After storming utility commission again
People without heat get a small reprieve
By Michael Shaw
Providence, R.I.
Two weeks after a united force of community activists
stormed the offices of the Rhode Island Public Utilities
Commission, protesting draconian utility shut-off policies,
they were back again, keeping the heat on the state
bureaucracy.
On Oct. 23, over 60 of these militant activists, all members
of the Peoples' Utility Fairness Coalition, applied pressure to
the commission in powerful testimony on how they just can't pay
their utility bills in these tough times.
The George Wiley Center says that due to the recent flood of
layoffs and rising utility rates, utility shutoffs in R.I. had
risen by more than 50 percent--from 10,017 last year through
the end of September to 17,276 this year by the same time.
At the rowdy, four-hour-long hearing, Sandra Moretti--a
single mother--told how the temperature was 30 degrees one
night in October when the gas company shut off service to the
home she shares with her two children. She said she lost gas
service because she was $75 behind in her payments. "I don't
know how everyone is going to get through the winter," said
Moretti. "Everyone is getting laid off."
Sandra Spears, who has five children, has not had gas
service for four months. She owes a back bill of $4,000 and
says, "I'm willing to pay something on the bill, but ... they
want 100 percent."
Faced with these angry, desperate people attesting to the
possibility of being left in the cold this season, the PUC
agreed to a forgiveness plan where customers would pay 20
percent of their back bill to have service restored. The amount
required had been 35 to 100 percent.
Coalition members were happy to get the PUC moving, but
still don't think the proposed plan goes far enough. "We want
10 percent for forgiveness," said Henry Shelton of the George
Wiley Center.
Reprinted from the Nov. 8, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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