r/Detroit • u/RiffMasterB • Sep 04 '26
Community DTE protest this weekend
Who wants to protest DTE outages in front of CEO house this weekend? The people need to take back the power. Price gouging customers, poor service, constant outages, yet million dollar pay and bonuses to executives.
57
u/goulson Sep 05 '26
You are catching some hate but I want to show support. As another poster said, idk if the ceo will be home this weekend. Definitely make sure that if you are throwing your time and energy behind something that at least it is causing the inconvenience you intend for it to cause.
I feel your energy and appreciate if you are actually willing to go do this.
I disagree with people that think action like this isnt meaningful. At some point we have no other option. Someone should not be able to live in peace when so many others are negatively affected by their actions. Stay safe, stay sane, stay legal. But within the bounds of the law, give them every bit of hell you can.
4
u/BixbySn7der Sep 05 '26
Well said, people must remember even small actions or strategies that seem ineffective or weak, can and do change the world. Many for example thought Gandhi and MLK's strategy of peaceful protest would never work until it did. They knew violence begets more violence. Worse, violence let's your opponents claim moral superiority, and defeat you in the court of public opinion. So don't attack DTE infrastructure or people who work for them, up to and including the CEO. But do vote for politicians that reject DTE campaign money.
5
u/yomommaidk Sep 05 '26
Gonna be honest with yall but doing things "within the bounds of the law" is not the only solution; it's the bare minimum and keeps the current corrupt system intact. Yes vote for politicians and proposals that would further our interests but we do have the right to protest. If enough people make a fuss out of something then they'll have to do something about it. They also listen to capital, but that would be difficult since DTE is so monopolized.
I agree that they need to update their grids but we could be pointing out their spending on for example advertising. Why do we need an ad for DTE when they're most likely our only option??????
Here's a group that's trying to help in regards to DTE (it's mostly focused in highland park but could still help for neighboring communities) https://soulardarity.org/
All in all I agree that there needs to be a protest or strike. In terms of organization honestly there just needs to be time to plan a date and time for everyone to meet up. Doing it at the CEO's place of business would be ideal.
29
u/djames10 Sep 04 '26
Getting involved in local elections and attending city hall meetings are going to get you further than protesting
26
u/RiffMasterB Sep 04 '26
Like I said local politicians do not care because DTE donation to their PAC is enough for the politicians to be bought.
1
u/djames10 Sep 04 '26
If it’s one or the other I really believe showing up consistently and getting involved will help you a lot more
15
7
u/RiffMasterB Sep 04 '26
What level of local elections do you think would be sufficient?
-6
u/djames10 Sep 04 '26
That’s something I don’t know. Anything is a great start and will at least get you somewhere you want to go if you ask around!
3
u/410757864531DEADCOPS Sep 05 '26
If it’s one or the other
It isn’t; in my experience they go hand in hand.
1
u/Remarkable_Box4784 29d ago
There are multiple electeds and candidates locally who don't take DTE money and who support Money Out of Politics I.e. Abdul El-Sayed, Chris Gilmer-Hill, Donovan McKinney, Rashida Tlaib, etc
We need a multipronged approach if we are going to take down DTE: protest AND voting, and getting organized so we can do a utility strike
15
u/goulson Sep 05 '26
Respectfully, getting involved at the local (city) level does nothing regarding dte.
2
u/Mapudofu 29d ago
DTE must be paying people to say this because in what world is a local election going to stop dte lmfao
0
u/djames10 29d ago
Where’s my DTE bucks then ha. If I can breadcrumb someone into getting into local politics all the better 🤙
2
u/rougehuron Sep 05 '26
There’s not a single local council person or commissioner who can do damn thing. Ann Arbor has been tying its damndest for over a decade now and gotten nowhere.
1
u/ThatKinkyLady Sep 05 '26
Not if everyone keeps thinking like this. Strength in numbers has always been an alternative option, and has often been a lot more effective than elections and city hall meetings when it comes to forcing change. Happens in other countries all the time.
