Gov. Rick Snyder signed Senate Bill 101, a bill introduced by Sen. Glenn Anderson that would create a PINK RIBBON license plate in Michigan to raise money for breast and cervical cancer screening for low-income women.
The governor also signed a companion bill, House Bill 5138, introduced by Rep. Amanda Price. Rep. Price’s bill establishes the fund within the Treasury Department for collecting the proceeds from the sale of the license plate. Sen. Anderson first introduced this legislation in 2011, motivated in part because of his firsthand experience with his mother’s fight against breast cancer. Sen. Anderson has diligently worked to raise awareness of the need for this legislation and move it along the process toward becoming law.
“We all know someone who has suffered from cancer and the devastating impact it has on friends and family,” Anderson said. “This license plate will help raise money for a program that saves lives.”
Sen. Anderson was joined at the bill signing by members of the Susan G. Komen organization, who work raise funding and awareness for breast cancer issues and have consistently advocated for the passage of the legislation to create this license plate.
The funds raised through the sale of the license plate will fund the Michigan Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program (the BCCCP) within the Department of Community Health. A proven but underfunded program, the BCCCP provides low-income women throughout Michigan access to life-saving cancer screening services and follow-up care, including cancer treatment. With these cancers, early detection often makes the difference between life and death, and the services provided by the BCCCP save lives.
Recent budget reductions and Federal sequestration have resulted in a combined loss of more than $1.3 million to the BCCCP budget. Funds raised through the sale of this license plate will help fill this reduction and continue the vital services that the program provides. The increase in revenue will greatly increase the number of women that this program is able to screen. Each new license plate design in the state has a $15,000 start-up cost and the entirety of this cost has been raised from donations.
“Getting this bill passed has taken some real effort. It really has been a bi-partisan, bi-cameral effort, and I am glad that everyone could work together to do the right thing,” Anderson said. “I will be putting my order in for a new license plate as soon as they are available.”
The plate should be available for purchase through the Michigan Secretary of State in late June or July 2014.
PLA board votes to use LED lights and speed up installation
The Public Lighting Authority of Detroit (PLA) Board has decided to exclusively use Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lamps as it rebuilds the city’s street lighting system and to accelerate the pace of installation with a goal of completing all neighborhoods within 18 months.
The revised plan was submitted to the board by PLA Executive Director Odis Jones, who said that research had shown that LED lights provide brighter and more cost efficient light and will better serve the Detroit community in coming years. He said the LED lights that will be installed in neighborhoods will be 150 watt lights that are more than twice as bright as the 70 watt High Pressure Sodium lights that have been the standard in the past.
In addition to providing for a street light at every street corner in the city, the board also required a light in the middle of any block that is more than 400 feet long. The previous plan approved by the board last year had required lights in the middle of any block 600 feet long or more.
“When we began installing lights in our two demonstration areas in November, we said that we would continue to evaluate lessons learned within those areas and continue research on the most effective way to proceed as we relight the City of Detroit,” Jones said. “After considerable research and value engineering, it is clear to us that LED lights will provide a better answer for the city than the traditional High Pressure Sodium lights. We also determined that we could accelerate our construction schedule to finish the neighborhoods within 18 months rather than the original plan of three years. As a result, we recommended that the board make both changes in the plan adopted last year.”
Jones said the plan is to conclude all overhead wired lights in the city by the fourth quarter of 2015, with the neighborhood portion of the project completed in 18 months. All work on underground wiring, primarily along major thoroughfares, is scheduled to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2016.
Board Chair Dr. Lorna Thomas said she was convinced, based on information presented to the board, that both the switch to LED lights and the accelerated neighborhood schedule make sense.
“Our mission is to provide Detroiters with an efficient, reliable street lighting system that they have been denied for far too long,” she said. “The plan the board has adopted today is a major step in moving the city in that direction. The accelerated plan, combined with the fact that the new lights being installed are twice as bright as the old lights, will provide Detroiters with the lighting they deserve well into the future.”
Jones said that the first order for LED lights will be issued on Thursday and that he expects the first shipment of lights will come in time to begin installing them within two to three weeks. In the meantime, he said, crews that have been installing lights will carry out general repair work that is required as part of rebuilding the system. He said the High Pressure Sodium lights that have been installed in the initial phase of the demonstration project will be replaced as part of a normal maintenance schedule once the work in the rest of the city has been completed.
Jones said the two demonstration areas should be completed in May and that work will continue uninterrupted moving out into the remainder of the city.
The east side demonstration project is comprised of an area with boundaries of Eight Mile, Kelly Rd., Hoover and Houston Whittier. The west side demonstration project has boundaries of McNichols on the north, Southfield Rd. on the east, Fenkell on the south and Telegraph on the west, with a small extension in the Five Points area of the city south of McNichols and west of Telegraph.
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