Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
P. O. Box 3711
204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
Toll Free: 800-234-6575
|
|
 |
|
|
Residents are shown aboard the “No Rate Hike Express” to Rocky Mount on Thursday. There, area residents opposed Appalachian Power Co.’s 13th proposed rate hike in three years. The bus is one of two sponsored for the trip by Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Collinsville, Bassett Furniture Industries and other area businesses. (Bulletin photo by Mike Wray) |
Friday, November 20, 2009
By MICKEY POWELL - Bulletin Staff Writer
As a home health nurse, Connie Martin of Collinsville sees a lot of people who are on fixed incomes.
Electricity is not discretionary spending, Martin said, yet many people she cares for in the area are “facing a choice now between paying their electric bills, buying medicine and buying groceries.”
Because she wanted to be a voice for those people, she boarded a bus and headed to a State Corporation Commission public hearing in Rocky Mount on Thursday to oppose a proposed Appalachian Power rate hike.
The bus in which she traveled was one of two that Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Collinsville, chartered to take residents of Henry and Patrick counties to the hearing at Franklin County High School.
It was a little more than half full. Anna McClain, Armstrong’s legislative aide, said more had signed up to ride but apparently some people decided to stay home due to Thursday’s dreary weather.
Martin spoke during the hearing, reminding commissioners that increases in government benefits are not likely for a year or two.
“If they’re not getting extra (benefits), they’re not going to be able to pay extra” in their utility bills, she said on the bus.
According to Armstrong, Appalachian’s current rate hike request is its 13th in the past three years, and the SCC has at least partially approved most.
“It’s wrong for them to have that many rate increases in that short of a period of time,” said another bus rider, Dennis Walker of Chatham Heights.
Trying to persuade the commission to deny the current rate hike request is “worth fighting for,” Walker said, explaining why he boarded the bus.
Most of the bus riders were older people. As the bus headed up U.S. 220 to Rocky Mount, some discussed their financial hardships with others.
Some said they think government officials and Appalachian executives do not understand the plight of average people.
Others were overheard to say that companies for which they worked for many years have reduced their retirement benefits.
Rodney Prater of Patrick Springs said he hoped to find out why Danville Utilities, which supplies electricity to a small number of customers in the Axton area, charges less than Appalachian and has fewer power failures.
His wife, Linda, noted that the power goes out in their neighborhood an average of once a month.
Bus riders said they were optimistic that the three SCC commissioners would sympathize with their concerns.
“I pray to God that it (opposition voiced during the hearing) does some good,” Martin said going up the road.
After the hearing, she said, “we just have to have faith that they listened to the people.”
“We’ll hope for the best,” Armstrong said as he boarded the bus for home.
“I think they got an earful” during the hearing, Walker said, wondering if they will remember what they heard when they get back to Richmond.
One rider was less than optimistic.
“I feel like the SCC is like a rubber stamp” to whatever Appalachian wants, said Rosemary Minter of Henry County.
The latest rate hike request is “just corporate greed,” she said.
Minter said she recently talked with Ken Schrad, director of the SCC’s public affairs office. She said he told her the commission has been “flooded with e-mails” from Henry County and Martinsville residents opposed to the hike.
“He didn’t seem overjoyed” at the amount of correspondence, she said. |
| |
|
|
.jpg)
.jpg)
