BLP, City Council candidates grilled at forum

Oct. 9—Candidates running for Grand Haven's mayor, City Council and municipal utility trustee positions had a chance to share their message during a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters on Thursday.

The event at the Grand Haven Community Center was structured in a question-and-answer format. Afterward, a meet-and-greet allowed those in attendance to interact with the candidates.

BLP trustees

Four candidates are running for two six-year terms as Board of Light & Power trustees: Andy Cawthon, Michael Westbrook, Geri McCaleb and Andrea Hendrick.

Questions at the forum focused on bonding for work on Harbor Island, the candidate's future vision for energy in Grand Haven, their position on solar energy, the downtown snowmelt system and how they plan on working with the current utility board.

The BLP previously sought approval from the City Council for a $50 million bond proposal to pay for the construction of a natural gas peaking plant on Harbor Island and office space, and to pay off bond anticipation notes (BAN) that were used for the demolition of the Sims plant and site remediation. The plan to build a gas plant has since been abandoned.

Each BLP candidate said they were in favor of using bonds to pay for projects and debt. All of the candidates other than McCaleb were opposed to the peaking plant.

McCaleb was the city's mayor at the time when the original plan for Harbor Island was made.

"I know a lot of people say you should pay cash, but the cost of things today forces you to bond, unless you have an awful lot of patience and willingness to save forever," she said. "In today's market, you do need to bond because you don't have a choice."

McCaleb said there are a lot of checks and balances that have to take place for bonds to be approved.

Hendrick, who said she was in favor of using bonds for paying off the BANs, was critical of how things were budgeted in the original proposal.

"Part of the bonds that we are asking for is for the demolition and remediation of Harbor Island, and had we done this right," she said, "which was originally the plan for the coal-powered plant. We should have been budgeting into the rates to pay for Harbor Island, and that was not done. Anything we do invest in we need to have an exit plan so the bill is not put on the next generation."

Cawthon discussed exploring future energy solutions using short-term five-year contracts. Some of these solutions included new types of batteries and possibly generating power using hydrogen.

"There are some batteries that are coming to the fore like liquid sodium, iron oxide from basically oxidizing scrap iron, if you will. There are possibilities of powering power plants with hydrogen generated from water using solar energy," he said. "So, any of those that come to commercial availability would be available to us — whether buying it or possibly generating it ourselves."

But based on some of the environmental challenges Harbor Island still faces, Cawthon said the BLP needs to be prepared for whatever it costs to remediate that site.

Westbrook also was optimistic about the future of energy technology.

"I feel like we are in an energy revolution right now," he said. "The meetings I'm in right now with electric vehicles, and power and emerging technologies, there are some really, really exciting things happening in the world. Expensive, of course — we have to pay attention to our rates and our ratepayers. But I think there are some really cool things happening."

McCaleb came off less optimistic.

"The thing is you can speculate that we got this new technology and how long is it going to be until it is commercially available?" she posed. "But how long is it going to be that, 'This is a great idea, but it didn't pan out.' So, what we really need to do is have a continual and affordable source of power.

"The reality is we live in a cold weather climate," McCaleb continued. "So, we don't want power failure in the middle of the winter. We want to know that something we have is going to be there when we need heat and we need light, that we are going to flip a switch and it is going to be reliable."

Mayor and City Council

Four candidates are running for two council seats — incumbents Mike Dora and Dennis Scott, and challengers Karen Lowe and Kevin McLaughlin. Running for mayor is incumbent Bob Monetza and challenger Catherine McNally.

The council seats are for four-year terms; mayor is a two-year term.

A number of topics were discussed at Thursday's forum, including the city's general fund, unpaid pension liabilities, city infrastructure and housing.

When asked about their budget priorities, most of the candidates fell into one of two camps. Current council members Monetza, Dora and Scott listed infrastructure improvements as their main budget priority; the challengers all wanted to improve the city's general fund.

"This is probably going to sound like a broken record for you folks — everyone probably has the same priorities," Dora said. "Our infrastructure we have to maintain, we have to keep it up. Once we fall behind, we've learned it is very, very difficult to come up with the funds needed to maintain it for the services we like to see. I like smooth roads, I like the water to run in the faucet and I like stuff to go away when I push the other handle."

Lowe and McLaughlin were more concerned about the fund balance.

"In the upcoming budget cycle, my No. 1 priority would be to alleviate some of the fiscal distress that we are going through," Lowe said. "Right now, the situation is grim, in my view. Here is why I think that — we have a rapidly declining fund balance that is being used to offset operating deficits. ... We also have a couple of other financial metrics that should alarm you."

Lowe encouraged people to check out the Michigan Department of Treasury's "Michigan Community Dashboard," where people can compare Grand Haven to other cities. Lowe said Grand Haven's debt health is comparatively low.

McNally also said she was concerned with infrastructure, but her principal budget priority is to stay out of "catastrophic public-private partnerships."

"I really believe if you look at the Beyond the Pier master plan that just came out, it calls for the construction of two major projects — a multipurpose market and a bank of shops with a restaurant with public-private partnerships," she said. "The market is supposed to cost between $4.8 (million) and $10 million, which is an enormous amount. Basically, the plan says we will pay for half of it, and think there will be a developer that will pay for the other half, and it will never make any money.

"We are bad landlords," McNally added. "We should not be engaged in nongovernmental functions, and we should not run government in a way that picks winners and losers."

Affordable housing in Grand Haven was also a topic of discussion. Could zoning be changed to make the city more affordable to live in?

Monetza noted that studies were done in 2018 that identified a severe shortage of housing in Northwest Ottawa County, and they also identified ways to help with housing costs.

"Some of the ideas in that task force were smaller units, accessory dwelling units for a variety of things, identifying sites for some of those projects like Peerless Flats," the mayor said. "Over the past year, the (city's) Planning Commission studied it with a consultant and came back with a set of proposals that council first sent back to further revision, and then accepted it with some changes. But some of those revisions were put on hold because they were a little too sweeping. But yes, there are some zoning changes that can help — not guaranteed, but can help."

Most candidates said they were in favor of affordable housing, but felt the city is already too condensed. Those candidates also said they were either against zoning changes or didn't think it would help.

"I'm not in favor of reduced property lines and setbacks," Scott said. "I think we need to keep Grand Haven just like it is. In fact, I think we need to put our lot lines back where they were — instead of 45 (feet), they need to go back to 66, or at least somewhere in between the 45 and 66. I just don't think Grand Haven is a good place to restrict our lot lines to get our houses in. I don't think that's what Grand Haven is about. We have a unique city, it's a beautiful city to live and raise families, and I don't want to see that change. I don't want to see houses become cramped."

A question was posed asking if paid parking could be used to fund the downtown snowmelt system. Most candidates seemed against it, but McLaughlin was willing to consider looking to Muskegon as an example.

"Just out of parking, (Muskegon) put $500,000 in their coffers," McLaughlin said. "I think it has to be done properly, it has to be done with the downtown merchants in mind and the residents in mind. I would never charge residents for parking. But I think the visitors are coming here, there is an awful lot of parking that is happening for free. I think we should take a look at it."

You can watch videos of the forum on the Tribune's Facebook page.

To learn more about each candidate, go online to .