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May 16, 2003L&P's power line fees could bury pole policyThis is about good news and bad news.First, the good. The ugly wooden utility poles and electrical wiring along Grandview Parkway - a gateway to downtown Traverse City - are gone. The unsightly wiring went underground thanks to Traverse City Light & Power. The facelift along the West Bay shoreline is part of a multi-million dollar improvement project by Light and Power. It includes the construction of a power substation near the downtown area and the demolition of a power generating plant on the waterfront, along the parkway. When it's complete the vistas along the water will be clean and unimpeded. The entire town will benefit. Now the bad news. Light and Power is making arrogance an art form. Last year, the utility, with little notice, installed an 80-foot metal tower in the city's Central Neighborhood historic district, just a few blocks from the parkway. The tower was erected, Light and Power said, to make it easier to take above-street wiring underground in the neighborhood. Residents cried foul and went to court. They said Light and Power had no business erecting the tower in their backyard, arguing that it should have been installed next to the new substation a couple blocks away. Light and Power said a former executive dropped the ball by not properly explaining the project to the residents. Executives acknowledged that Central Neighborhood residents hadn't been given adequate warning that the power tower was coming. Light and Power officials argued that the tower's placement would be "temporary" while the utility converts to underground wiring in a wider area of the city. They could, however, offer no timetable for removal of the tower. They assured the residents that it would "move through the neighborhood" as the underground project progressed. Now it's apparent the pole won't be going anywhere soon. In a move that smacks at being retributive, the Light and Power board is considering a policy that would require each residence to pay an average $10,000 - possibly in advance - to have its street wiring buried. Previously, no fee was mentioned, and the new cost model was based on Central Neighborhood. The utility paid the cost of eliminating the above-ground wiring in the parkway area, but says the fee is now needed in residential areas to make the project financially feasible. The message to the pesky Central Neighborhood residents: "The pole is there until you pay to take it out." And this is from a utility they, as taxpayers, own.
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