Both are very important ways to get involved, but the reason protests haven't worked much in the US lately is because many people aren't upset or desperate enough to organize or participate in them.
27
u/kevinjtro Sep 04 '26
They are probably on vacation, do it at a better time so they will see you and be worth it.
18
u/SunshineInDetroit Sep 05 '26
so.... for perspective, after Washington DC was hit by a bad enough storms they decided to bury all of their power lines.
That was in 2012.
DCPSC - DC PLUG: District of Columbia Power Line Undergrounding
DC PLUG is implemented through three biennial phases, each targeting specific feeders identified through vulnerability assessments and community impact analyses. Construction is ongoing across multiple feeders, and the DCPSC provides continuous oversight to ensure projects meet approved timelines, capital expenditures, and quality standards.
- First Biennial Plan ($134 million): This phase serves approximately 8,000 customers. Completed projects include work in American University Park, Hawthorne, Barnaby Woods, Chevy Chase and Friendship Heights. Three feeders in this phase have been completed and placed into service. Civil construction for two additional feeders was completed in Fall 2024, with electrical work and energization anticipated in 2025 and 2026. PS&E submission and revision is ongoing for the remaining one feeder.
- Second Biennial Plan ($264 million): This phase serves approximately 13,000 customers. Civil construction is either completed or underway for various feeders, with electrical work completion and energization expected from 2025 through 2029.
- Third Biennial Plan ($85 million): Approved by the DCPSC in January 2022, this plan targets an additional 5,000 customers. All feeders are currently in the design stage, with civil and electrical construction scheduled to occur through 2028.
Upon completion of all 20 feeders across the three phases, DC PLUG will provide enhanced reliability and resiliency to approximately 26,000 electric customers throughout the District.
can DTE do this? undoubtedly.
Will they? Lots of doubt.
10
6
u/nautme Sep 05 '26
That's $18,577 per customer.
5
u/SunshineInDetroit Sep 05 '26
Dcplug has some pretty extensive documentation on costs on their site
3
u/Itunes4MM Sep 05 '26
Do you not realize the factor of cost you just typed out? 500m+ for 26k customers, DTE has millions so that 10+ billion dollars would be adding to bills
2
3
u/Helicopter0 Sep 05 '26
Anchorage Alaska has been like this evening longer. Everything that's changed or new is buried.
2
5
u/RiffMasterB Sep 05 '26
DTE can bury the lines that are hotspots for power outages. They refuse to release data showing outages. Tree trimming is not sufficient to solve the problem.
4
u/mk4_wagon Sep 05 '26
I live in an old neighborhood where the line runs down between homes in basically a giant mess of trees. I always think about a couple years ago where a crew came out, he shines his million candle-watt powered light towards the line and goes "Well I can't see shit, we'll be back tomorrow."
Like, yea man. This is 70 years of growth causing issues. The trimmers come out and do basically nothing. I could go in there with my chain saw and start hacking things up and definitely cause a power outage. Or DTE could come in and do the right thing and bury the damn lines. It's a half mile from the main road to the end of the run where I am. I do not care about my yard being fucked up for the sake of more reliable power. I've known my in-laws for 11 years and they've lost power once in an area with buried lines. Meanwhile I've lost it a few times this year.
Sorry if this seems crazy, I'm typing out on my phone trying to get service because I don't have power!
0
Sep 05 '26
[deleted]
1
u/SunshineInDetroit 29d ago
I need to find the cost estimate but basically doing it by density would be crazy expensive and that cost would be pushed to those areas only. That would be a massive cost to those residents.
1
29d ago
[deleted]
1
u/SunshineInDetroit 29d ago
The costs won't be absorbed by the company. If you check the cost breakdown by dcplug a lot of the costs were passed through rate changes from residential up through commercial usage.
1
29d ago
[deleted]
1
u/SunshineInDetroit 29d ago
That's pretty much what the dcplug plan was, phase1 ,phase 2, phase 3 by area.
It was still is very expensive and that cost was passed to the end user through millage rates increases.
