Lacey OK With JCP&L, Despite Towns' Calls to Switch Providers

Municipalities in northern New Jersey are making moves to dump electric provider Jersey Central Power & Light, but Lacey Administrator Veronica Laureigh said, “It’s not that simple.”

Robbinsville and Warren Township made the news recently for filing requests with the state Board of Public Utilities for permission to switch to Public Service Electric & Gas, and according to the Star Ledger, 14 other towns are considering the same move, spurred on by what they say was a poor response following recent storms.

Some Jersey Shore towns are , too, saying the company cares more about its bottom line than serving customers, and that communication between the company and municipalities is lacking during outage situations. 

But Laureigh has no complaints, she said. Post Hurricane Irene, Laureigh had a direct contact person who kept her apprised of the situation in Lacey.

“I can’t say I was thrilled, there were people without power for one week,” she said. But communication was strong. Laureigh’s contact provided her with an accurate map and was able to tell her who was without power.

As a member of the Ocean County Cooperative Pricing System for over eight years, Lacey Township has used JCP&L for distribution and Liberty for generation, Laureigh said.

“You’ll never be able to fully get rid of JCP&L,” she said. “It’s more complicated than that. You can’t switch 100 percent. They own the wires and the lines.”

To switch to a new provider, an interested party would either have to buy the lines or put new lines in, she said.

Lacey Township is not considering a switch, she said.

“It would be very complicated,” BPU spokesman Gregory Reinert said.

JCP&L can decide on their own to sell assets (distribution in certain areas) or the BPU could order the company to do so, he said. But there would have to be an interested buyer and the sale would ultimately be up to JCP&L. Then the BPU has to approve of the transaction.

In recent memory, the sale of assets has not occurred, Reinert said.

But Shore municipalities have echoed some of those complaints.

Both Manasquan Mayor George Dempsey and his Belmar counterpart Matthew Doherty said that JCP&L is more concerned with their bottom line than serving their customers.

“JCP&L has shown itself to be unresponsive and a very difficult utility to work with for the residents of the Borough of Belmar,” Doherty said.

Barnegat Administrator David Breeden said that as a dual-provider town, Barnegat has the ability to compare JCP&L’s service to that of Atlantic City Electric, which services much of the western section of the township. In Breeden’s mind, there’s no question of who comes out on top.

“JCP&L could take some lessons from Atlantic City Electric with regard to outreach and contacting government officials during times of crisis,” he said.

ACE is usually ahead of the game, contacting officials directly when problems arise, said Breeden. During Hurricane Irene, “Atlantic City Electric was calling me and letting me know where outages were.” 

JCP&L, on the other hand, relies on faxes during storms, he said.

In a recent Patch interview, company spokesman Ron Morano said JCP&L has recently implemented several suggestions it received from mayors and customers across the state after the hurricane. When the Halloween storm hit, he said, the company held conference calls with officials.

“We communicated with the mayors throughout the entire storm,” he said. “In addition to the calls, we set up a special webpage, communicated estimations of customers by county, municipality and location within municipality – all suggestions that came about from meetings following the hurricane.”

Breeden acknowledged the company has been working to improve communication. The conference call “was a first for them,” he said. And the township has no plans to follow the lead of some disgruntled municipalities and request to switch entirely to another provider. “To me, that’s not a practical or viable solution to the issue,” Breeden said. 

But he thinks JCP&L should keep looking to ACE as a model of how to do business. Communication matters to the township because it matters to residents.

“When the power goes out, people call the township,” he said. “It’s important for us to know what’s happening.”

Graelyn Brashear and Charlie LaPlaca contributed to this report.