The citizen board that oversees the embattled Lansing Board of Water and Lightconvened last night. The body heard from both the public as well as numerous BWL employees and leadership about the utility’s response to last month’s overwhelming ice storm that knocked out electric power to tens of thousands in the Lansing area.Hundreds of citizens are clamoring for an inquiry into the utility. Many have blasted the BWL for a communication breakdown with customers, some of whom waited up to ten days for power to be restored.
But praise for the BWL and its embattled General Manager, Peter Lark, dominated last night’s session. Lark also announced a series of reforms including a “top to bottom review” of the utility to address many of the complaints aired since the outage.
The Chairman of the BWL Board, Sandy Zerkle, says employees who praised Lark at last night's hearing had been waiting "for some time" to have their say.