By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
The Bryan Board of Public Affairs has been in existence since 1906, and it has served an important role in the community through Bryan Municipal Utilities with the guidance in maintaining lower energy and water costs to its residents.
And for the fourth time in history, voters decisively rejected a measure to dissolve the board, defeating Issue 7, by a convincing 77%-23% margin of the vote.
“We’re very happy with the citizens and how they trust us to make sure that we do look after their best interests and that’s what we are here for,” said BPA vice-chairperson Karen Ford.
If Issue 7 had been passed, the result was the Bryan Board of Public Affairs would have been dissolved through an amendment to the city charter and put the oversight of BMU under Mayor Carrie Schlade and Bryan City Council.
“By voting to maintain the Board of Public Affairs, you didn’t just vote for a board you voted for yourselves,” said BPA chairperson Annette Schreiner.
“You voted to keep the power of oversight exactly where it belongs: in the hands of the citizens. This victory belongs to the citizens of Bryan.
“We want to thank everyone for their support and look forward to the future as we continue to work together to make Bryan the Best hometown in Ohio.”
Ford added the one thing that the BPA might be able to do to improve is try to get people to listen to the meetings if not come to the meetings.
“We’re more aware of what kind of details we look at and the depth we go to investigate, and it’s not like it comes up the first time and we approve it,” said Ford. “It may come up as a topic of conversation multiple times, sometimes weeks or months before we vote on something.”
One of the advantages of the BPA is that the board has saved its citizens lots of money over the years.
“We have the best rates around already,” pointed out Ford. “If you compare us with a lot of other communities in this county or surrounding counties, this is why businesses are attracted to us and want to stay here instead of leaving.”
Another key element is BMU’s involvement with American Municipal Power in which Director of Utilities Derek Schultz is currently a member on the AMP Board.
The BPA is also involved with the American Water Works Association and American Public Power Association in obtaining information to present to its residents.
Board member Brian Davis said that the board is not looking over their shoulders, trying to determine how short the timeline is.
Davis commented that following the Issue 7 defeat, he is looking at how the BPA can become more effective, efficient, and more responsive.
One of the changes the BPA has already made is the change of the meeting dates from the first and third Tuesday of the month to the second and fourth Monday of the month at 5 p.m.
“The fact is that the meetings were always on a Monday and Tuesday back-to-back was hard to fathom simply because if you needed something done you had to wait two weeks and now we’ll cut the time in half by one week,” said Davis.
He said the residents will start to see more things from the board coming forward while being more assertive and aggressive.
“The one thing that we’ve benefited that most communities do not is we have the ability to produce, and we have the ability to almost go completely off the grid for short periods of time,” Davis said.
“There are times where they measure capacity and distribution throughout the year, and that benchmarks the costs of electric going forward into the next calendar year.”
Davis added that last year BMU had saved its residents about $10.3 million by generating its own power during peak demand times.
Board member Jeremy Suffel said the BMU’s own governance keeps the protection in place they’ve had since 1901.
“The voters voted against change, and I don’t know that anything in the governance changes and if anything, they gave us reassurance that they want us to look out for their rates,” commented Suffel. “They want us to guard BMU and to continue to do what we’re doing and what we’ve always done.”
Suffel pointed out that the Issue 7 campaign focused solely on BMU. Board member Debra Beevers commented that the BPA board is a dedicated and focused board.
“We have oversight for a business and BMU is a business,” noted Beevers. “BMU produces itself and it’s very different from the city government which is all tax-based and BMU is revenue-based.”