LANSING, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — The Michigan Public Service Commission is set to host a series of public town hall meetings to hear from those impacted by power outages that left hundreds of thousands across the state without power after recent ice and snow storms across the Lower Peninsula.
Two in-person town halls are scheduled for Monday, March 20 in areas that were hard hit by the ice storm.
The first one will take place at American 1 Credit Union Event Center at 128 West Ganson Street in Jackson from noon to 2:30 p.m., and the second, at Fordson High School’s auditorium at 13800 Ford Road in Dearborn from 5:30 to 8 p.m.
A virtual town hall will also be held via livestream on Tuesday, March 21 from 6 to 8 p.m. on the MPSC event’s webpage at https://www.michigan.gov/mpsc/commission/events/2023/03/21/virtual-town-hall.
Commissioners will make brief opening remarks on steps the MPSC is taking to upgrade the state’s power grid and make it more resilient against increasingly severe year-round storms that are happening more frequently as the state’s climate changes and will reserve the rest of the time to listen to comments from attendees.
“We know how exasperating it is to lose power and for it to take days for service to be restored, and we share in the frustrations with the reliability of the state’s power grid,” said MSPC Chair Dan Scripps. “The Commission is holding these town halls to give Michiganders a chance to share directly with state regulators their experiences during and after the storms, as well as a chance to hear about what steps the MPSC is taking to address reliability.”
In addition, the Commission is also preparing to launch independent, third-party systemwide audits of the electricity distribution systems of both DTE Electric and Consumers Energy to identify shortcomings, best practices, and parts of the system for targeted investment.
The MPSC aims to have preliminary findings released before the end of 2023 with the final report completed sometime in 2024.
