By CARL E. FEATHER

Staff Writer

cfeather@starbeacon.com

ASHTABULA — If 6 degree weather, 14.2 percent unemployment and postholiday credit-card bills are not enough to make you depressed, just wait until you get your electric bill.

Many Ashtabula County residents who received their bills this week promptly followed up with a call to the office of State Rep. Deborah Newcomb, D-Conneaut.

“For some people, it’s double or triple,” said Newcomb of the stunning increases.

Matt Butler, a spokesman for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) said the culprit in many of the cases is First Energy’s decision to pull the plug on an “all-electric” discount plan it offered homeowners. Butler said that, beginning in the 1970s, when natural gas was in short supply, the utility company encouraged people to build homes that were heated with electricity and rewarded them with a lower rate.

However, that discount was terminated as a result of distribution rate case 07-0551-EL-AIR, which PUCO decided Jan. 21, 2009. This month, customers who previously enjoyed the favored status got jolted with bills calculated on the standard residential rate.

The outcry has been heard all the way to Columbus. Emily C. Barker, Newcomb’s legislative aide, said one constituent’s electric bill went from $273 to $573, an increase of more than 100 percent.

“There have been plenty, plenty of calls,” Barker said.

“It has hit consumers hard at a time when they can least afford these bills,” Newcomb said.

It’s not just residential customers who are being zapped. The Lodge and Conference Center at Geneva-on-the-Lake is heated with electricity. Jeannette Petrolia, general manager, said the lodge’s January 2009 electric bill was $22,166. A year later, it jumped to $35,700.

“It was an eye-opener,” said Petrolia. What’s worse, the lodge actually used less electricity than it did the prior year. At that rate of increase — that expensive electricity also cools the lodge in the summer — the $145,000 profit the lodge turned in 2009 would be wiped out in 2010 just by electric-bill increases.

She said the lodge’s controller investigated the bill and discovered that bill was correct under the new terms that went into effect at the beginning of the year.

Earlier this week, Newcomb and Lorraine M. Fende, D-Willowick, sent a joint letter to the PUCO chairman, requesting the commission address the terminated discount program and the burdensome rate increase that resulted.

“After reviewing First Energy’s Electric Service Plan, I believe that these increases have been anything but ‘minimal,’” Newcomb said in a prepared statement. “Many customers in Ashtabula County lost their discount and experienced at least a 200 percent rate increase, despite lower kilowatt usage, on their monthly statements. In an especially difficult economy, this is unacceptable and needs to be re-examined.”

Adding to the burden is Ohio S.B. 221, said Butler, which for First Energy customers kicked in a 4 percent increase on Jan. 1, on the heels of a 5 percent hike last year. The bill focused on energy pricing and sources, and Butler said the intent was to encourage conservation, something many northeast Ohio residents will be forced to do as matter of economic survival.

Newcomb plans to meet with interested parties on the utility’s decision to end the discount program abruptly and encourages constituents to file a complaint with the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (www.pickocc. org). Butler said consumers can find energy conservation tips at PUCO’s Web site (puco.ohio.gov).



What you can do:

n State Rep. Deborah Newcomb is asking that all Illuminating Co. customers shocked by their January electric bill file a formal complaint with the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) Office by visiting its Web site (www.pickocc.org) or by calling 877-742-5622.