ComEd greeted with doubt in Wheeling

More than 50 Wheeling residents came to a village meeting with ComEd on Monday night to voice concerns about power outages, asking for fixes to what they said is an unacceptable situation.

“I want to be heard; I want to call attention to what has been overlooked for decades,” said Ginger Fulara, who said she has had 85 hours without service this year, far above ComEd's estimates. Fulara lives on Valley Stream Drive, an area where residents on one side of the road have been greatly affected by power outages and residents on the other side have not.

Trustees and residents spoke their minds after Eric Duray, an external affairs manager from ComEd, gave a presentation on the company's outage statistics. According to the presentation, 2011 has seen nearly 1 million more customers without power because of major weather events. During the largest storms of the summer, Duray said nearly a third of Wheeling was without power.

But many of the residents near Valley Stream came to the meeting with concerns of power outages on sunny, storm-free days.

“What we're talking about is not storm-related,” said Bob Poulsen, who along with his wife, Alice, and Fulara passed out fliers encouraging residents to attend Monday's meeting. Poulsen said he has lived on Valley Stream Drive for 25 years and has at least five outages every year.

Duray said it is possible that Valley Stream is a “pocket area” in Wheeling that is experiencing a problem and that the company will have to look at further solutions, but some trustees were not convinced.

“You're giving us a lot of BS here,” said Trustee Dave Vogel after the presentation. Vogel said he was frustrated with the lack of specific details about what will be done to fix the problem in Wheeling. “As far as I'm concerned, I didn't hear anything tonight.”

The trustees and Mayor Judy Abruscato asked ComEd to return to Wheeling in October with answers and more specific plans, but there was no confirmation from ComEd that it would do so.

“You guys didn't get your increase today, and I hope to God you don't,” said Trustee Dean Argiris of the bill Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed today.

Argiris said he is concerned ComEd is addressing only storm management rather than more long-term plans to fix the infrastructure. He also asked if ComEd would reimburse the village for housing residents in case of a long-term power outage in the coming winter months.

Other residents voiced complaints about inaccurate status calls and uneven power outages.

“Are we on the dumb side of the grid?” asked Dan Pawlak, a resident of Valley Stream Drive. “Then we call for a status report, and they tell us that our power is on when it's not.”

Duray said ComEd has added an extra 1,000 phone lines so people will have an easier time getting through during an outage and that the company is working on further customer service solutions.

Abruscato thanked residents for having a calm conversation with ComEd and presenting themselves well, adding, “We just want to get it fixed.”

After the meeting, residents were invited to speak individually with an engineer from ComEd about their outage issues, but with more than 25 residents waiting more than a half-hour after the meeting, many were frustrated that only one engineer came to speak with them.

“It's nice they showed up, but I want to see more action,” Poulsen said. “I was hoping to hear specific commitments to address the problems.”

Other residents agreed, skeptical that the meeting accomplished much more than a public relations move for ComEd.

“I'll believe it when I see it,” Fulara said.