City of Detroit Dept of Public Lighting Blackout today

[kraig]

Mistersky is still impressive. I've seen some of the original reports of it when it was built in the 1920s. Very up-to-date design for the times. Here are some facts from online:

In 1927, all electrical generation was transferred to the Mistersky Power Station on West Jefferson Avenue, which had a capacity of 60 megawatts.

Through period expansion, the electrical generating capacity of the Mistersky Power Station was increased to 184 megawatts by 1979.

A power interchange line of 80 megawatts capacity connects Mistersky to DTE.

Thank you.

Now when everyone is yelling "Privatize", they need to remember that the City already signed a $150 million dollar contract to receive all of its power from DTE. After which, the newly appointed COO, who came from DTE and had only been on the job for roughly a month, resigned from his position. Which shows the only reason he was on board was to serve the contractual needs of DTE and not the City.

The City would have been better served at spending the money to fix the infrastructure than giving the money to DTE. The only thing left it to give DTE the 1,800 Commercial Contracts leaving the City with both a broke and broken system to provide street lighting for the residents. But hey, who gives a damn about them?

Bing, who if anyone has forgotten has been a 20 year Board Member of DTE, and DTE are hooking up no bid contracts in a manner that would make Kwame and Bobby proud.

[Detroitnerd]

Bing, who if anyone has forgotten has been a 20 year Board Member of DTE, and DTE are hooking up no bid contracts in a manner that would make Kwame and Bobby proud.

Interesting. Recall how one of the few times Bing has called a press conference was to absolve DTE, pre-investigation IIRC, of any responsibility for the fires that swept through the east side. And the abandonment component of Detroit Works would save DTE costs associated with keeping up utility infrastructure...

In my opinion, you are right Kraig. Something really stinks here.

[downtownguy]

This also happened late in the Archer Administration [[2000?). As I recall, the outage was city-wide, meaning that all buildings, street lights, traffic lights, etc., supplied by PLD were out. It lasted for several days and then happened again a few weeks later. But, as so often happens, rather than seriously addressing the issue, they just patched it up and kicked the can down the road.

[Detroitnerd]

PLD's problems are well-known. DTE's record isn't spotless, though. I had somebody who attends city council meetings regularly tell me that there are plenty of people in the suburbs upset with DTE's service, judging by the number of people complaining to councils. Service went out plenty of times on the east side of Detroit, where a friend of mine lives. And this summer, I was glad, for instance, to live in Detroit and not Ferndale... No power for three days? And all the streetlights out? Awful.

Maybe PLD just needs a PR department. Hyuck-hyuck.