Politics & Government
County Council Wants to Explore Public Power
Eight councilmembers have asked the County Attorney about preliminary steps for buying and running Pepco's power grid.
Eight of nine members of the Montgomery County Council are expressing interest in forming a public power company.
Council vice president Roger Berliner, council president Valerie Ervin and councilmembers Phil Andrews, George Leventhal, Nancy Floreen, Marc Elrich, Nancy Navarro and Hans Riemer sent a letter to county attorney Marc Hansen Monday asking about preliminary legal steps that may be required to switch from Pepco to public power.
The move comes after increasing frustrations with Pepco and extended outages in the wake of the Jan. 26 snowstorm, among others.
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"We believe it’s incumbent upon our county to explore this option prudently and carefully as other communities across the country have done," the Feb. 14 letter read. "Our residents have endured the total failure of both Pepco and the regulatory system that is supposed to protect us for far too long."
Pepco spent on Feb. 7 about their reliability. The council also heard testimony from the American Public Power Association, a trade association for utilities owned by municipalities and communities.
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Forming a public power company could mean local control and lower rates but would require the county to buy Pepco's infrastructure, Ursula Schryver, director of customer programs at American Public Power Association, told the council.
The Feb. 14 letter asked about changes in state law that would be required; approvals from the ; legal issues that may arise in taking over power from an investor-owned utility; and the process for determining the value of the electric distribution system.
“There are certain threshold issues to pursuing public power I think we would be well served to have the answers to,” Berliner told Patch. “Most of those are statutory, legal and regulatory. … I do think that a number of my colleagues are very interested in understanding this option and you need to understand it before you decide whether you are going to pursue it.”
A Pepco spokeswoman told Patch they hadn't been forwarded a copy of the letter.
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