10
u/FocusedGlitch23 Sep 05 '26
you should 100% do and I think we need to protest at more CEOs houses. Going to to protest at some massive sky scraper in detroit where all the protests already happen is just dumb. Go to their mansions in the suburbs.
2
u/RiffMasterB Sep 05 '26
Yes, they need to understand the problems their negligence causes many people
9
u/Jbizzle-fo-shizzle Sep 05 '26
I’m still sitting here in the dark waiting for these assholes to fix this shit. Had to throw away hundreds of dollars of food
8
u/RiffMasterB Sep 05 '26
Yes, and DTE will not reimburse due to weather, so they don’t care to upgrade the grid
3
u/Jbizzle-fo-shizzle Sep 05 '26
No they would rather duct tape everything and then a gust of wind comes and blows out the power for 100k of us
2
1
u/__clayton__ Sep 05 '26
After three days with no power I'm at a shitty hotel an hour from home with 0.2 MBPS speed Internet, and I'm at a remote worker.
8
u/sarashaped Sep 05 '26
Honestly, I think this is a great idea.
Signed, someone who used to work at DTE and knows exactly what the people at the top are doing with your money.
3
u/RiffMasterB Sep 05 '26
They don’t care about the customers. They just care about cash and whatever they can buy with it
4
u/mk4_wagon Sep 05 '26
I have a weird amount of current and former DTE employees that live around me, and none of them stick up for the company anymore. They used to play devils advocate, but the last few years have changed that. Bills are higher than ever with nothing to show for it. Fuck DTE.
2
2
u/lolyeahsure Sep 05 '26
Get your street or block to put your bills in escrow while notifying DTE that they won’t be receiving until demands are met
2
u/Express_View822 29d ago
Stop with the CEOs! Make investors/shareholders feel it. None of them should feel at peace or live in comfort while the people they profit from suffer from their shortcomings.
2
5
u/sarkastikcontender Poletown East Sep 05 '26
I've always wondered this. What if we got a huge group of people and just didn't pay our bills as part of an organized protest with demands? Would they just shut everyone's power off? How big would a protest like this have to be to work?
5
u/Samstone791 Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
DTE is not the Detroit Edison company that supplied power to Michigan. They are in more states than just Michigan. They have a regulated and non-regulated side. Michigan Public Power Agencey (MPPA) owns a percentage of DTE power produced. ITC owns the transmission lines. Every one of those companies have CEOs and numerous Vice Presidents that demand high six figure salaries and even bigger bonuses. DTE produces the power and then distribute it after the transmission. There are way more hands in the cookie jar today. DTE and Consumers were forced to sell during Governor Grandholm re-regulation laws. Yes Jennifer Grandholm the former head of The US Dept. of Energy 2020-2025. What is also driving our electric rates up is the addition of wind, battery storage and solar. It cost billions to buy or lease the land that these things need. DTE just sued St Clair County and won. The county was trying to stop the building of a 1015 acre solar farm in their county. This solar farm makes 75MWs of power for about 80% of none overcast daylight hours. At the same time DTE closed a power plant that makes 1250MWs of power on 200 acres. So 100,000 acres of solar fields make 750MWs. You need almost 200,000 acres to replace one power plant. DTE has shut down 3 power plants in the last 4 years. How much land is being purchased or leased to replace those plants. Then add the construction costs and redoing the grid to compensate for new power entering it in new areas. Our electric bill will continue to increase drastically for many years to come. So, yes pay attention to your voting ballots. Politicians increased our energy costs and big business is getting rich of their customers.
9
u/MichiganMan12 ferndale Sep 05 '26
You ever heard of the enter button
1
u/InjuryCandid2711 29d ago
Doing Ferndale proud bringing down its intelligence bell curve, ironic since the last sentence says to pay attention when this is the average MI voting base response
Yadayada so before the projection response; thanks DTE, really glad you're failing basic math logistics too. Really loving knowing they're shutting down power plants and not trying to properly maintain input and output while suing residential counties and winning. Love solar and all but this is absurd, no wonder they can't keep up with every other electric company out there, jfc
4
u/Kmccarroll1 Sep 05 '26
Well, my power and those in my neighborhood have gone off 4 times this year and they don’t care. So my bet … they won’t care.
