Assembly Members Request Investigation into Queens Blackout

WNYC News | Jul 12, 2010

New York, NY —

State Assembly members have written a letter asking the Public Service Commission to investigate whether ConEd was negligent or imprudent in its handling of last month's outage in Northwest Queens. They want the commission to determine if the power company is liable for damages.

Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan says ConEd should be fined for leaving some businesses and residents without power for up to 9 days - longer than any other recent blackout.

NOLAN: We believe it deserves to be certainly treated a little bit differently and one of those ways would be to levy a fine on them which would not obviously come from our bill but from Con Edison's profits, itself.

Lawmakers are also pushing ConEd to give more than $7,000 to businesses for spoiled food, and to also provide assistance for damaged equipment. The power company has stood by its offer but says it's willing to help companies fill out their paperwork and ease the red tape.

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