have access to quality, regulated products.
The industrial park’s investors seem committed to providing that access - to Michiganders and others - in a way that leverages a growth opportunity.
That’s a smart strategy.
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Times Herald (Port Huron). October 25, 2017
Ferry is regulated because it has a monopoly
DTE Energy collected $418 million in profits during the third quarter of this year on $3.25 billion in total revenue. CMS Energy, the parent of Consumers Energy, will report its third quarter results Thursday, but it is expected to report net income in the $90 million range. Altagas Ltd., the parent company of SEMCO Energy, had normalized net income of 448 million in the three months ending Sept. 30.
None of the companies is exactly breaking even.
They are regulated by the Michigan Public Safety Commission not because they are utilities but because they have monopolies in the communities that they serve. The MPSC exists to protect the public by ensuring that monopoly companies deliver safe and reliable service at reasonable rates.
The agency is almost as old as the state of Michigan. It was created in 1873 - before there were gas and electric utilities - to regulate railroad rates and services. It began regulating electricity monopolies in 1909 and telephone systems in 1911. It was put in charge of ferry rates in 1921.
For reasons that aren’t obvious, the regulation of that monopoly was handed off to the Michigan State Police in 2015. State Rep. Dan Lauwers says it is unreasonable to regulate this particular monopoly carrier the same way rates are set for other monopoly utilities.
We’re not sure we understand his logic.
He has introduced a bill to further loosen the state’s grip on ferry tolls.
It would set tight deadlines on State Police regulators to accept or reject a fare increase. The claim that actions are delayed is a common and fallacious argument from every business that doesn’t get its way with a government agency. Ruling against a fare increase is not the same a delay. Businesses shouldn’t get rate increases just because they are persistent in applying.
Second, it would require MSP to justify its decisions, which is reasonable, and to base them on comparisons with other ferry operators. That makes no sense at all.
The Harsens Island ferry is a monopoly. There are no competitors docked on the North Channel waiting to board vehicles at a lower cost. The regulatory system must protect the profits of Champion’s Auto Ferry, and it does. But it also must protect the people who live on and visit Harsens Island.
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Petoskey News-Review. October 27, 2017
Vote yes on regional enhancement millage for schools
Some Northern Michigan communities’ November election ballots may look relatively sparse in this odd-numbered year, but there’s one educational funding question appearing regionally that we’d encourage voters to consider and support.
That question involves a “regional enhancement millage” proposed by Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District. It will appear on ballots in 11 local school districts which are part of the intermediate district’s service area: Alanson, Beaver Island, Boyne City, Boyne Falls, Central Lake, Charlevoix, East Jordan, Ellsworth, Harbor Springs, Pellston and Petoskey.
If the proposal gets majority support region-wide on Nov. 7, the intermediate district would levy 1 mill in new property taxes throughout its territory for a 10-year period. The proceeds - expected to be $5.23 million in the levy’s first year - would be allocated entirely to local districts based on their respective enrollment, and applied to school operations as those districts’ officials deem appropriate. The first-year funding boost from the millage is projected to be $615 per student.
In recent years, many of the local districts have found it challenging to keep up with expenses using Michigan’s standard school funding allowances. To achieve the required budget balances, they’ve used a variety of cost-cutting approaches, ranging from staff reductions to building closures to deferrals of classroom materials purchases.
Michigan’s school funding policy limits local districts in the types of property-tax requests they can present to voters. At the local level, these normally must be targeted for certain specific purposes - facilities or technology needs, for example - rather than applied to general operating expenses.
State law does allow operating levies to be sought regionally by way of intermediate school districts, however. There are 57 of these regional educational service entities around the state, and a handful have obtained voter approval for enhancement millages so far. In order for Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District to place this type of request on the ballot, officials had to obtain support from local school boards representing at least 51 percent of the regional student population.
In local school districts around the area, school officials already have been contemplating likely uses for their share of enhancement dollars if the millage prevails. Class size reductions, purchases of updated classroom materials, increased preschool availability, arts education and transportation are examples of the priorities districts hope to address.
A report earlier this year from the 21st Century Education Commission - a panel largely appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to analyze obstacles to educational success in Michigan - noted that the state has seen per-pupil spending fall by $663 per pupil since 2000 when inflation is factored in. The commission concluded that new investments in education would be necessary in order for Michigan to make significant gains in academic achievement, while also recommending that state policymakers look for the most effective and efficient ways to provide school funding. Michigan ranked eighth among U.S. states in per-pupil spending as of 2000, but that ranking has dropped to 24th,
At the state level, though, the current political climate doesn’t seem conducive to much investment along those lines. And with the state’s basic funding allotment to school districts based on enrollment counts, local demographic trends don’t hint at the sort of school-age population upswing that would bring an infusion of funding for area schools.
We’ve seen numerous local districts make tough choices to dial back staffing levels and offerings for students in the tight financial times of the past few years. We see the regional enhancement millage as a means to help schools restore, maintain and/or possibly expand on some resources in order to maintain well-rounded programs for students, and to help close the gap with rising costs of living and school operations. Solid education programs are critical not only to prepare the area’s current youth population for adult life, but also to help local communities as a whole grow and thrive going forward.
In seeking a 1-mill levy, the intermediate school district looks to have struck a balance between providing meaningful fiscal boosts to local schools and keeping the new tax rate manageable. A mill is equivalent to $1 for every $1,000 of a property’s taxable value, which tends to fall at about half of its market worth. At the 1-mill rate, the regional enhancement millage would cost the owner of a $150,000 home about $75 yearly, while a $300,000 home’s owner would pay about $150 more yearly with the millage in place.
We’d encourage voters to cast a yes vote for this millage on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 7.
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