Frustrated CPS Energy Customers Criticize Dealerships’ Handling for Winter Energy Crisis

Santo António – Dozens of angry CPS Energy customers gave the concessionaire heads a piece of their minds during the first meeting of the CPS Board of Trustees since last week’s controlled interruptions.

At the height of the concessionaire’s controlled outage strategy, there were about 372,000 customers without power. The curators heard the stories behind the statistics during nearly two and a half hours of public comment on Monday afternoon.

Although 108 people pre-registered to speak, not all did, as they were called one by one at the conference call.

Those who spoke told the council about their struggles with rotten food, conversational walks outside to keep warm from the cold of an unheated house and how they were forced to store precious insulin in the snow. Among other complaints, they also criticized the utility’s forced outages that left some people without power for several days.

“Trust is over, and saying ‘you’re sorry’ is empty,” said one person on the phone. “‘People first’ is not something you should say anymore.”

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Many resisted the idea that customers would bear the costs of the event as well – even if it was in the long run. Some suggested that the bills be waived during the storm.

The amount that CPS pays for fuel is typically included in customer accounts over a 45 to 60 day period. However, given the huge increase in natural gas prices – up to 16,000% – CEO Paula Gold-Williams said that CPS is considering stretching the cost over 10 years or more, rather than dropping the cost into an account.

CPS is still calculating how much more it spent during the winter event, and what it may be able to do to reduce that amount before passing on the cost to taxpayers.

“I understand very well how customers don’t want to pay for anything associated with the storm, ”said Gold-Williams during the meeting. “We will do our best to reduce these prices, we will work with state and local authorities so that we can look for any resources that we can help”.

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Some speakers said that the CPS should be placed under the control of the City Council, not the appointed trustees – an issue that appeared in the failed “Recall CPS” petition. According to the San Antonio Report, the petition was unable to obtain enough signatures to enter the May 1 vote, and the services company went to court in an attempt to cut off her legs.

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