Several Washtenaw County residents spoke out against unreliable utility services. It took place at a recent town hall at Washtenaw Community College hosted by Congresswoman Debbie Dingell.
Thousands of Washtenaw County residents lost power, many of them for multiple days during three major storms earlier this year. Some of them attended the town hall to voice their concerns to the politicians in attendance.
Among the topics, many want to see DTE and Consumers Energy provide greater compensation for households impacted by lengthy outages.
15th District State Senator Jeff Irwin echoed many of those frustrations.
“People lose food in their fridge, they lose medicine, they might lose breast milk, I mean, people lose time at work, their kids’ school gets canceled, it’s incredibly damaging to businesses, to families.”
Destiny, an eight-year-old from Ypsilanti Township was one of the residents who voiced concerns.
“I’m very upset at DTE because we have lost power too much in the last couple of years.”
State Senator Sue Shink from the 14th District said she introduced Senate Bill 502 to expand the authority of the Michigan Public Service Commission to explicitly consider climate change, affordability, reliability and equity.
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