Mayor Mike Halfacre
The power’s back on in Fair Haven today after two consecutive days of sporadic outages in the midst of record temperatures.
And while Mayor Mike Halfacre and some residents say they can understand the effect of unusually hot or cold weather on a utility company’s ability to deliver electricity, well, they’ve had just about enough, thanks.
In a posting on his blog today, Halfacre says he and borough administrator Mary Howell met yesterday with the local representative for Jersey Central Power & Light, and spoke with him
about not only the immediate need to get power back on, but the longer-term issue of reliability. It seems that there is no season when Fair Haven has reliable power: Hot, Cold, Windy, we lose power.
I have also had a conversation with Senator Jennifer Beck’s office, and they will be looking to assist us with taking our issues to the highest levels of FirstEnergy, the parent company of JCP&L.
In the meantime, the entire town should be back on, although some homes did not get power back until after midnight last night. Hopefully that is the last of it.
For what it’s worth, resident Jason Corrigan has also had about enough of the shutoffs. In the two years he and his family have lived on Fair Haven Road, he says, they’ve experienced approximately 10 outages.
Here’s an excerpt of a letter he sent this morning to First Energy, with copies to local and state representatives:
While I appreciate different extreme weather patterns can contribute to such outages, our home (and, in fact, our entire neighborhood) seems to be “over-effected” every time there is an issue. Clearly there is either an infrastructure or maintenance deficiency that is not being addressed.
I respectfully request that whatever repairs, upgrades, improvements or changes that need to be made to our local system be made. I and the rest of my neighbors pay the same rates for electricity as the rest of the state and should therefore be treated to the same level of service.
I kindly ask that you acknowledge this request and provide me with an update including proposed changes that will address this issue.
