In response to the ongoing ice storm crisis, the Lansing Board of Water and Light Board of Commissioners will hold a special meeting Tuesday, Jan. 7, at 5:30 p.m. at the Depot facility in REO Town at 1203 S. Washington Ave. The room only holds, legally, 200 people – and that fire marshal count includes the commissioners as well as BWL management, employees and staff who might be required to be there to assist. BWL says it will have an additional 50 seats set up across the street in a lobby.
“We will have plenty of seats to accommodate the public,” says Steve Serkaian, communications director for BWL.
Based on the special city council meeting held last Monday, we know such a meeting could be very well attended. The Council meeting played host to at least 125 people in the Council chambers – and BWL employees and Commissioners were there for that since J. Peter Lark was testifying. So why is the BWL Commission not expecting to accommodate large crowds of customers that they have repeatedly claimed to value?
At the height of the outage, 40,000 people were without power.
Michigan law requires that public bodies accommodate the public to attend and comment. If the special meeting moves forward in this small space, you bet folks wishing to talk are going to end up lined up out the door, standing in near-zero weather. The National Weather Service is forecasting a high on Tuesday January 7, 2014 to be 2 degrees. Monday’s overnight low is forecast at -6 degrees.
Perhaps BWL is unaware of additional options to host their meeting. Here are few ideas that might help to facilitate a crowd larger than 125 to participate in a public meeting with a public body on a major crisis in the community:
DART AUDITORIUM: This facility is owned and operated by Lansing Community College. It seats 500 plus people.
THE LANSING CENTER: This facility is owned and operated by the City of Lansing and can accommodate meetings of any size – including thousands.
ALFREDA SCHMIDT SOUTHSIDE COMMUNITY CENTER: This is another facility owned and operated by the city of Lansing. It also has a large auditorium – seating at least 400 people if memory serves (and since city of Lansing websites don’t identify the seating capacity).
Expect BWL leadership to try to pack the space with BWL staff. At Thursday’s “I was in NYC Press Conference,” there were about 30 BWL staff packing the back of the space behind media – and they applauded their leader as he left.
If you think they need more space, you can tell the Board of Water and Light to move the meeting to a larger, accessible facility by calling them at 517-702-6006. Or you can email [email protected]. You can also find them on Facebook, or tweet at them @BWLComm.
