State Senate passes 'Unitil bill' - Sentinel & Enterprise

"Some customers in Leominster, Gardner, Ashby and Townsend were without power for up to two weeks during the ice storm. Gov. Deval Patrick had "

Did someone forget Fitchburg residents were without power?

"Interesting"]" Some customers in Leominster, Gardner, Ashby and Townsend were without power for up to two weeks during the ice storm. Gov. Deval Patrick had "

Did someone forget Fitchburg residents were without power?

And what about Lunenburg as well? This would have never even gone as far as it did if it weren't for Fitchburg and Lunenburg residents speaking up!. Leominster is serviced by National Grid arent they? Go figure...it is the S&E.

Lunenburg resident wrote:

"Interesting"]" Some customers in Leominster, Gardner, Ashby and Townsend were without power for up to two weeks during the ice storm. Gov. Deval Patrick had "
Did someone forget Fitchburg residents were without power?
And what about Lunenburg as well? This would have never even gone as far as it did if it weren't for Fitchburg and Lunenburg residents speaking up!. Leominster is serviced by National Grid arent they? Go figure...it is the S&E.

I so missed Lunenburg not being listed, I do apologize. I believe Leominster and Gardner are both serviced by Grid...

Unanimous - that sends a message to Unitil just what our state thinks of them. Why do they stick around where they're clearly not wanted? They should put their FG&E subsidiary up for sale at bargain basement prices. The fight to get rid of Unitil is not going to stop.

I'd hate to see how things would be run if the State took control of a utility company, just look at the way things are run now (MBTA, MA Pike).

Ricky P, what the state would do is assign a competent utility company to come in and run the bad utility. The Department of Public Utilities has already indicated they do not want to run private companies.

This legislation, if passed by the House, will FOREVER be known as the "Unitil Bill." The bill will FOREVER be a reminder that ineptitude amongst public utilities will be dealt with severely because of the actions of ONE. Now Unitil can roll out a new business slogan; "Unitil, We have our own bill." This legislation should secure Jen Flanagan's re-election bid next time around.

Way to go Sen.Flanagan!!!!
Great representation from a frosh Senator.
I'm proud to have voted for you!!

About time flanagan accomplished something besides voting for her own pay increase, voting to expand worthless social programs, and voting to increase taxes.She will no doubt be a one term senator despite her finally doing something

Great bill, but we all know Unitil is not going to abide by "anything" the state mandates.
They will get their lawyers to stall and lie their way out of any fines that are levied against them.
Remember, these are the same crooks that consitently look for rate increases, without giving the public any notice to weigh in till after their dirty little deeds are approved.
Unitil: You are not trusted or wanted, and time will not be on your side.
People will not forget what you put them through last December or your constant attempts to raise their utilty bils for your "shoddy" service.

resident wrote:

About time flanagan accomplished something besides voting for her own pay increase, voting to expand worthless social programs, and voting to increase taxes.She will no doubt be a one term senator despite her finally doing something

Some are never happy. Given the state of things this is a great accomplishment. Let's look at the glass as half full and keep moving forward shall we.....

Disguisted wrote:

Great bill, but we all know Unitil is not going to abide by "anything" the state mandates.
They will get their lawyers to stall and lie their way out of any fines that are levied against them.
Remember, these are the same crooks that consitently look for rate increases, without giving the public any notice to weigh in till after their dirty little deeds are approved.
Unitil: You are not trusted or wanted, and time will not be on your side.
People will not forget what you put them through last December or your constant attempts to raise their utilty bils for your "shoddy" service.

I agree. But I applaud Flanagan's approach. From the start she did not shoot her mouth off like some public officials, threatening to run Unitil out of town, then having to back peddle when ownership of equip, etc was all considered. She thought and researched before she spoke. She went about it methodically and was smart about it - hit them in the bank account and be persistant and smart. The truth has come out - now let our rep's go after them the right way. Unitil didn't get established with their operating practices overnight and it will take a while to take them down, but progress is being made.

Is there anything in the bill about clearing the lines in Townsend before the winter icing?
I didn't think so. I would like to see some action in progress. This is more of the lip service. Reminds me of just before my power came back on after 12 days, a policeman told me ..Hey.. keep your receipts, Fema is going to pay...blah blah..blah... I have heard this before.. Just clear some lines..please.

Thank you to the Towns and Individuals that did go out of their way to support this bill. I support you. Just tired of the BS.

It would serve us all better if they just ran Unitil out of the state.It's a start.
I agree with The comment above,why is Unitil not clearing limbs over power lines while the weather is warm.Do we need to go through another winter like last for Unitil to say gee we should have done more.Which I see as nothing to this point.
I still see broken limbs hanging everywhere.

