Plan to donate gifts to save city energy meets resistance

Upkeep, liability of wind turbine cited

With $80,000 raised at last year's spring auction, the Huntington Woods Men's Club paid for city pool improvements -- to be unveiled Memorial Day -- that the town of 5,800 otherwise couldn't afford.

This year's auction aims to draw another crowd to bid on donated items that in past years have included $25,000 kitchen makeovers and vasectomies.

Money raised at the March 27 auction is to be used to buy two energy-saving devices, including a proposed wind turbine that has been met with opposition.

"I'm not sure I want that thing outside my window," Public Services Manager Claire Galed said Friday with a laugh. Her office on 11 Mile adjoins a parking lot that is next to a ball field where the 30-foot device would be installed.

City Commissioner Mary White, concerned about potential maintenance and liability costs, was the lone dissenter last month in a vote to approve the device, which harnesses wind with a spinning 4-foot-diameter cylinder, not traditional windmill blades.

Men's Club member Alex Cooper, 50, also dissented, joining a minority of club members whose preferred project was replacing dead trees on city property. But the idea of fellow member Chris Vogelheim, 39, an architect certified in energy-saving design, carried the club's vote for the $12,000 Windspire.

"I was looking for a product demonstrative of Michigan's changing economy," Vogelheim said of the device that is made in Manistee.

"It's sculptural, it's educational, and it'll be visible. Obviously, this won't generate a tremendous amount of electricity, but it'll be a good reminder of how our city can be more sustainable," he said.

The club also plans to spend $60,000 for solar panels that would form a shade canopy at the pool while helping to power the recreation center. The panels are to qualify for a DTE Energy rebate that would lower the tab to $48,000, in addition to saving the city $1,000 a year in electricity, auction spokesman Dan Desmond said.

"There's skepticism about whether either of these projects is really of economic value in our northern climate," City Commissioner Jeff Jenks said.

"But the feeling is this will be a good public example, especially for children," Jenks said.