The Leelanau County government center was subject to heated debate once again on Feb. 20. This time, the county commissioners were divided over a proposed grant application that would grant the county over $1.5 million to build out solar arrays on the center’s Suttons Bay campus, which is projected to save the county between $883,000 and $1.2 million in energy bills over 25 years.
The project will require “zero financial obligation” from the county, according to Joe DeFors, chair of the county’s Energy Futures Task Force, who presented the application at the board’s regular session. Despite DeFors’ claim, however, the grant application was only approved by a 4-3 vote.
The commissioners were split along party lines, with the four Democrats on the board – commissioners Ty Wessell, Kama Ross, Jamie Kramer, and Gwenne Allgaier – voting yes. The three Republicans – Doug Rexroat, Melinda Lautner, and Jim O’Rourke – voted no.
If the grant is approved by the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), two arrays of solar panels would be installed on the government center campus. The first would consist of 370 panels south of the main building. The second array would be installed over the parking area for the County Sheriff Department’s vehicle fleet.
The initial proposal presented to the board on Feb. 13 placed the second array near the veteran’s memorial on the government center campus. This was moved to nearby the sheriff’s office because that area is reserved for the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. Commissioner Lautner also argued at the executive session that this area should be kept open for parking for memorial visitors on Memorial and Veterans days.
Grant dollars will be awarded at the MPSC’s discretion, so it’s unclear at this time whether Leelanau County’s application will be approved. Commissioner Ross also noted that the county will have the opportunity to turn down the grant dollars after the awards announcement date, which is anticipated to be in September.
The Republican commissioners expressed concerns about the language used in the application, and large portions of the “project objectives” section were removed during the 75-minute discussion of this proposal.
“I’m deeply conflicted on this project, because I do believe solar (energy) has a place, and I do believe EVs (electric vehicles) have their place – maybe not as fast as some people would like it, but I believe it’s part of our future,” Commissioner Rexroat said.
Rexroat successfully argued to remove sections of the “project objectives” commenting on other Leelanau County projects that meet goals in the MI Healthy Climate Plan. As the proposal itself notes, the solar field project is most closely aligned to just one of the pillars in Governor Whitmer’s plan: “cleaning the electric grid.”
After the board amended the proposal, however, Rexroat said he was “still on the fence” and ultimately voted no. He cited the fact that County Sheriff Mike Borkovich rescinded his support of the project prior to the meeting.
DeFors said that he met with Borkovich earlier in February and felt the sheriff approved installing a solar array at this location. In fact, there were plans to have the array partially power the sheriff’s vehicles in the winter so officers could more quickly respond to emergencies. DeFors believed he still had Borkovich’s approval until the board presented an email from the sheriff stating otherwise.
Borkovich emailed DeFors about three hours before the meeting to say that he was no longer supporting the project. He cited a section of the project objectives saying that the county would “transition our 100% ICE vehicle fleet to EVs – with sufficient on-site charging infrastructure – on a strategic path over time.” Borkovich told the newspaper that he felt DeFors had agreed to remove references to “EVs or other mandates,” and withdrew his support over this section of the proposal.
DeFors said during and after the meeting that the county would not be required to adopt electric vehicles as part of this proposal. He said that the Task Force advocates for an eventual transition and mentioned this to connect the project with other pillars in the MI Healthy Climate Plan.
Commissioner Lautner claimed another factor in the sheriff’s change of heart was concern about the proximity of the proposed solar array to the county jail, as the proposal mentioned that schools and other community groups may be allowed to visit the site for education. However, Borkovich did not say this in his email or elsewhere.
Another sticking point was the vendor of the solar panels to be used at the government center. As part of the application process, the county had to request bids from at least three contractors for the project. The project estimate from the low bidder, Jacksonbased energy Harvest Solar, influenced the total funds requested in the grant.
Commissioner Lautner repeatedly alleged that Harvest Solar would purchase its solar panels from Canadian Solar, a company that she said “is tied in with the Chinese” and manufactures and assembles its products in China. In an interview after the meeting, DeFors said that Lautner’s argument “invokes an ‘evil empire’ as if the whole thing should be abandoned accordingly.”
Exchanges between DeFors and Lautner were generally heated. In addition to being a county commissioner, Lautner is on the Cherryland Electric Cooperative board of directors, which currently powers the government center campus. According to the grant application, the solar project could provide about 30% of the electrical requirements for the campus.
At times, Lautner seemed to imply that DeFors had substantively altered the proposal since it was presented to the board a week before the meeting and was not telling the commissioners about some of his changes.
At one point, the conversation devolved to the two shouting over each other, causing Chairman Wessell to intervene “to make sure there’s order and respect.” Although Wessell addressed the comment to Lautner by name, she seemed to think the chairman was talking to DeFors and continued talking over the other two.
Lautner went on to say that the project had “unseen expenses” in the form of “remediation” of the solar fields. She asked how the costs of remediation would be covered, and DeFors admitted that this would be done at the county’s expense. He then responded with a question of his own for Lautner.
“I would have a question, though, for you,” DeFors said. “Who covers the remediation of our cell towers? Of your barn out back? Of your various other infrastructure? It’s really interesting to me that people come up with questions like this at these unique moments, but it’s not generally applied –“ “You don’t know that! You actually have no clue the questions we ask when it comes to those things!” Lautner interrupted.
“I’m asking. Please inform me,” DeFors said.
“We do ask those questions! That is what I am telling you, and that is our job. So, the remediation of a solar field is very, very serious. And if that’s going to be a cost of the county in the future, the county needs to know that,” Lautner said.
Wessell then cut off their exchange “to bring us back to respectful conversation” and called on other commissioners, over protests from Lautner that she hadn’t been given the five minutes for comment allotted to each commissioner. By this point, the board had been discussing the item for about 75 minutes, and they put it to a vote not much later.
“We have an opportunity to say ‘no’ to this grant. This is just an application to submit our grant. In September, if we get a letter saying that we’re awarded it, (we’ll) have 45 days, and we have six months before that to work on all these details at our leisure, not at 9 p.m. when we all have a full agenda yet to go. This is absolutely ridiculous in my point of view,” Commissioner Ross said.
