MARYLAND
"Pack Up Pepco" song: A cry for change
Pepco has been feeling the heat since a series of storms left hundreds of thousands without power, now a local leader has come up with a song urging customers to demand change.
“Pack Up Pepco” was created by Somerset Councilwoman Cathy Pickar as a result of her own frustrations with the utility company’s response to last month’s Derecho storms. But it’s also a cry for change.
“This storm was really, I think, the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Pickar said.
Pepco’s set to debrief members of the Montgomery County Council at 12:30 p.m. Thursday on their response to the severe storms that caused massive outages in the area.
Pickar says she is rallying people to show up at the meeting and demand action.
“One thing we’re asking for in our petition … is to levy significant fines [ against Pepco] … that comes directly back to the customers,” she said.
Two Maryland lawmakers are calling on the state’s regulators to fine utility giants Pepco and BGE $100 million each and to set up a surge reserve fund.
Pickar says the reserve monies will go to funding “massive training for the appropriate people in this area who could step in in a storm … so we can get power restored more quickly because, obviously, Pepco can’t do it.”
She also says Pepco should fire their top officials, and that Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley should replace leaders at the Public Service Commission because they haven’t “done their jobs.”
Pickar said that O’Malley should consider adding a natural disaster expert and a consumer advocate to the Public Service Commission’s staff.
For more information or to sign the petition, visit http://www.packuppepco.com/.
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