Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
P. O. Box 3711
204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
Toll Free: 800-234-6575
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Friday, October 2, 2009
By GINNY WRAY - Bulletin Staff Writer
Del. Ward Armstrong and state Sen. Roscoe Reynolds were the sole opponents of an Appalachian Power Co. rate hike request who spoke at a public hearing in Richmond on Thursday.
“I told them people can’t afford to come to Richmond” to speak at State Corporation Commission hearings on Appalachian’s rate hike requests, Armstrong said Thursday night. “If they have jobs, they can’t take off. They depend on Roscoe Reynolds and I to carry that message.”
Thursday’s hearing was on Appalachian’s request to increase its surcharge to recover environmental compliance and transmission and distribution system reliability costs (E&R). APCo Corporate Communications Manager Todd Burns has said APCo is requesting an increase of $41 million beginning Jan. 1.
Armstrong said he told the SCC judges Thursday that when Tultex Corp. closed in 2000 and unemployment reached 19 percent in the Henry County-Martinsville area, people spoke at town hall meetings about having to choose between food and medicine.
Now, he said, with the recession, this area’s unemployment rate is even higher, including the 20.8 percent rate in Martinsville announced Wednesday.
“It’s an election year, and I’ve been knocking on doors. I’m hearing the same remarks, but this time they’re having to choose between paying the electric bill and being able to provide other necessities of their family,” Armstrong said.
He said his staff’s research showed Appalachian had filed for 11 rate increases since 2006. “Enough is enough,” he said.
He also told of a robocall, or computerized phone call, he paid to conduct in his district. The call asked people to push “1” on their phone if they opposed the APCo rate increases.
The phone company told him that typically 5 percent of those receiving such calls respond, and 15 percent is the highest it had seen. Yet 30 percent of his callers pushed “1,” he said.
Armstrong took the names of those 2,426 people — 73 pages of single-space typed names — to Thursday’s hearing.
“I want Appalachian to look at the people they’re affecting,” he said.
Last week, residents of the 10th District received a mailing from Armstrong asking them to return a detachable postcard to the SCC if they oppose the APCo rate increases.
“It is my hope that thousands of residents will return these postcards to the SCC,” Armstrong said in a news release. “I have been submitting written objections, testifying at hearings and speaking publicly against these rate hikes for over a year, but Appalachian Power and the SCC are ignoring the concerns of the people of Southside and Southwest Virginia. If everyone sends in these postcards, the SCC and APCo will find us hard to ignore.”
Armstrong said the SCC judges did not respond at the hearing and did not to indicate when they would rule on the rate request.
Reynolds said APCo’s request is one of four pending this year. The utility believes it is entitled to recover more than $100 million and accrue 12.5 percent on equity, he said.
“I reminded the commission of the difficulties facing the people I represent,” Reynolds said Thursday night. “I asked them to not give any increase and if there was any possible way to lower rates to do that.” Appalachian recently has filed four rate increase requests. One was approved by the SCC this year.
If all four requests are approved by the SCC, they could increase the monthly bill of a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity by more than 27 percent compared with rates in May 2009, according to figures supplied by Burns. |
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