DTE Promises to Improve Grosse Pointe Park Service

DTE Energy is promising to make things better for Grosse Pointe Park residents, especially those getting used to losing power whenever a storm blows through.

Representatives from the utility, which has been on the hot seat not only in the Park but also in the Woods, Farms, Redford, Ferndale and other communities, were asked to appear before the Grosse Pointe Park City Council to explain , brownouts and burned-out streetlights, dozens and dozens of them. DTE has also been named as playing a role in .

DTE apologized for the problems and difficulties the outages have caused and told the Park council and audience Monday that repairs have already been made or are in progress.

DTE said the streetlights, which are connected to old-style lines of lights that go dark all at once when only one burns out, will all be replaced by the end of the week. 

There were eight strings of lights out, and three more–or about 200 individual lights–are left to repair. Eventually the lights must be replaced with newer, energy-efficient lights such as LED. 

As far as the power outages of the summer, at least three of which affected numerous homes and businesses between May and July around the area of Windmill Pointe between Barrington and Balfour, another repair project is in progress. It involves updating underground lines, connecting part of the Grosse Pointe grid to a circuit in Detroit that is below capacity and trimming trees that are affecting overhead lines.

DTE was criticized for a lack of response and a failure to dedicate resources, especially toward maintenance.

Councilman Robert Denner told the DTE representatives: "I think it's important for you to understand people are losing faith," he said.

They see DTE's system here as being on a "a death spiral in terms of the infrastructure."

"The message needs to get back to the people who are managing the company that the customer base is just not happy with the allocation of resources…It's certainly not good and you've lost the confidence of the community and of other communities as well."

DTE's representatives made it clear that they are aware of the perception and it's why they are committing to improving the relationship with customers. 

Park resident Colin McComb questioned why tree trimmers and line workers are losing jobs while DTE executives are receiving multi-million-dollar paychecks.

Councilman James Robson asked DTE to open a claims office for a day or two, as it did in Redford, to allow Park residents to file damage claims for losses during the outages. DTE also provides an online claims process and the council was told that anyone not getting response to claims or power issues can be directed to the representatives at the meeting by calling the city manager's office. The city will be told by Friday whether DTE will hold an in-person claims filing in the park.

Chief David Hiller added, during the meeting, that residents will also have to do their part by trimming trees that belong to them. 

"We're going to have to educate our residents that DTE does only the easement," he said.

After DTE explained how it's handling the outages the representatives moved to an office across from City Council chambers to speak with residents one-on-one.