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Michigan City commission discusses EV charging, stalled solar panels and repair plans
Summary
At its July 9 meeting the Michigan City Sustainability Commission reviewed a police-senior center solar-panel outage, plans to replace a nonworking Tesla charger at the old Lighthouse Museum, and a pending municipal EV grant; members discussed using local training graduates for repairs.
The Michigan City Sustainability Commission on July 9 reviewed several infrastructure items related to electric vehicles and municipal solar installations, including a submitted grant for electric vehicles and multiple solar arrays that have been nonfunctional for months.
Chair (Speaker 2) said a grant application for electric vehicles for the Michigan City Police Department and Transit has been submitted but that commissioners had not received updates from Drive Clean Indiana. Committee members discussed outreach to Drive Clean Indiana to establish the grant status and next steps.
Members raised a separate, long-running issue: solar panels at the police station and the senior center are down and need repair. Committee member (Speaker 3) noted efforts to locate prior email exchanges about repairs and asked colleagues to search for the thread so staff can act. "This will just be the electrician coming out and hopefully fixing it," the member said, adding repair work would not involve new equipment and "it's gonna be a very minimal charge probably."
Commissioners also discussed replacing a nonfunctioning Tesla charger at the old Lighthouse Museum in Washington Park. Committee members explained that newer EVs use the North American Charging Standard and that many public Tesla chargers now work across vehicle brands with an adapter for some older models. The group noted additional charger units are available through some grant programs and agreed to consider replacing the broken unit so public charging capacity improves.
On workforce and repairs, members proposed tapping local graduates of the Soul Power solar program to gain hands-on experience through supervised repairs and internships. Committee member (Speaker 3) said she would contact installers previously used by Solar United Neighbors to explore supervised internship opportunities. "I'll ask them and see what they say," she said.
The commission did not take a formal vote on procurement or replacement at the meeting; members agreed to follow up with city staff and the two vendors referenced and to continue coordinating with the police and refuse departments on charging and solar repair priorities.
