Downers Grove Plans ComEd Town Hall Meeting for Sept. 20

will host a ComEd Town Hall meeting on Thursday, Sept. 20, to discuss ongoing issues with the reliability of electricity service within the village.

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the , 4500 Belmont Road. The meeting is open to all Downers Grove residents, and will be facilitated by village officials and representatives from ComEd.

The town hall is a follow-up to a meeting held Sept. 15, 2011, in which the village presented its ComEd reliability report. The study—prompted by a series of “unprecedented storms” that swept through the village last year—outlines specific problem areas in ComEd's service.

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According to the report, Downers Grove had 1,482 power outages between 2007 and 2010, 42 percent of which were caused by equipment problems. Another 34 percent of the problems were the result of weather related issues.

To mitigate the issues, the village presented three recommendations to ComEd:

• Make improvements to the distribution system to reduce outages caused by faulty equipment;

• Increase tree trimming to reduce outages caused by tree contact during severe storms;

• Make improvements to the 10 circuits that have experienced the greatest number of outages and continue to make improvements to the remaining circuits once the top 10 are corrected.

With input from the community, village officials and staff were able to communicate the urgent need for improvements to ComEd's infrastructure in Downers Grove.

Since last year's meeting, ComEd has made significant progress on the proposed improvements, presenting targeted plans for tree trimming and equipment upgrades across the village. In December 2011, in an infrastructure upgrade, helping improve system performance in the area.

During the village council's meeting Tuesday night, Downers Grove Mayor Martin Tully said an updated reliability report will be presented prior to the Sept. 20 forum. Representatives from ComEd will once again be available to discuss any ongoing reliability concerns.

"A great deal has been accomplished, but that's not good enough," Tully said.

Those who cannot attend the forum are encouraged to send comments or concerns to Downers Grove management analyst Allison Deitch at adeitch@downers.us.

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