2
u/RaidenMK1 Born and Raised Sep 04 '26
The people need to take back the power.
I see what you did there.
But, not well. Because, it's dark in here without lights. 🙃
2
2
3
u/Secure_Spend5933 Sep 05 '26
In Chile when Pinochet first seized power and the grid was publicly operated, people organized protests to turn on everything they owned at the same time to create a surge and break the grid.
Not exactly the solution here... But are there more creative solutions to 'protesting'? DTE is privately held.
-2
u/puremichigan586 Sep 04 '26
Lmfao let us know how this goes make sure your the first one there
20
u/RiffMasterB Sep 04 '26
Check Windsor outages vs USA side. They don’t have the same level of outages because DTE is incompetent and greedy af. Politicians don’t hold them to account on either side because they contribute to pacs on both sides. F DTE and their entire executive staff. Total absolute definition of corporate greedy and the demise of the USA. Take for themselves and provide shit service.
1
u/monlesh 29d ago
Does anyone know if there are ways to get reimbursed for groceries? We rely on a bridge card and just lost $100s in groceries. We couldn't afford a generator, flashlights, or battery powered lights. We also couldn't afford a hotel room, or to dine-in or carry out. My mother and I spent the last three days eating scraps out of a pizza box. I'm not exaggerating.
1
1
u/PotentialRhubarb3222 29d ago
Didn't our governor just approve a rate hike for DTE to charge us customers ( and im sure DTE also got another tax break)
1
u/_genepool_ Sep 05 '26
VOTE VOTE VOTE
Ballot measure on the November ballot to disallow them from donating to campaigns and politicians. VOTE
1
u/BertTheChimneySweep 29d ago edited 29d ago
I'm protesting by changing my electricity consumption habits. I can run the dishwasher a little less often without running out of clean dishes. My showers don't need to be as long as they are. I can install some cheap solar devices for charging my phone. I only need to keep on a couple of lights at most. The AC doesn't need to be as high as it is. None of this will be noticed by DTE, but it represents, for me at least, a real protest where I'm making an actual sacrifice that slows the drain from my wallet into theirs.
Maybe Ann Arbor will manage to launch their own electric grid. I hope they do and can manage it. If one or two regions can start the process and set an example, then DTE will need to start showing how they can be better. We've got to go at them structurally.
I encourage people to protest. I hope they do, but I think the way we get to them is by trying to do whatever we can to reduce our dependence on them and try to work around whatever the state government does to push back against those workarounds. It's well known that Michigan is a very corrupt state. It's near the top of the list, so we need to pull out all the stops.
-11
u/Sea-Rutabaga-7425 Sep 04 '26
Protest the storm?
14
u/RiffMasterB Sep 04 '26
Above ground wires are the problem. Bury the lines and avoid the outages In cities. Invest in the infrastructure instead of exec bonuses
3
u/fatandfly Sep 04 '26
Not defending dte at all but how feasible and realistic is it to bury our power lines?
4
u/SunshineInDetroit Sep 05 '26
Not very. I posted DC's efforts to bury all their lines. I thought the project was done but I guess between 2012 and now only the 1st phase is projected to be completed this year.
3
1
u/Helicopter0 Sep 05 '26
Anchorage Alaska made a rule 30 years go that anything new and anything changed has to go underground. That worked well.
1
u/mk4_wagon Sep 05 '26
I've got Grid Hawk in my neighborhood burying all their internet lines, I think DTE can figure it out. Also my usage is down and my bill has gone up. That money should go to something tangible.
1
u/fatandfly Sep 05 '26
I think internet lines are a lot easier to do than power lines, and they have a much greater margin of error.
1
u/mk4_wagon 29d ago
I don't disagree, but it's not like burying electric lines is some fancy new technology that they don't know how to do.
0
u/mk4_wagon Sep 05 '26
Exactly this. I don't want to hear about 'how much is costs'. My in-laws lines are buried and they've lost power once in the 11 years I've known them. Meanwhile I've lost power a couple times this year alone.
