ANN ARBOR, Mich. – A Tree Town coalition calling for city-owned electric power has released a proposal detailing how the municipal utility would be governed.
Ann Arbor for Public Power (A2P2) has been advocating for a completely renewable and public-owned electric utility system. The nonprofit is made up of residents and organizations hoping to move away from using investor-owned power companies.
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Currently, DTE Energy controls the majority of energy contracts in Ann Arbor. The company has come under fire from residents after regular multi-day power outages across the city in recent years.
A2P2′s proposal urges having a nine-member board -- the Ann Arbor Municipal Electric Board -- make decisions about the city-owned utility. The board would have four members appointed by the Ann Arbor City Council and Ann Arbor mayor. The remaining five members would be elected by residents with one member representing each city’s five wards.
“An electric utility must be accountable to the public,” A2P2 president Greg Woodring said in a release. “An elected board, along with expert citizen appointees and professional management, will ensure that Ann Arbor residents have direct access to the people making the decisions on rates, reliability, and clean power.”
The electric board proposed by A2P2 would have power from the City of Ann Arbor to create, maintain and administer a public power utility system. It would suggest energy rates and an operating budget, which would then be submitted to the city council for approval. It would manage its own revenues and legal matters.
Members of the board would not be compensated.
“Energy is central to our lives, and we can no longer leave our energy decisions in the hands of a monopoly investor-owned utility that brazenly neglects its ratepayers, and a dying planet,” Woodring said. “Public power utilities consistently outperform private utilities in terms of cost and reliability, because they are directly accountable to their customers, not shareholders. And they have the freedom to choose clean power sources.”