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WHITE HOUSE✒ EDITORIALABSURDITY:
Appeals court upholds decision to toss challenge to Ann Arbor public power initiative
Filed 17h ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk
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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0
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Michigan Court of Appeals judges Brock Swartzle and Anica Letica upheld a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit against Ann Arbor's city clerk over the Ann Arbor for Public Power ballot initiative, which would let voters authorize pursuit of a municipal electric utility. The opposing Ann Arbor Responsible Energy Coalition, backed by more than $1.8 million from DTE Energy, pegs the cost at roughly $1 billion, more than triple the city's combined police, fire, parks, and roads spending.
A 2023 city study estimated acquisition costs between $281 million and $1.15 billion plus $114 million for new infrastructure, a wide enough range that both sides can quote it in their favor. Public Power supporters call DTE's commissioned estimate inflated and say the ballot measure is only a first step requiring a further vote after a feasibility study.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.
✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK
When a utility spends nearly two million dollars fighting a ballot question about whether it should keep being the utility, that tells you something about who thinks they've got the most to lose. Both camps are waving cost estimates like fish they caught themselves, and the real number probably sits somewhere neither side wants to admit. Ann Arbor voters get to sort it out in November, which beats letting a courtroom or a coalition funded by the incumbent do it for them.
