Nothing like a city getting angry over the quality of power that it receives...
This is one thing to consider if you are planning on buying a home in Deerfield.
Perhaps it will get fixed due to the suit..... Time will tell.... Excerpt....
The Village of Deerfield filed a class action lawsuit today against Commonwealth Edison charging the utility company with gross violation of its agreement to provide reliable service to its 18,000 residents.
Deerfield officials say that during the period from 2000 until 2007, the village suffered 82,347 individual customer power outages during 1,377 separate electrical failures. They said "Only 13% of these outages were weather-related."
Steve Harris, Mayor of Deerfield said - "ComEd has given us no other option than to seek a legal remedy to their gross and willful dereliction of duty." "After years of patience while listening to ComEd's unfulfilled promises to fix these problems, we now turn to the courts to adjudicate our claims."
Reportedly - several Deerfield residents have been told by ComEd employees that the infrastructure in the Deerfield area "absolutely needs to be updated."
Judith Adamson, a Deerfield resident for thirty years said, "ComEd tells us that the problem is that our utilities are underground and connect to old above ground poles and switch boxes and it would be too costly to revamp the system."
The class action lawsuit filed in Lake County Circuit Court on Thursday charges that ComEd violated the Illinois Public Utilities Act and their franchise agreement with Deerfield and its residents by failing to provide adequate and reliable electric service and failing to maintain infrastructure necessary to provide that service. It calls for compensation for actual damages as well as punitive damages for ComEd's willful refusal to repair and maintain its electrical systems and circuits.
From 2000 to 2007, ComEd's Franchise Reports confirm Deerfield suffered 1,377 total outages that lasted 5,576 hours. The reports show only 13% were attributed to weather related causes. The Franchise Reports also show that the total amount of outages have increased steadily during the last three years. During this period, outages due to failure of ComEd's electric underground equipment have risen dramatically.
ComEd's Annual Reliability Reports cite ten circuits that serve Deerfield as appearing on their list of top 1% worst performing circuits in its Northeast service area from 2001-2006. In addition, these reports show at least one circuit serving Deerfield has been included as a top 1% worst performing circuit for ComEd's Northeast service area in every year from 2001 to 2006. Moreover, the report proves there are other circuits serving Deerfield that are performing even worse than those on ComEd's 1% worst performing list, but they do not appear on that list.
"I have been told by ComEd workers that the feeder to our area of the Village is very old and worn out and that is one reason for the outages," said Deerfield resident Richard Beaton.
