Letter: Take Grievances to BPU

To the Editor,
Thank you for all you are doing to keep us up to date on the Morristown and Morris Township power outages and road blockages!

Today's forecast for more heavy rain on the already soaked ground sounds like a recipe for even more power outages and road blockages. Trees already weakened by Irene are likely to crash down.

I'm not sure if First Energy, JCP&L's parent company, which serves six million customers in six states, will be willing to send back the out-of-state trucks which are likely to be on their way home before we wait another week to have our power restored. Our power in part of Burnham Park was only restored Saturday night, after 7 days without power. There are neighborhoods which still have no power after 8 days.

In a response to one of your earlier articles, Scott Wilson of Morristown's Olyphant Park neighborhood explained that they had success by joining together to complain to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU.) 

He explained that "once a block of residential customers joined together in petition to complain of the services with which they have an exclusive franchise, the utility is served notice to respond to both [those customers] and the board, and that a monetary penalty is imposed on the utility for every day that the condition is not corrected."

Rather than wait for the trees to fall around us again,  I think it is time for the citizens and businesses of Morristown and Morris Township  to take our grievances with JCP&L directly to the BPU.

I will eagerly sign such a petition! Who will join me?

Sheira Greenwald
Burnham Park