From the office of Sen. Nancy Jacobs:
Businesses in the Edgewood and Joppa area, frustrated with continued power outages, met with Senator Nancy Jacobs on Wednesday at 11:30 am to vent their concerns. They wanted to know if BGE and government officials had any idea of the financial losses they and their employees have suffered because of the power outages. Over 1,000 of their employees were unable to work because of the power outages.
These local businesses said they needed better information on when they could expect to get their power back. The owners and managers had repeatedly been told by the utility that they didn’t know when their power would be restored and that they may not get back on line until Friday or even Saturday. Because these businesses aren’t located in an area with 10,000 residential accounts they were not a priority for BGE.
“This situation is so frustrating for the people I represent. The state doesn’t have a clue about how important it is to keep these businesses open so people can work. “If they cared about people, they’d put people back to work by getting the companies electricity,” said Jacobs
Several hotels and businesses just south of I-95 including Denny’s, El Rodeo Restaurant and the Waffle House were just a few of the many businesses affected at today’s meeting with Senator Jacobs. Seven businesses at the Lakeside Complex which employ about a thousand people were also still without power since Saturday. Senator Jacobs tried to arbitrate on their behalf with BGE, expressing the businesses concerns.
Senator Jacobs provided the names and addresses of these local businesses to BGE. Within hours, the Senator was assured that the power would be restored to those businesses by Wednesday evening. Senator Jacobs was notified by several owners that a caravan of trucks did arrive late Wednesday and power was restored between six and seven pm.
Senator Jacobs has been informed that the utility does not consider businesses a higher priority than households. Bonnie Johansen with BGE tells the Senator’s Office that emergency facilities are a first priority such as 911 centers, hospitals, fire houses, police and some nursing homes. After that the decisions on who will be turned on is based on numbers of meters in an affected area. One large business may be on the same priority level as a single family.
The utility’s handling of Hurricane Irene will be evaluated by lawmakers, including decisions about restoration priorities. Lawmakers will also examine the effect of a pending sale of BGE to Exelon Company and how that might influence future responses to widespread electrical outages.
Just out of curiosity, is BGE allowed by the state to enter into priority service type contracts?
If the state cared about people they would put people back to work by getting companies electricity. wait, wait – conservative mantra – get government out of business. – a good conservative would say – if a company cared about powering their business, they would not rely on the government to help – they would be self reliant and have purchased generators to back up power. nice that sen jacobs could pull some strings but it kind of violates her get government out of business speech.
I can’t agree. I did not se anything in the article that suggested or implied that Senator Jacobs was involving the govenment; she was pureely using her position to get attention and act as an honest broker.
I respectfully disagree…..
“The state doesn’t have a clue about how important it is to keep these businesses open so people can work. “If they cared about people, they’d put people back to work by getting the companies electricity,” ”
That comment seems to me to directly imply that the state government needs to be involved in getting electricity supplied again.
As frustrating (and financially devastating) as it must be not to have electricity, does Sen. Jacobs really think that the state doesn’t care about its people? I’m a cynical SOB, but I don’t even think I can take it that far to believe there are a bunch of big-wig crony bureaucrats, sitting in a smoke-filled room, contemplating how to keep screwing a subset of the population by denying them electricity.
I have to believe that both BGE and the state are doing everything in their power to get electricity restored to individuals and businesses.
My guess is if she was visiting a residential street without power and they complained that the business around the corner had power, why don’t we, she would probably saying it’s obvious BGE care more about businesses than people.
It was a hurricane! It hasn’t even been a week. BGE is trying there best. If you don’t like BGE, then generate your own power, the sun was shining bright the day after the storm.
Actually, it was not a hurricane. But it was pretty severe. I’m glad to see all of the progrerssive/dem/libs coming to the defense of BG&E. It’s about time they took up for big business, and a big business with a monopoly granted by the state. Yes, it is a monopoly. You can buy your power from a number of providers but there is one and only one choice for who delivers it.
Oh, and Pizzle, I can believe most anything about the state government except the smoke filled room part. Remember, no smoking in government offices.
The Dagger reported on August 30 that Jim Richardson, Director of the Harford County Office of Economic Development, was very concerned with businesses still without power. Two days later Nancy Jacobs also expresses that she is very concerned because people can’t work if their business has no power. But Nancy gets the backlash and the article centering on Jim Richardson’s concern is ignored? Tut tut.
I agree that these businesses need to generate their own power. But in order to do that we will need to get the environmentalists off their back for running generators and/or they will need to import solar panels from China. Why from China, because we can’t make them here in the US cost effectively as demonstrated by 3 major solar panel companies going belly up in August in spite of half a billion in subsidies. Oh, and wait, solar panels in Maryland have been demonstrated by engineering studies to be ineffective because of the climate. But then the same is true for wind farms.
Sen. Jacobs, I am very disappointed with your public stance on this situation. I have voted for you in the past because of your philosophies on government and business. However, I find it distasteful for you to use a natural disaster as a means to grandstand about the inadequacies of certain aspects of the government. BGE is *not* a government agency, nor are they a government regulated utility. They are a business and as such make business decisions on what they can do in situations like this. For you to say that “If they [the state government] cared about people, they’d put people back to work by getting the companies electricity” is ridiculous. You owe BGE an apology for using this situation for your own political gain.
BGE, for the record, IS a regulated utility. Constellation Energy is not a regulated utility, and neither is BGE Home. But BGE, the actual transmission lines, is a regulated utility because it operates on a monopoly. That is why BGE needs to seek permission to increase rates on the transmission portion of your electric bill (not the generation rate, which is set by your supplier which may be Constellation or it may be somebody else). Government regulation of BGE is conducted through the Public Service Commission, whose members are appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Maryland Senate.
You can argue about whether a business should get electricity before a home (which I think it should not) and you can argue about the demagoguery being done against linesman that I think are trying their damndest to get power back on. But you can’t say that the Government doesn’t have a responsibility to regulate a monopoly such as BGE.
Once again we have a teacher (assuming CONCERNED TEACHER is a teacher) who is clueless about BGE, regulation of monopolies and the State of Maryland. BGE is, contrary to what you believe CONCERNED TEACHER, a government regulated utility. You don’t even need a degree to know that. Just listen to the advertisements for BGE Home where they are always careful to let you know that “BGE is a regulated utility”.
I doubt CONCERNED TEACHER has ever voted for Nancy Jacobs, and that is fine. It’s America and you can vote for whoever you want. But please spare us your rant until you get your facts straight. No one owes BGE an apology. We owe them, and all citizens, strict and fair oversight including an honest appraisal of their performance, good or bad, during the last little tropical storm (not hurricane).
Just let me add that when Excelon is in the owner’s seat and the company is run from Chicago watch out. I do not work there, I do not own their stock so I have no ax to grind. Just beware.