Letter to Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Regarding Power Outages

Following the power outage of Friday, June 27, Mayor George sent the following letter to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Lakewood is working in collaboration with officials of neighboring cities and neighborhoods that have experienced the same or similar outage issues within the last six months. This communication comes after repeated contact with representatives at FirstEnergy during and after each time power has been lost in Lakewood.

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Dear Chair French and PUCO Commissioners:

As an Ohio public utility, FirstEnergy has been entrusted with one of the most important duties to people of this great state – ensuring that they have safe, reliable, and fairly-priced access to electricity. For the past year, FirstEnergy has fundamentally and repeatedly failed in that duty, with frequent and widespread power losses across the near west side communities of Cuyahoga County in Cleveland and Lakewood. These losses are not explained by weather, acts of God, or any other excusable factors. They are clearly the fault of FirstEnergy’s corporate ineptitude and apathy.

As the elected officials representing over 100,000 constituents who reside in these densely populated communities, we demand that PUCO:

1. Launch a full investigation into the chronic failure of FirstEnergy to provide power as required to our communities, especially in times of greatest need;
2. Report out to the public on the condition of FirstEnergy infrastructure that is supposed to serve our communities; and
3. Enforce the duties placed on FirstEnergy to provide reliable power to the public.

The chaos and damage caused by FirstEnergy’s failures are real. They involve matters of life and death and affect the economic viability of those we represent. Vulnerable seniors become trapped in high rise buildings every time they must go without air conditioning and elevators on scorching summer days. Businesses collectively suffer tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue and waste when forced to close their doors and send their employees homes because they have no power to operate. Our brave first responders are forced to scramble to deal with avoidable blackout induced crises in addition to real emergencies not induced by FirstEnergy’s failures.

Each of the undersigned has made numerous direct communications and complaints to FirstEnergy officials over the past year regarding this inexcusable situation. Our outreach has been met only with platitudes, excuses, dodging, empty promises, and general corporate apathy. Your board was also made aware of this situation in a previous letter sent on January 15th of this year, which was met by silence. The frequency and severity of these outages over the past year demands your urgent attention and swift action. We are all aware that local government has zero public power to force action by FirstEnergy, so we are demanding that PUCO use its authority and address FirstEnergy’s utter failure to serve our community.

During and following each of these outages, our respective offices have received hundreds of calls, emails, and messages from our constituents demanding action. We eagerly await a response with a statement as to how PUCO will use its exclusive authority to hold FirstEnergy accountable for this inexcusable situation.

Meghan F. George
Mayor, City of Lakewood

Brian Kazy
Council Member – Ward 16, Cleveland City Council

Charles Slife
Council Member—Ward 17, Cleveland City Council