Town meetings help solve utility problems
This month, I will host town meetings in Winnfield, Jonesboro and Arcadia. These are opportunities for residents to visit with me in person and share their concerns about their utilities.
Since becoming Public Service Commissioner in January 2003, I have held more than 150 town meetings. The Louisiana PSC District 5 seat I hold encompasses 24 parishes and nearly 1 million people. I try to visit each parish at least once a year. It is a challenge.
District 5 goes from Vivian north of Shreveport to Vidalia on the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge and from Lake Providence in the Northeast Delta to Toledo Bend Lake on the Texas line.
There is no way I could know what’s going on in this far-flung territory if I simply stayed in my office in Shreveport.
The meetings are good for residents and good for me as well. Early in my first term, I held a town meeting at the parish courthouse in Natchitoches.
A group from the tiny community of Mink in the Kisatchie National Forest attended the meeting to discuss telephone service.
I asked the group’s spokesperson, a senior citizen named Louise Bolton, if the problem was dropped calls or static on the phone line.
“Mr. Campbell, you don’t understand,” she said. “We don’t have telephone service at all. We never have.”
That exchange began a monthslong effort by my office to secure basic telephone service to one of the last places in the United States. Mrs. Bolton’s group of about 30 households at Mink had lobbied governors, members of Congress, state legislators, telephone executives, members of the LPSC and everyone in-between to get phone service without success, for more than four decades.
BellSouth had simply concluded it was too costly for the few people who called Mink their home, and politicians agreed.
I told Mrs. Bolton I was going to get her telephone service, and about six months after that meeting at Natchitoches, I stood in her kitchen as she took a congratulatory call from Gov. Kathleen Blanco.
Mrs. Bolton and her neighbors were celebrated for their accomplishment in newspapers throughout the country and overseas. She was a guest on network talk shows, interviewed by reporters from as far as Germany and Japan and featured in The New York Times.
A town meeting at Vidalia just a few months later led to another signi cant achievement. Residents of the rural communities of Shaw and Blackhawk, down the Mississippi River from Vidalia, said they had read about the delivery of telephone service to Mink and had a similar story to tell.
A Shaw resident dramatically told of helplessly watching her husband die in her arms after he suffered a heart attack, and she could not call for help.
A wireless provider named Centennial Communications quickly stepped up to provide tower coverage, and the problem was solved.
A seat on the Public Service Commission is ideal for someone who wants to help consumers like Mrs. Bolton of Mink and the residents of Shaw and Blackhawk. The stories we hear are not always dramatic, but for the people calling our of ce, sending emails or attending our town meetings, they are every bit as important.
Last year, my office responded to nearly 2,000 consumer complaints and requests, and through the month of June of this year, the tally was nearly 1,200. Consumers reach my offices in Shreveport, Monroe and Ferriday primarily by telephone, but we also hear from people by email, letter, text, Facebook message and personal visit.
The problem may be an electrical outage, lack of access to high-speed Internet service, poor water pressure or simply a high gas bill. I tell my staff to get people answers and to give them hope. We cannot always tell people what they want to hear, but we give them answers. In today’s world of automated telephone systems, electronic mail and Skype, speaking to a real, live person is satisfaction enough for many consumers.
The Louisiana Public Service Commission sets rates and terms of service for electric, natural gas, telephone, water and wastewater utilities throughout our state. The companies we regulate range from a water system with 18 customers up to electric utilities serving millions. If you have a utility question or concern please let me know. My Shreveport of ce number is 800-256-2412.
Foster Campbell is the North Louisiana representative on the Louisiana Public Service Commission. You can reach him at 676-7464 or [email protected]<mailto:[email protected].
