Saline Approves Plan for Electric Vehicle Recharging Station

On the same day the first Chevy Volt electric cars were rolling off the lots, the city of Saline decided to get into the electric vehicle recharging business.

At Monday’s meeting, the Saline City Council voted 4-2 to approve an agreement with DTE to build a recharging station in the municipal parking lot off East Henry Street, near the downtown water tower.

The motion to approve the agreement was moved by council member David Rhoads and seconded by Linda TerHaar and also drew the support of Mayor Pro-Tem Brian Marl and council member Dean Girbach. Council members Pat Ivey and Glenn Law voted against the agreement.

The deal stipulates that DTE will foot the bill for installation of the station, up to $12,500, with the city responsible for any amount over that cost. DTE will provide a cost estimate to the city, and if the cost is above $12,500, the council can choose to nix the deal.

“Electric vehicles, in one way or another, are going to be with us for a long time, and the demand for them may improve as the price of gasoline continues to escalate,” said Rhoads, who along with Mayor Gretchen Driskell and City Manager Todd Campbell, has been in talks with DTE about the charging station since fall. “I think it’s the right thing to do. I think we need to be conscious about the impact we are having on the planet.”

Rhoads said the charging station also was in line with the city’s goal of being a sustainable city, as outlined in the 2011-12 strategic plan that was also passed during Monday’s meeting.

“We should take a leadership position and be proactive rather than reactive,” Rhoads said.

But after questioning an engineer from DTE, Ivey asked council members to vote against the agreement.

Ivey’s chief concern with the project was the business model.

“I think this needs to be a privatized service, performed by a company that specializes in the equipment and maintaining the equipment. I don’t think that becoming an electric vehicle service retailer is something our citizens want us to do,” Ivey said.

Ivey said he didn’t think a charging station in a backstreet parking lot made much sense.

“Convenience is an important factor. A station like this should be where customers are already accustomed to driving and parking their car ... not in downtowns and not on side streets,” said Ivey, who also said he thought the station would be obsolete in four or five years and that most owners of electric vehicles would charge their vehicles at home.

Law agreed with Ivey.

“The city should not be in the business of providing a service the private sector can easily do,” he said. “This service should be entrepreneurial-driven and privately driven, and not on the taxpayers to fund it.”

Girbach asked questions about the safety of the charge station, especially given its proximity to a neighborhood home to many children, but supported the agreement once his concerns were addressed to his satisfaction.

Marl, who ran the meeting in Driskell's absence, said he supported the motion despite a degree of reluctance.

“I do not believe it is a core function of government to provide this service. But I support it as a stopgap to provide citizens with the option of charging their cars in Saline,” Marl said.

TerHaar supported the motion and said she had a preference for going forward with the agreement as long installation came at no cost to the city.

The city is going to be responsible for paying for the electricity used during the charge. A Michigan Public Service Commission regulation prevents the city from charging users on a kilowatt-hour basis. However, the city can charge a user fee, perhaps based on the amount of time a vehicle is connected to the charger.

According to numbers provided to the city by DTE, a full charge of a Ford Focus or Nissan Leaf would cost the city about $2, and a full charge of a Chevy Volt would cost about $1.

The agreement also stipulates DTE will be responsible for maintaining the station until December 2013. At that point, the city will be 100 percent responsible for maintaining the charger and other associated equipment.

Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Department of Energy awarded General Motors a grant to promote electric vehicle usage. GM partnered with DTE to establish an electric vehicle-charger network.