By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
Staff Writer
Ortonville — During the Monday night meeting, the village council voted unanimously to allow village manager Ryan Madis to pursue an agreement with State Contracting Inc. for an electric vehicle charging station in the village following a presentation by Duane Lobbestael, CEO of State Contracting Inc.,15045 Dixie Highway, Holly. “I’ve spoken with municipal managers and village presidents and village managers across the area who have worked with Duane and SCI and have heard a lot of very good things,” said Ryan Madis, village manager “I’ve also spoken to the chief sustainability officer for Oakland County about Evs. She assured me this is a very good way to go.”
The presentation explained how the EV chargers work, how much they will cost, and where the best places in the village are for chargers. The information will also be brought to the village planning commission for an ordinance pertaining to amount of time a vehicle can be at a charging station, as well as how and where EV charging stations fit into the master plan.
“At the end of the day, it’s a place making object,” said Madis. “It brings people downtown and they’re going hang out here.”
The level-two chargers would be compatible with all electric vehicles except Tesla, which require a Tesla charger or adapter. The power to the charger would also be shut off once the vehicle is fully charged, and the cost to the vehicle driver would be per kilowatt hour. The cost for electricity to the village is about 21 cents, and industry standard is to charge the user 42 cents per kilowatt hour of the battery.
“If someone wants to charge their car publicly and they’re driving down M-15, and they’re like ‘oh, I’m low on juice,’ they have plug share, it’ll pull up all the charger locations and they’ll see that there’s one here,” said Lobbestael.
Madis will be negotiating the agreement and will continue to update the council at the regular village meetings.