So just about a month ago on Saturday June 25th, 2011 I was on my way from Houghton, MI to South Lyon, MI and had scheduled to see a building at 01170 M-75 South in Boyne City, MI. This is where we are moving to and we wanted to get a shop secured because we were going to be in Boyne City permanently as of July 10th. So I met up with the President of the Boyne Valley Columbian Building Association to walk through and see if it was something we should pursue. It turned out it was so I called up my father/ business partner to come up and take a look at the building. The building had been vacant for about three years prior to us looking at it so we knew there were going to be some issues with it. First off the carpet throughout the building had been wet for some time and mold spores were all over it, it had to go. Also there was some bar in the middle of the area we wanted to lease so that too had to be removed. There, it all seems good, the association (actually the Boyne Valley Knights of Columbus) has some strong community ties and the carpet was out by the 5th of July and the moldy floors were bleached. The bar took about another week to be removed, but alas it was taken out and not a big deal.

Here comes the kicker… There was some speculation at some time that the building could be demolished, so Consumers Energy took it upon themselves to just cut the electrical leads to the building at the ground of the utility pole in front of the building instead of just disconnecting the service. So as part of our original agreement with the building owners they would have the electrical service reconnected and told us that it would be a quick process; remember this conversation took place in late June (Monday June 27th to be exact). So the owners talked with Consumers Energy and per their request had the building’s electrical work/panel inspected by Charlevoix County so Consumers could reconnect the service. The reason the inspection took place was because Consumers Energy requested it, they knew from the end of June that we needed electricity hooked up from that point on.

So we went about our business moving our equipment into the back of the building to store it until our build out was finished. We were under the assumption that it would be a little while before it was connected and thought as long as it was before the 10th any day would be fine. So we were told that electricity was coming tomorrow for a few days in a row and some crews from Consumers Energy finally started showing up around the 13th of July. Within about three days, four trips were made to the building by crews from Consumers Energy and we were told by just about each crew that a different crew would have to come out because it was out of their realm of work. Again we were left waiting.
On Friday the 15th we were finally able to talk to an Engineer at Consumers and she eventually explained the process she would have to go through to get electricity to our building. She would come out on Wednesday the 20th at the earliest to survey the property and past connections then engineer a plan for the hookup. Once the plan is completed she explained that Consumers would wait until payment for the work was completed and then take up to 13 days to hook up electricity. This was extremely frustrating for us as we wanted to be producing our skis at the latest the week of the 18th. We contemplated walking away from that property at the time but decided the road frontage we were going to have would be worth the wait. Also we thought about how the money from our rent would go right back into the local community seeing as we would be renting from the Knights of Columbus, another benefit of staying at this building. We could put up our partitions and have our interior electrical work done in the mean time. So now we pulled permits for interior walls, put them up, and had an electrician start wiring the interior.

That brings us to today, Thursday July 21st, 2011, and we hear from the building owners that the engineer told them it could be up to five more weeks now to hook up the service. Wait… FIVE WEEKS??? We have been in this process for four weeks already and Consumers has done nothing more that send out some people to look at the connections. What, I ask, is taking them so long? The state of the economy in Michigan is BAD, there is virtually no new construction going on, there is no huge backlog of work for them… Is there? Maybe they could tell us. But when I get on the phone to call Consumers all I get is some customer service person that tells me it has been turned over to the Engineering Department and can transfer me to them, great… Ring, Ring, Ring, answering machine, “Blah, blah, blah, I will be out of the office for some extended period of time so our Engineer (I won’t say the name) in Traverse City will be taking care of our business, you can reach her at 555-1234 (again I won’t post it).” So I call this engineer only to get to another answering machine, I leave a message and three hours later I still haven’t heard anything nor have the building owners who have tried to contact this particular engineer.

I just want to be able to work, we are bringing a new business into Northern Michigan and all we have is problems. Our only provider is Consumers Energy, what are we to do? We now have not only invested our time, labor, and materials, but also brought an electrician in and have to pay him. We do not want to have to move, we don’t want to start a big fuss with Consumers Energy, we just want to be able to work and produce skis for people to enjoy.

Thanks for reading and please spread the word of our plight. Who knows what might happen?

Jeff Thompson
SCC Skis, LLC
248.921.1620
jeff@sccskis.com