The recent lawsuit Lakewood filed against JCP&L for their non-conformance, has prompted Lakewood’s Mayor Menashe Miller to propose legislation to penalize companies, the Lakewood Shopper reports.
The Mayor confirms that he has sent an inquiry to Senator Singer’s office to investigate passing legislation to penalize utilities financially in this kind of situation. Presently, the tariff- the legal guidelines that govern utility service providers- requires JCPL to fix lights that are out within a certain period of time.
“There is no penalty if they don’t comply”, Mayor Miller said.
Before Singer or any Senator crafts a bill, legal services must investigate all the surrounding legislation and determine if in fact the problem that calls for new legislation exists. When the report on the situation is returned to the Senator, they make the determination of how to proceed.
“We are waiting for an answer back from them” in order to proceed, Mayor Miller says.
With regard to the law suit, Miller adds, “JCP&L came up with a ridiculously low offer to compensate us for months of public streetlight outages. We have to come up with a counter offer.” Miller adds that each night he spends about fifteen minutes driving around town on the lookout for streetlights that are out and those that have been fixed. His office regularly keeps track now of what is going on in order to be prepared for later action against the utility.
Additionally, since receiving a shut-off notice from the utility company, the Mayor and Committee penned a letter to the Board of Public Utilities President Robert Hannah decrying the poor service and requesting assistance in getting our streetlights working, the Shopper reported. Source: Lakewood Shopper.
Let’s hope this goets somewhere.. But, I would think that they should easily be able to get the support of the New Jersey League of Municipalities behind this one.. It may also be worthwhile to discuss this with the New Jersey Association of Counties as well.
After all, here we have a situation where government has no other option but to rely exclusively on a singular private company for providing safe lighting to its infrastructure. No lighting causes car accidents, fosters criminal activity, and at times is a key factor in citizen’s deaths!
It’s most surprising that in the 21st century Government still lacks the power to place any sanctions on a corporation that knowingly and willingly neglects to perform its required and vital duties!!
Go Menashe!!
Something is not right here. Never heard of any other town in NJ having this problem.
Let’s fine JCP&L!!!! Where do you think they will get the money to pay the fines……. from US!! They will go to the “rubber stamp” BPU and ask for a rate increase and get it to pay the fines. Only if JCP&L is forced to take the money from the share holders and NOT the rate payers will it work for us.
If you make the stock holders pay for the fines, then the stock holders will hold JCP&L management accountable, then changes will be made!
As long as the rate payers are left holding the bag for the mismanagement nothing will be done!!
#3: Maybe other towns are having this problem. They might just not be doing anything about it.
No other town has the amount of street lights that lakewood does, but they should be fixed in a timely manner regardless.
let them throw out American Water from Lakewood that would help evrey household who has them.
EVERY town has streetlights out. Drive any road in any town at night and you’ll find streetlights out. Nobody cares about it. Finally at least one town’s Mayor decided that enough is enough. Its about time the utility company has been taken to task for collecting payment for service it doesn’t provide.
Go Mayor Miller!!!
Lakewood Township is the first municipality to stand up to this electric utility giant. They should keep the pressure up and settle for any silly concessions. This is OUR money that pays for streetlights that are not working.
This is ridiculous!!
JCP&L are not the problem, take care of the real thugs who are robbing us blind NJ American Water Thieves!! first deal with them then take care of a small jcp&l problem
Kudos to the Mayor! Its about time someone stood up to these utility crooks and give them what they deserve!
This all started do to the fact that people had no reflective vests on at night when walking and getting hit by a car. Now Lakewood looks to blame it on. THIS IS NOT OUR FAULT BUT SOMEONE OTHER THEN ME FAULT. More wasted tax money for lakewood. This is what the hope from the obama world wants every tax payer to pay for everyone who lives off the system
Its amazing how people could come on to this site and be pro-JCP&L. You’re either an employee of JCP&L or you live in your parent’s house and don’t pay an electric bill!