A public forum for New York State Electric and Gas customers to have an opportunity to meet directly with representatives from the utility to address billing concerns will be held Thursday night in the Southern Tier. The NYSEG Community Connection event will take place at the Big Flats American Legion on Thursday from 4 until 7 p.m.
Customers can meet with NYSEG representatives on a first-come, first-served basis.
According to NYSEG, these events are aimed at giving customers an opportunity to meet directly with NYSEG representatives to address billing concerns and learn more about available resources to help manage energy costs. The company said it plans to hold additional Community Connection events throughout the region. State Senator Tom O’Mara (R-C, Big Flats), Assemblyman Chris Friend, R-C, Big Flats, and Assemblyman Phil Palmesano (R-C, Corning) have requested NYSEG to hold as many of these public meetings as possible.
The local lawmakers welcomed NYSEG’s outreach effort, noting that their offices have been inundated with constituent complaints over skyrocketing utility bills over the past several months. O’Mara said that his office has heard from over 300 constituents in the past two months alone.
In a joint statement, O’Mara, Friend, and Palmesano said, “Skyrocketing utility costs have been the number one constituent complaint that our offices have been fielding throughout this new year. And rightly so. Some of these billing increases have been outrageous and inexplicable. We have been working with NYSEG, as well as with state officials at the state Public Service Commission and other state agencies, to try to get answers and assistance. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet received the answers or solutions we need. It’s critically important for NYSEG to conduct this direct outreach with ratepayers and we’ve requested NYSEG to do more of these meetings across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions. Hopefully, more customers can begin to get the answers they need and deserve.”
Over the past several years since then-Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Democrat-led State Legislature approved the “Community Leadership and Climate Protection Act” (CLCPA) in 2019, the year Albany Democrats took control of the State Senate, O’Mara, Friend, Palmesano, and other legislators have warned that clean energy mandates being rapidly imposed on all New Yorkers under that new law would have dire consequences across the board, including higher utility costs.
In their joint statement, O’Mara, Friend, and Palmesano continued, “We have repeatedly warned that New York State’s go-it-alone climate agenda is going too far and too fast. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Albany Democrat strategy for New York’s energy future is not affordable, feasible, or realistic under its current timelines. They are pushing forward with mandate after mandate without a straightforward and honest cost-benefit analysis of how much it will cost ratepayers, the consequences for the state and local economies, its impact on an already burdensome business climate, and whether it will have any effective impact at all on changing climate conditions. We are already seeing the consequences play out for individual ratepayers through skyrocketing bills and ongoing rate increase requests from NYSEG and other utility providers throughout New York State.”
In addition to this week’s NYSEG public forum in Big Flats, the area lawmakers said that customers unable to attend should continue filing complaints directly through NYSEG’s customer service hotline at 888-315-1755, Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
They also encouraged customers who don’t get a satisfactory explanation or result to file complaints directly with the state Public Service Commission (PSC) through the PSC Helpline at 1-800-342-3377, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Complaints to the PSC can also be filed online at: https://dps.ny.gov/file-complaint.
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