State law stiffs Ohioans
By DAVID ANDERSON
Special to The Vindicator
Earlier this year, the Ohio General Assembly passed a law making it much harder for the Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel to serve and protect residential utility customers. The new law directed that effective Sept. 29, 2005, "The consumers' counsel shall not operate a telephone call center for consumer complaints. Any calls received by the consumers' counsel concerning consumer complaints shall be forwarded to the public utilities commission's call center."
Diverting consumer complaints to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio keeps the consumers' counsel from effectively tracking and monitoring abuse of customers by utilities. Imposing a consumer complaint ban on the consumers' counsel denies citizens direct access to an advocate for the "little guy" in their disputes with electric, natural gas, telephone, and water companies.
The consumers' counsel and the utilities commission serve two very different missions. The counsel says that it "serves as a voice on behalf of Ohio's 4.5 million households," and always has the residential customer's best interests in mind. By contrast, the utilities commission must perform a balancing act. It regulates according to the interests of utility companies and commercial, industrial, and retail consumers. As an advocate for residential utility consumers, the consumers' counsel has at times challenged the utilities commission on rulings that unfairly favor utilities over customers.
Utility-friendly PUCO
Ohio Consumers' Counsel Janine L. Migden-Ostrander described the difference between the OCC and PUCO this way. "Stated simply, the OCC serves as the lawyer for residential utility customers. The PUCO serves as the judge." Forcing residential utility customers to bring their complaints directly to the utility-friendly PUCO without input from the consumers' counsel office is unfair and anti-consumer. Now that the plug has been pulled on the consumers' counsel complaint line, the utilities commission wants to make it even more difficult for the "little guy" to get in touch with the consumers' counsel office. The utilities commission staff proposes changes in the Ohio Administrative Code that would remove consumers' counsel contact information from utilities' customer materials, disconnect notices, and telephone directories! Wiping out contact information marginalizes the consumers' counsel office and interferes with the rights of citizens to complain.
Don't let anyone monkey around with your rights to speak openly and freely with your consumer advocate. If utilities commission staffers get their way, the consumers' counsel office won't be able to hear, see, and speak for you when it comes to dealing with poor phone service, high electricity rates, and utility billing problems.
Write your legislators. Tell them to restore the consumers' counsel office's customer complaint phone line.
X David Anderson is a former public radio news producer and reporter in Columbus. He wrote this for MinutemanMedia.org.