ABINGDON, Va. – Sparks flew during a town hall meeting about electricity bills Saturday.
State Delegate Ward L. Armstrong, of Martinsville, swept through Southwest Virginia in a series of meetings to gauge public opinion on rates set by American Electric Power, which does business in Virginia as Appalachian Power. He hoped to hear hard-case stories and drum up support to convince lawmakers to enact stiff controls for utility rates.
Abingdon was Armstrong’s first stop before heading to Bluefield and then Wytheville.
“This is a problem that covers all of Southwest Virginia and it is just killing us,” he told the crowd filling the William King Museum board room.
The audience responded with anger and frustration at having to choose between necessities and meeting a monthly power bill that has jumped 60 percent over the past six years.
“Last month my bill doubled, but I used 400 kilowatts less than I did last year,” Washington County pastor Dennis Banks said. “I’d like to use their calculator to figure [it] out.”
Glade Spring resident Joseph Pafford blamed greed for draining the wallets of customers.
“When I was young, I remember when someone had trouble, all the people in the neighborhood came out to help,” he said. “But now, people don’t have anything to help anyone.”
Abingdon resident Barbara Waters, on the other hand, blamed the utility company’s new equipment.
“They didn’t do this until they put those new [digital] power meters in,” she yelled. “There’s no reason for this.”
Abingdon church pastor and attorney Strother Smith took the distrust a step further: “I don’t even trust the meter reading.”
The most recent increase was a 12.5 percent interim, or temporary, rate increase that showed up on December power bills.
Appalachian Power has said the increases are needed partly to cover the cost of upgrades on pollution controls to meet new federal regulations for coal-dependent companies.
The utility dropped the interim increase in February, after Gov. Bob McDonnell signed into law a utility rates bill that eliminates a utility company’s ability to charge interim rate increases while awaiting State Corporation Commission review on more permanent adjustments.
But the new law came with a compromise – state legislators dropped other proposed legislation focused on the electric company in return for promises to drop rates.
Armstrong said he had proposed a law earlier this year that would have set limits on rates approved by the SCC. That measure died shortly after the compromise, he said.
Before closing the meeting, Armstrong asked his audience to sign his petition urging the Virginia General Assembly to act in a special session called by the governor.
“If [legislators] won’t do anything, the only thing I know to do is to petition the governor to call a special session,” Armstrong said.
mowens@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2549
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