Interesting wrote:

"Some customers in Leominster, Gardner, Ashby and Townsend were without power for up to two weeks during the ice storm. Gov. Deval Patrick had "
Did someone forget Fitchburg residents were without power?

does anyone realize that Leominster and Gardner is serviced by National Grid...Why didnt they get mentioned for poor service like Unitil did. I didnt have power for 8 days in Leominster. And I am serviced by teflon grid.

I am sick and tired of all the critisim of utility companies. Any one of you that are mouthing off ot to ask yourselfs if my company suffered as much damage as the power system did how long would they take to recover. I would like to ask Flannagan and Dinatale if the roof of the state house blew off would they be able to repair it in 14 days? The devistation that the ice strom cause I think we can all agree was unbelievable. Complete restoration in 14 days was a miricle. All of the attention focused on one utility is completely unfair. Specialy when the big one horrded all of the crews in the area leaving others to go out of state to get help. And now all the legislation pointed at Unitil will only make other companies not want to do business in Massachusetts. People are complaining about trees limbs over wires, you probably own the tree so why dont you pay to have them trimmed? Oh thats right you all feel it is someones elses responsiblity. And you are of course entitled after all. Lets not forget that most utilies are up on poles and subject to all of the great weather we have been having. If the utilities cut all the trees out harms way you would never be able to afford the rates they would have to charge. Time to find something else to complain about....

not angry like most wrote:

I am sick and tired of all the critisim of utility companies. Any one of you that are mouthing off ot to ask yourselfs if my company suffered as much damage as the power system did how long would they take to recover. I would like to ask Flannagan and Dinatale if the roof of the state house blew off would they be able to repair it in 14 days? The devistation that the ice strom cause I think we can all agree was unbelievable. Complete restoration in 14 days was a miricle. All of the attention focused on one utility is completely unfair. Specialy when the big one horrded all of the crews in the area leaving others to go out of state to get help. And now all the legislation pointed at Unitil will only make other companies not want to do business in Massachusetts. People are complaining about trees limbs over wires, you probably own the tree so why dont you pay to have them trimmed? Oh thats right you all feel it is someones elses responsiblity. And you are of course entitled after all. Lets not forget that most utilies are up on poles and subject to all of the great weather we have been having. If the utilities cut all the trees out harms way you would never be able to afford the rates they would have to charge. Time to find something else to complain about....

George? George Gant is that you?

Part of the problem is preventative (tree limbs, etc) and the other is poor preparedness and response, for which Unitil formerly FG&E has always been famous. They refused help and responded on 12/11 and after poorly at best. Now the pendulum swings the other way to punish the behavior should it (God forbid) occur again in our lifetime. Certainly we can't speak for all Nat'l Grid areas, but Unitil disproportionately left it's customers out in the cold (literally and figuratively) for an period of time that could have/should have been much less. Combine that with historically inflated fees and....in the opinion of most, they are BEGINNING to get what they deserve.

not angry like most wrote:

I am sick and tired of all the critisim of utility companies. Any one of you that are mouthing off ot to ask yourselfs if my company suffered as much damage as the power system did how long would they take to recover. I would like to ask Flannagan and Dinatale if the roof of the state house blew off would they be able to repair it in 14 days? The devistation that the ice strom cause I think we can all agree was unbelievable. Complete restoration in 14 days was a miricle. All of the attention focused on one utility is completely unfair. Specialy when the big one horrded all of the crews in the area leaving others to go out of state to get help. And now all the legislation pointed at Unitil will only make other companies not want to do business in Massachusetts. People are complaining about trees limbs over wires, you probably own the tree so why dont you pay to have them trimmed? Oh thats right you all feel it is someones elses responsiblity. And you are of course entitled after all. Lets not forget that most utilies are up on poles and subject to all of the great weather we have been having. If the utilities cut all the trees out harms way you would never be able to afford the rates they would have to charge. Time to find something else to complain about....

First off I would like to say that I agree with you that the utility workers do work their tailends off. These people were out in that ice storm working hard to get power back to residents. There is no doubt about it.
I actually would classify them up with firemen and policemen. These workers are unsung heros.

Now about the tree trimming. The trees are on town land. I was told that Unitil was going to be trimming trees throughout this region. If it takes more crews. Then that is what it takes. If it cost more on my electric bill, so be it. It needs to be done and people need jobs. They could have had alot of people trained by now and work in progress. If the problem is not enough police details. Train some people to do traffic control. I think you would be surprise the knowledge of people in the area without jobs. Use the resources available and prevent another major outage. It may not be ice next time. The wind is kicking up alot lately.

not angry like most wrote:

And now all the legislation pointed at Unitil will only make other companies not want to do business in Massachusetts. Lets not forget that most utilies are up on poles and subject to all of the great weather we have been having.

Good, let the private utility companies stay out of the state and we will set up municipal utilities and move our power lines underground where they belong in this day and age.