Hearings on Con Ed outage

In response to a demand by the Western Queens Power for the People Campaign (PFPC), the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) has scheduled four additional public hearings about July’s week-long Con Ed power outage. These hearings will take place in the working-class, immigrant communities of Sunnyside, Woodside, Astoria and Long Island City.

However, a conspiracy of silence by Con Ed, the PSC and the media may keep news of the hearings from reaching the affected communities.

The PFPC demanded the extra hearings because the PSC’s earlier hearings in August were held while affected neighborhoods were still recovering from the outage. There was also poor publicity and the announcements on the hearings weren’t translated into other languages.

The state agency, run by high-paid commissioners appointed by New York Governor George Pataki, has again done little to publicize the upcoming hearings. While providing some translators at the hearings, the PSC again issued English-only posters that are not translated into the many languages read and spoken throughout Western Queens.

Con Edison, a billion-dollar energy monopoly that recently ran two-page ads in Queens newspapers touting its role in helping the area recover, has not even run a postage-stamp-sized notice about the public hearings. Instead, the main culprit in the outage issued its own 600-page report last week claiming that a series of simultaneous, unrelated events—that were not Con Ed’s fault—somehow came together to cause the outage, which could have been a lot worse but for Con Ed’s response (ad nauseam).

Despite limited resources, PFPC has produced its own literature and community volunteers are going door-to-door to get flyers posted. But help is needed to get the word out so the community—which endured days without lights, air conditioning, refrigeration and suffered many losses from the outage—can raise its voice at the hearings.

On Nov. 2 at P.S. 11 at 54-25 Skillman Ave. in Woodside, there will be an afternoon education forum 4 p.m. until 5 p.m.; a public hearing 5 p.m. until 6 p.m.; an evening education forum 7 p.m. until 8 p.m. and another public hearing 8 p.m. until 9 p.m. Translators will be provided for those who speak Korean, Spanish and Turkish. Similar hearings were held on Oct. 25.

Go to www.powerforthepeople.info to find out how to help spread the word about the Nov. 2 public hearing.