Mark Sanchez: A little opposition has surfaced as my co-worker Andy Balaskovitz, he's a managing editor here at Crain’s Grand Rapids, wrote this. Last week there is a little bit of opposition to this proposal on the ballot in less than two weeks. If you've been driving along I-196 near Grandville, you've seen the billboard overlooking the freeway or perhaps you've gotten some of the text messages from this organization TGIF Victory Fund. This is founded and is financially backed by a developer Dan Hibma. You may have heard that name. He was the guy behind a number of years back trying to dredge the Grand River. And he has also been a financial supporter over in Ottawa County of the Ottawa Impact PAC. And he's been contributing about $100,000 dollars to this TGIF Victory Fund that has been a growing some opposition out there into the town about this proposal on the August 6th ballot that would allow Kent County to increase the motel/hotel tax assessment on rooms. When folks come from out of town, the backers of this proposal, say 90% of the revenue it would generate would come from out-of-town visitors. And proposal is to increase the tax from 5% to 8% on hotel and motel stays. And this money would go to, we've discussed these projects for quite some time here on this program, the new soccer stadium that's proposed right along the freeway just on the west side of downtown, and the Acrisure Amphitheater that's under construction just on the south end of downtown. So, it's a proposal coming to the ballot. There are a lot of business interests, including the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, that are advocating on behalf that favor this proposal to fund these projects. But now here in the last recent week, we've seen some opposition come up and surface to oppose this proposal.
Patrick Center: This is radio, so I will provide a visual. There's a photo with Andy’s story. Billboard along I-196 near Grandville. There's a woman with her arms crossed and the text reads, No new taxes. No hotel taxes. Vote No August 6th. Have you reached out to this developer and his team to get an answer for why they are opposed?
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, Andy got a statement from the folks, the treasurer at the TGIF Victory Fund. He said that Mr. Hibma is a member of the PAC and they wanted to express a different point of view to voters. They like the folks who are backing this. They're good folks, they say. But in his words, the dialogue is always the best thing for democracy in local community. They just wanted to put their points out there. And some of the text messages that began going around recently, there was questions raised about the parking that's going to be around these two developments, that there's not enough. The city supporting the bonds to help finance this upfront and that the city gave away $300 million of your tax dollars. That's what's one of the text messages was saying for 745 downtown apartments. And that's an apparent reference to a transformational Brownfield plan, the city approved for both the amphitheater and the soccer stadium and some mixed-use projects that would go around the periphery of both venues. So that's some of their issues. Take it. Accept it. Don't accept it. Everybody can make their own decision. But that's some of what they're hanging their hat on as far as their opposition to this proposal on the August 6th ballot.
Patrick Center: We're talking with Crain's Grand Rapids Business Senior Writer, Mark Sanchez. This is the time of year when insurers propose their rates for the upcoming year. And we're seeing that with Priority Health.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah. We've seen it with not only Priority, but a lot of the other health plans in the state, you know, back in a month or so ago, we had the small group rate increases proposed that were submitted to the state regulators. And now these are for the individual rates. And statewide, if you're somebody who buys your own health coverage, whether you're an individual, you don't get it through work or you're a sole proprietor for the small business and you buy an individual policy, you can expect probably a double-digit rate increase for 2025. The average statewide increase proposed across a dozen different health plans in the individual market is 11%. Almost 11%. But boy, we're seeing that kind of skewed somewhat because Priority Health based here in Grand Rapids proposed a rate increase for individual policies of 18.9%. And that's a big increase. Why so much? Well, the folks at Priority Health, much similar to what Blue Cross and Priority were saying back when these small group rates were filed a little more than a month ago, is that they're seeing, boy, these high-cost emerging therapies for specialty prescription drugs, especially these GLP-1 drugs. We see advertised so much on TV and radio now for weight loss and diabetes. They're seeing increased utilization rates for outpatient care and professional services. More behavioral health, mental health care being provided. And all this adds up. These rates are reflective of the medical claims trends and the pharmaceutical claims trends that the health plans get. So, these costs are adding up and that's reflected in a pretty good size rate increase for individual policy that Priority Health has proposed. Some of the other plans coming out with their individual rates that they're proposing, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, 7.5% average statewide increase for individual policies that renew January 1. Blue Care Networks looking at 8.9% less than what their competitors doing but still fairly sizable increases that are kind of reflective of this cost of health care, the utilization rates and especially these high-cost specialty drugs that are getting higher and higher use.
Patrick Center: As this country electrifies, there's this need for battery storage. Out along the lake shore, great story, I know that you enjoyed this one, and that is Jolt Energy Storage Technologies and its development of battery storage.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah. This is a company we've written about a few times and did another story on them last week because they're raising capital. They're seeking the Jolt Energy Storage Technologies is seeking to raise $5.6 million in venture capital. Has about $4.2 million committed right now to really commercialize this low-cost option for storing energy. Now one of the issues, and it's a big issue for these battery storage units, is some of the metals they use. And there's issues of mining and cost and access, processing and all of that, and it just adds to the cost. What Jolt Energy has done is developed some storage components based on organic compounds. So, it takes away some of those peripheral issues that perhaps are more than peripheral. especially when you talk about mining some of these heavy metals and these metals that are required for these batteries. So, it's developed this. They say they hope with this capital raise they're working on, hope to have a prototype in the field within a year perhaps by next fall in 2025. They're working with a partner in Holland that they're going to deploy a prototype. Their first goal is to really use this technology for power utilities that generate the electricity and then can store it this way. Ultimately there, there's vision for using this energy storage technology at your home or for commercial uses for projects, commercial real estate projects. So, this is the era we're living in. We are electrifying, not just for automotives and motor vehicles, but electrifying elsewhere in terms of how do you store energy that's generated? And it's a changing world in that sector. And, uh, this is part of the fun part of what I do for a living and is meet these entrepreneurs that are developing innovations and commercializing their innovation and bringing something new to market. And we'll see how their prototype and their beta test does next year and whether Jolt Energy can continue and finish down that commercialization pathway to bring this new technology to market.
Patrick Center: Crain's Grand Rapids Business, senior writer Mark Sanchez. Thank you so much.
Mark Sanchez: Thank you, Patrick.