Water shutoff in Detroit

Today we're going back to the great American city of Detroit and to share this latest drama

After Detroit turned off water for thousands of residents, activists are calling on the United Nations for help in what they've called a "massive human rights atrocity."

The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department said in March that they would begin shutting off service to more than 150,000 customers who were behind in their bills, according to the Detroit Free Press. With 323,000 total customers, nearly half are late on their bills, or cannot afford water. A water department report states the utility sent 44,000 warnings in April and 3,000 customers have had their water shut off.

A coalition of groups including the Detroit People's Water Board, Food and Water Watch, Blue Planet Project and Michigan Welfare Rights Organization submitted a report to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation last week, saying they are "outraged about the violation of the human right to water and sanitation in the City of Detroit and call on the authorities to take immediate action to restore water services and stop further cut-offs."

We already know Detroit is a struggling city and certainly could use the cash from water bill payments. Certainly we all sympathize with those who definitely could use the water whatever their situation might be.

I think I understand going to the UN regarding this action. When people complain they want to go as high as possible. At the same time I sometimes have found the UN to be a useless organization.

Still here's hoping those affected Detroit residents get their water turned back on.

232,000 ComEd customers without power

It appears that I was apart of this number. From Crain's...

Commonwealth Edison Co. has restored power to 345,000 customers since Thursday’s storms first hit, but 232,000 customers remain without electricity, the utility reported.

The vast majority of those still without power as of noon — 142,000 — are in the northern suburbs, while 51,000 are in the city and 36,000 are in the south suburbs, the utility reported.

With a total of 577,000 customers affected, the storm is quickly approaching the worst weather event for the utility in the last decade: the damage inflicted by the November 1998 storm that interrupted service to 599,000 customers.

And a ComEd spokeswoman says more outages are occurring now as weakened tree limbs fall on electric lines, even though the storm has passed.

“This is one of the most powerful storms we’ve seen in recent years,” she says.

Last year, an Oct. 2 storm affected 470,000 customers —until Thursday, the worst weather event for ComEd since the 1998 storm — and it took ComEd five days to restore power to all of them. This also will be a “multi-day restoration,” a ComEd spokeswoman said, although she couldn’t predict how long it would take.

I went to a community meeting Tuesday evening

An important topic of discussion was the electric rates that were debated earlier this year. A very animated representative from ComEd dropped by my community to talk about ComEd's programs. He spent the better part of an hour taking the brunt of the frustration of the handful of people who bothered to attend this meeting.

This rep continued to state emphatically that ComEd must buy the power high but sell it low. I suppose that was what the rate freeze was supposed to do. This rep mentioned that the rate freeze lasted about nine years. Now ComEd doesn't want a rate freeze saying that will cause problems.

I'll get into what this rep attempted to present as far a programs for those who are affected by the rate increases later on. It's funny that this went on because well electric rates aren't really the big news right now. It's the budget battle in Springfield.

Well the big players in Springfield and that includes the leaders of the Illinois House and Senate as well as the Governor of Illinois can't seem to compromise on this budget. Not just whether or not to freeze electric rates. I found something at this meeting I didn't expect to see. I think I'll show that to you later as well.

Oh and I almost forgot...

The Illinois House meets as a committee of the whole today. Follow the session here with both audio and video feeds provided. Hopefully if you're following this that you have a broadband connection.

This is being covered by a number of sources especially The Capitol Fax Blog and the Illinois Channel blog. This is of course about deregulation of the electric industry and rolling back electric rate increases of January 1st.

I almost forgot about this in the excitement of the elections in the City of Chicago.

Will coach Smith get a contract extension???

I was reading this article in Chicagoist this morning about Lovie Smith. Some guy around campus stopped me to talk some football. I am much better at looking at the business side of sports than I am about all the technicalities. I was asking myself if Lovie Smith's contract was up.

Anyone listening to this guy, I had no idea that Smith wasn't paid very well especially for the success he brought to the Bears in the last two seasons. I guess when the Bears offered him a contract they may not have anticipated this. Then again Smith was never an NFL head coach. For guiding the Bears to the Super Bowl though he probably should be offered a bonus as well as a contract extension with more money.

BTW, while you're at it read this article about the electric rates. The one thing the Illinois House is going to meet as a Committee of the Whole on Tuesday.

Committee of the whole: what does that mean?

Hopefully when you read this blog you learn something new. I'm a student so I learn something new everyday. Well then I learned what it means to convene a body as a committee of the whole.

Terry Martin, executive director of the Illinois Channel, left me a note discussing the purpose of the committee of the whole...

As far as the Committee of the Whole.. this is where the entire House [or Senate] gathers as a body.. but not as the House or Senate per se.. but as a committee. But instead of a normal committee -- which has just select members of the House serving on that body -- the Committee of the Whole is a committee hearing in which the entire House meets as a committee.

Why would they do this?

Because before a bill can come to the floor for a vote it has to be voted out of committee. In this fashion, the House can expedite the legislative process by having the bill pass out of committee.. where the entire House meets and votes on the bill. Also this is a parliamentary way of opening the process to allow all members to both voice their opinion.. and require an official vote from every member on their position on the legislation.

If a controversial piece of legislation is bottled up in committee, bc it doesn't get a passing vote.. then many members of the House [or Senate] who might have been on the spot by having to vote on that legislation, are spared from voting on it, because the Committee didn't pass it. But in the Committee of the Whole.. every member must vote on the bill.

I suspect the thinking here is.. let any member who wishes to go on the record of voting with the utilities do so. But the political pressure will be great on every member of the House, who will be forced to vote on HB 1750, to vote in favor of a roll back.

This is what I suspect is behind the call for the Committee of the Whole. It is a rather rare event. And Tuesday should be one of the more interesting days of this legislative session. In fact, I suspect the phone lines are burning bright this weekend, as the utilities and their advisories are competing to line up votes on this measure.

I hope your readers continue to follow these events, as they are critical to our future power usage and costs. The Illinois Channel will do what it can to keep citizens informed of these events as they transpire.

This is definitely an issue worth keeping track of. And surely this issue impacts Chicago residents, mostly elderly residents as it does downstate communities. But I'll be sure to follow up on this come Tuesday.

And thanks to Terry Martin for this information.