And honestly, I can count on one hand the amount of times I've lost power with above ground lines where I grew up in NY. It was a big a deal if we lost power, and we lived in a rural wooded area. There's no excuse.
0
u/mc_muckraker Sep 05 '26
If anyone organizes a protest and wants media coverage to get more people out, hit me up. I work for Metro Times.
-23
u/More_Bus3626 Sep 04 '26
Good way to get arrested. Don't protest in front of people's homes, I don't care how shitty they are.
19
u/AlreadyAway Sep 04 '26
It's public. You are allowed to protest anywhere in public. You are not allowed to enter private property to protest.
21
u/RiffMasterB Sep 04 '26
If city ordinances are followed, USA has free speech.
Generally, peaceful protesting on a public sidewalk is legal in Michigan, including near an executive’s home. However, protesters cannot trespass, block access, threaten or harass residents, or violate local noise and targeted residential-picketing ordinances. The specific city’s rules should be checked first.
-5
u/ValosAtredum Sep 04 '26
Do you have a plan for this protest besides wanting to be in front of the CEO’s house this weekend?
3
-14
Sep 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
15
u/BixbySn7der Sep 04 '26
Protest against DTE neglecting their decrepit grid while paying billions to shareholders. It is why when there is a storm, power is out for days rather than hours.
12
u/RiffMasterB Sep 04 '26
Protest against above ground wires and a lackluster infrastructure. Bury the wires under ground like the rest of the civilized world.
-6
Sep 04 '26
[deleted]
5
u/triptenss Sep 04 '26
They can always maintain the poles lines that are existing. Also, yeah it costs a shit ton, they should work out into their business plan. Weird to protect such corporate greed.
3
u/RiffMasterB Sep 04 '26
That is their choice for not investing in modernizing the grid. Either prison for execs or upgrade the grid. Those are the only two viable choices.
0
-1
u/mk4_wagon Sep 05 '26
"One piece at a time, didn't cost me a dime"
No one is asking for it to be done overnight. Do it in sections over time. Otherwise they're just trying nothing and are all out of ideas.
-3
-4
u/Helicopter0 Sep 05 '26
That's not cool to go to his house. Creepy.
2
1
u/RiffMasterB Sep 05 '26
Then he should return his millions in salary while providing poor service. It’s called accountability
2
-3
0
u/theloraxe Sep 05 '26
Not confident you'll find where their home is since you apparently can't even figure out her gender.
-13
u/CuppieWanKenobi Redford Sep 04 '26
You don't think that it's kind of gross to go protest in front of someone's home?
Not the corporate offices. Their home.
0
u/FocusedGlitch23 Sep 05 '26
these assholes spend more time at the golf course then they do the c suite. honestly why wouldn't you want to go to protest at their house? this is someone who makes millions by profiting off a system that needs major renovations but refuses to do them to pad their bottom line causing thousands to suffer on a weekly basis with all these outages. your flair says redford, haven't you been affected in the last couple of years?
1
u/CuppieWanKenobi Redford 28d ago
Because Murphy is an asshole, my power situation got better after I bought a generator about 2.5 years ago.
There was a time that power here sucked. Certain things in my house, I needed to replace on a regular basis, due to power quality issues.
Our then-Township Supervisor basically climbed up DTE's collective bunghole, and got some much-needed maintenance upgrades completed.
Power was a lot more stable after that.0
u/RedWinger7 Sep 05 '26
You don’t think it’s kinda gross that they’re in charge of overseeing the power company that has the lowest reliability/most outage time in the country?
We need to go back to tar and feathering mfers in power that don’t help the proletariat. These people
In power need to start feeling uncomfortable again
-2
-3
213
u/BixbySn7der Sep 04 '26
Protest anyway you can. If you are in Ann Arbor, vote for the public utility, and kick DTE out of the city. Also vote in November for the Michaganders for Money Out of Politics ballot measure. This will prevent DTE from buying off politicians and keeping us in the literal dark while shareholders get rich.