Council Hears Presentations From BWL, ELIPOC at Discussion-Only Meeting
BWL representatives gave a presentation about recent rate increases and future energy goals at the Tuesday, Oct. 8 City Council meeting.
Lansing Board of Water and Light (BWL) General Manager Dick Peffley, Director of Accounting and Finance Scott Taylor and Director of Strategic Planning Kellee Christensen gave a presentation and responded to questions from council at the meeting.
BWL representatives were asked to speak to council after the utility provider announced rate increases in August. Councilmember Mark Meadows said at a meeting last month some of the additional money raised would be used to construct a controversial $170 million gas-powered Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engine (RICE) plant.
Before taking questions from council, Peffley said he was confident BWL will reach its goal of providing energy through 50% renewable sources by 2030. He said the utility provider has thousands of solar panels in stock, land purchases in place and several large wind and solar projects on the way.
Right now, BWL produces 21% of its energy through renewable sources, Christensen said.
Citing a state mandate that utility providers be carbon free by 2040, Altmann asked why a graph showing future carbon projections for BWL doesn’t show carbon being eliminated by 2040.
Christensen said BWL believes it will achieve the goal, but advances in technology are needed.
“Basically, we have 15 years to figure it out,” she said. “We have enough in here to get us close, but we’re going to need to do some more things.”
Turning his attention to the RICE plant specifically, Altmann asked what the rate increases would need to be for BWL to instead construct a plant that is not gas powered.
Peffley explained that the RICE engines are being built to supplement renewable energy producers when they are not creating enough energy. He said a drop in production can result in a brownout for consumers.
“In January of last year… we had two days of solar production out of all of our fields,” Peffley said. “It doesn’t matter if you cover the entire state with it.
“If we didn’t have to burn gas, I wouldn’t burn gas,” he added. “When we have a free energy source of wind and sun, we want to capture that.”
Peffley said the more companies move to using solar and wind energy, the more common RICE engines will be–until something is built that can replace them. He said battery storage technology improving, hydrogen or fusion energy, or small nuclear modules are possible solutions.
“I’m very confident there will be technology that comes on sooner than later,” he said.
Peffley said the RICE plant is a necessity to keep up with energy demands. He added that the rise of electric cars has increased the need to produce energy.
Police Oversight Commission gives annual report.
Also at the meeting, the East Lansing Independent Police Oversight Commission (ELIPOC) gave a summary of its 2023 annual report to council.
ELIPOC Vice Chair Kath Edsall started the presentation by giving a summary of complaints citizens filed against officers. She said in five of the 11 investigations ELPD did into complaints in 2023, the commission was satisfied with the outcome. In the other six, the commission passed motions that ELPD come to a different conclusion, or institute new policies or training.
The commission still has not received a reply to the recommendations made in response to the police shooting of DeAnthony VanAtten in 2022, Edsall said. These recommendations include:
- Utilize a Critical Decision-Making Model
- Hire an individual trained in determining bias in policing to review complaints, dispatch calls, etc.
- Implement policy that would review every dispatch call prior to sending officers. This must include a review for racial bias and a threat assessment.
- Implement policy specific to large commercial establishments. Establish a relationship with the general manager and the asset protection manager(s). Call the managers prior to sending officers. Review information provided for racial bias and do a threat assessment.
- Set up a command post. No action is taken until they are directed by the on-sight supervisor.
- Do not enter the building unless all the above are completed and require a response. Response MUST outweigh risk of harm to others in the building.
- Pursue a fleeing individual ONLY if apprehension does not put others (including officers) in harm’s way and NEVER if the subject can be apprehended at another time in a safer manner.
- Do not shoot a fleeing subject (Policy 12-20 C. 1. is too broad and gives cover to every instance of deadly force)
- Do not shoot into a crowd.
Following Edsall’s part of the presentation, Commissioner Chris Root spoke to council about officer use of force in 2023. There were 160 use of force incidents in 2023, an 11% jump compared to 2022. There were 217 people involved in these incidents, which is a 30% increase compared to 2022.
Root said that there were several large fights downtown in September and October, 2023, which explains some of the jump.
In 2023, 58% of use of force incidents by ELPD were against Black people and 33% were against white people.
“There is no accurate count of all the people present in East Lansing who might come in contact with police officers by race,” Root said. “So, we can’t say exactly how much more likely it is for a Black person to have an encounter with police officers that involve force than a white person. But the large numbers of incidents involving Black people that we have seen in the past two years are a cause for concern.”
ELIPOC Chair Ernest Conerly followed Root by presenting on ELPD’s interactions with people experiencing a mental health crisis, homelessness and juveniles.
Notably, there was a substantial decrease of encounters with people experiencing a mental health crisis from 411 in 2022 to 156 in 2023. Conerly said this is likely because ELPD narrowed the list of incidents reviewed that fall under the umbrella of a person in crisis.
Of these 156 incidents, a social worker was only present at 22, and 58 of the incidents resulted in referrals to an ELPD social worker. It’s unclear how many times a social worker was available to respond to these incidents, because ELPD erroneously reported that a social worker was available for all incidents.
Conerly said that 19 use of force incidents came from these encounters with people in crisis.
To close his presentation, Conerly said the commission recommends ELPD take on three different trainings. One recommended training is on de-escalation. The second is how to recognize people with developmental disabilities and better communicate with them. The third recommended training is on communication, and how to treat people with respect and without bias
Conerly said the training is necessary, in part, because of officers’ demeanor when responding to certain calls. He said the commission has seen concerning behavior when reviewing body-worn camera footage.
“Just the high level of irresponsible comments that they make while representing the city of East Lansing is a problem,” Conerly said.