Harbor Springs eyes possible electric projects to fund with bond dollars
In March, the council unanimously approved posting a letter to intent to bond for up to $10 million. The total amount they will bond for has yet to be decided.
From the publishing of the letter, residents have 45 days to put together a petition and collect 10% of voter signatures in order to bring the issue to a vote.
More: Harbor Springs City Council exploring bond funding for substation project
According to meeting materials, completing a second substation in the city will cost $6.5 million. If the city bonded for the full amount, they could be closer to completing two other major projects that are currently in the city's Capital Improvements Plan, including an M-119 line rebuild and the installation of an Advanced Metering Infrastructure system (AMI).
Michael McGeehan, an electrical engineer from GRP Engineering, said the need for a second substation was made clear by the recent outages that hit the region, with late-March ice storms bringing down power lines and multi-day outages.
"Coming through a catastrophic outage situation like we just did does show that ... if you lose one of the substation transformers at Clayton Road any time of the year, you will not be able to keep all of the customers on," he said. "That is the key to having a second substation built — that the transformer that will be at this substation will be able to keep all the customers on ... it doesn't matter what time of the year."
More: Harbor Springs City Council approves 2025 budget, Capital Improvements Plan
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The two phases of the M-119 line rebuild would be from Carpenter Lane to Ridge Road, and then Ridge Road until the farthest western end of the system, near Thorn Swift.
The AMI metering system would allow the city to replace all of the city customers' meters, which would let the city know of potential outages without directly going to the homes to investigate themselves.
During the meeting, several residents voiced concerns about costs and their disinterest in AMI metering.
Maureen Kenney, a part-time resident and president of We Love Harbor Springs, shared her concerns about the city's spending.
"We don't know the financial impact of the storm devastation yet. Will the state and federal funding come through? We don't know. D.C. is in a state of havoc right now," she said. "This catastrophic cost may be burden to our city. I'm asking city council to pause on issuing additional bond spending and only pay necessary expenditures."
There were also discussions about burying power lines, though the total cost of burying electrical lines could vary based on what kinds of lines are being buried and where.
Residents looking to bury lines near their homes can also come to city hall and receive an estimate for the work at cost, city manager Victor Sinadinoski said.
— Contact reporter Karly Graham at kgraham@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @KarlyGrahamJrn.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Harbor Springs City Council receives update on potential bond projects
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