March set to highlight power outage

After a new series of Con Edison power outages swept through the New York metropolitan area this month, the utility giant will soon face a reminder of last year’s 10-day outage in Queens.

On July 17 the Western Queens Power for the People Campaign will hold a Flashlight March on the first anniversary of last year’s outage, which plunged more than 174,000 people in western Queens into darkness during a sweltering summer heat wave.

The march will begin at 7 p.m. at Thomas P. Noonan Playground in Sunnyside, Queens (at Greenpoint Avenue and 43^rd Street near the 40th Street-Lowery stop on the 7 local train line).

Along the route through Sunnyside to Woodside, marchers will pass out an open letter to the state Public Service Commission and Con Ed for people in the community to sign. The letter will tell Con Ed: Accept fault for last year’s outage. Pay us what you still owe us (for non-food losses and damages). And NO 17 percent rate hike—use your $12 billion in profits to pay for upgrades.

Con Ed has amassed $12 billion a year in profits and $25 billion in assets while neglecting infrastructure upgrades in Queens and elsewhere. Now the utility giant claims it needs the biggest rate hike in its history to fix the system: 17 percent for residents and 10.5 percent for businesses.

PFP was launched on the sixth day of the July 2006 Queens outage when residents and workers in the affected working-class and immigrant communities organized to fight the super-rich utility company. Since then, PFP has petitioned, held public meetings, mobilized for and spoken at public hearings, and participated as a community voice in the state investigation of the outage.

In May, PFP joined the Women’s Fightback Network and the Million Worker March (East) in a picket of Con Ed’s stockholder meeting in Manhattan to protest the utility’s outrageous rate increase request. Now the group is planning to take that message into the communities of Western Queens with the July 17 Flashlight March.

For more information or copies of the flyer in English and Spanish, go to www.powerforthepeople.info.