Rice, Garagiola Discuss Pepco Service at Darnestown Civic Association Meeting

Pepco’s recent removal of dozens of trees in the area dominated discussion at the Darnestown Civic Association Meeting on Thursday evening. 

“I’m sick and tired of Pepco,” said Darnestown Civic Association President Lisa Patterson. She said she learned about the removal of trees on Berryville Road, and on other roads that are designated as rustic, from several homeowners who contacted her to describe their frustration. “It just made me sick,” she said about the trees, some more than 100 years old, that were chopped down by Pepco.

After neighbors and , Pepco agreed to halt its tree removal operations in the area for 30 days or until a meeting is held to discuss the rustic roads requirement. 

Montgomery County Councilman Craig Rice (D-Dist. 2) and Sen. Rob Garagiola (D-Dist. 15) attended the DCA meeting on Thursday, and both spoke about their continued work to hold the utility accountable for poor service.

“Our constituents are fed up with Pepco,” Rice said. “We want to hear from Pepco how they plan to make these changes and how the Public Service Commission (PSC) will hold them accountable for these changes.”

Rice, who lives in Germantown, described how he pressured Pepco to look at a neighborhood near his home, after repeated "blue sky" outages.

“The changes that [Pepco] made after I had been hounding them and meeting with engineers, has now fixed the problem,” he said. He said the experienced demonstrated that the utility is capable of fixing problems, but might not take the initiative to address each issue because of the cost. 

“If it’s something that might cost you a little bit more but it’s the cost of doing business, then do it because you’re concerned about the satisfaction of customers,”  he said.

Sen. Rob Garagiola described the that Maryland’s General Assembly passed this year that will require the PSC to create reliability standards for utility companies and impose a fine if those standards are violated. 

Garagiola described to the DCA how he worked with his colleagues to eliminate a limit on the amount of a fines a utility can be charged per day. Now Pepco could face up to $25,000 per violation of reliability standards, which he noted could become hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines in a single day if several violations are violated.

Though he acknowledged the process can seem slow to consumers, he said the PSC is looking into ways to more effectively evaluate the the utility's infrastructure reliability on both storm and blue sky days. 

The Public Service Commission has until July 1, 2012 to come up with the set of standards. 

DCA board member Art Slesinger, who served on the citizen’s , recently sent a letter to the Public Service Commission pointing out that Darnestown feeders have consistently ranked as the worst in all of Pepco’s servicing area for the past three years.

“We demand that Pepco provide a written report to the PSC on who all the feeders to Darnestown will be addressed in a meaningful and coordinated manner,” Slesinger wrote in the letter, a copy of which he gave to each DCA member on Thursday.

PSC Chairman, Douglas Nazarian, responded to Slesinger’s letter by pointing out the PSC’s continued investigation and consideration of reliability standards. In a letter, Nazarian wrote that Sleslinger’s comments would be kept on file and made available to the other members of the PSC.