On Thursday, December 27, 2018 at 11:46:01 AM UTC-5, dpb wrote:
On 12/27/2018 10:26 AM, Peter wrote:
...

There were LOTS of complaints, the State government got involved, fined
them, threatened even more fines and the power company suddenly started
a tree-trimming project, burying cables, replacing aging cables, etc.
and reliability has greatly improved.Â* Of course the power company then
took those costs to the public utility board and promptly got a rate
increase to reimburse the power company.Â* Of course we ended up with
higher rates just because the power company was forced to adhere to
expected standards of reliability.Â* Utilities have a real racket going.
No matter what they do, the customer ends up paying and the
stock-holders get richer.

We'll they're not a charity...who else is there to pay the bills?

You, too, can be a stock holder if you choose...if you have a 401(k),
probably already are...

--

You can't make some people happy. Sounds like the power utility was holding
costs down, not doing necessary tree trimming that would give better
reliability. So, people complained, they increased the tree trimming.
Somebody has to pay for it. I wonder what the electric rate there is?
Here in NJ, which isn't known for being low cost, we're paying ~13 cents
per KWH. And we have a very reliable system, plus money from that rate is
subsidizing solar.