Unitil Must Go

On December 11, 2008, the most devastating Ice Storm in Massachusetts history took place. I know of this first hand. I, along with my disabled wife and mother-in-law, barely survived it. This is no thanks to the most useless, incompetent and criminally negligent utility company I have ever been a customer of, UNITIL. We live in the Franklin Road area of Fitchburg. This area has always been the forgotten step child of the city. From our previous crooked mayor Dan Mylott to the incompetent Lisa Wong today, our area of town always seems to be the last to receive any kind of service during good times, let alone during a crisis. But, this article is not about the lousy government we have here in Massachusetts. This is about a utility company that has shown they are criminally negligent, to the point where loss of life, could have taken place due to their ineffectiveness and inability to respond in a disaster.

Our home was without power for over twelve days. Frozen pipes and fixtures were replaced before the house became inhabitable again. Let me take you through a quick time line of my experience. We lost power around 2:00 AM Thursday morning. We survived pretty well through the first day and then through the next. After numerous calls to criminally negligent UNITIL, being told they were doing the best they could, never seeing a truck in the area, I had my mother-in-law taken to my sister-in-laws house. She had power. You see, she lives in Leominster Massachusetts with National Grid as her utility provider. She had power the day after the storm. Yes, there are demographics involved, but Leominster is the neighbor to Fitchburg. Leominster was just as hard hit as Fitchburg but, Mayor Mazzarella of Leominster, along with National Grid had his city completely powered up within five days. Meanwhile, our Mayor Wong floundered in confusion and incompetence trying to get the criminally negligent UNITIL into action. I’ll fast forward to the seventh Day without power. We had survived an additional twelve to fifteen inch snow storm and numerous broken promises, from the criminally negligent UNITIL, of power restoration. It was because of these promises that I remained behind with my disabled wife. We were trying to stay warm ourselves and keep the house from freezing, thinking if we could just hold on for another hour, then the power would be on and we would be home free. That hour never came.


The decision, to abandon the house, came at the end of the seventh day, when I was angered so much by a criminally negligent UNITIL employee named John, I almost assaulted him in a rage. Power trucks had worked on our poles and told us we had power. We did not. I approached the criminally negligent UNITIL worker, sitting in a UNITIL vehicle talking on his cell phone. I explained to this criminally negligent individual that we did not have power to our house. This criminally negligent individual told me, very arrogantly, that the power was restored to my house and I must have a problem on my house. This criminally negligent individual said “that isn’t my problem pal, good luck” and turned to finish talking on his cell phone. I almost yanked this criminally negligent UNITIL worker out of his car and beat the snot out of him. But, I went home and told my wife we must leave because there was no one coming to help us. As we drove away I saw the same criminally negligent UNITIL worker still sitting in his vehicle talking on his cell phone. During the time my wife had spent in the house, waiting for power to be turned on by the criminally negligent UNITIL, she became very ill developing an infection requiring hospitalization. After twelve days, the power was restored by National Grid that had been ordered into the area to help out. There was nothing wrong with our house electrically. When the power was correctly restored to our house from the street, we made repairs and moved back in.

On Sunday March 15, 2009, I was disgusted and outraged when this article appeared in the Worcester Telegram, a newspaper published out of Worcester Massachusetts;
http://www.telegram.com/article/20090315/NEWS/903150415/1160/SPECIALSECTIONS04&source=rss

This article was written by Shaun Sutner

Critics of Unitil, the embattled utility that has come under intense criticism after the December ice storm, blasted the company for awarding a nearly $300,000 incentive bonus to Robert G. Schoenberger, its $1 million-a-year president and CEO, for outperforming his 2008 job goals. According to documents filed Friday with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Schoenberger got $294,796 tacked onto his other compensation on Feb. 16 for exceeding target objectives. Based on the bonus formula, he received 10 percent on customer satisfaction, while 25 percent was linked to company earnings. “The whole thing is obscene,” said Fitchburg City Council President Stephan Hay. “I challenge them to find a customer in Fitchburg who is satisfied with their performance.” Wesley Eberle, an executive with O’Neil and Associates, a Boston PR company hired by the New Hampshired-based utility to handle media inquiries in the wake of the Dec. 11-12 storm, said the company has made changes to better serve customers, many of them in northern Worcester County. However, he said, Mr. Schoenberger heads “a well-run utility with effective, efficient management that is working hard for its customers and working hard for its shareholders.” Mr. Eberle noted that Mr. Schoenberger was recognized as one of the top CEOs in the country and that Unitil completed a successful acquisition of Northern Utilities last year. He also said Unitil soon will be passing on rate decreases to customers. But many customers and elected officials in Ashby, Fitchburg, Lunenburg and Townsend — the Massachusetts communities serviced by the utility — remain incensed with the company for leaving many customers without power for almost two weeks after the storm. Some have also complained about excessively high rates and billing problems. A petition seeking the removal of the utility has garnered more than 5,000 signatures, and a class action suit was filed Jan. 7 against Fitchburg Gas and Electric Light Co., a division of Unitil, by 14 people from Fitchburg, Lunenburg and Townsend. The news that Mr. Schoenberger, and three other top executives who got financial awards ranging from $77,000 to $101,000 further inflamed bitterness, and some are renewing their call to remove Unitil as the electricity and gas heat provider in their communities. “I understand it’s a free enterprise system and that their primary responsibility is to shareholders,” said state Rep. Stephen L. DiNatale, D-Fitchburg. “But tell that to the folks in Fitchburg who have been unfairly subjected to utility rates that are outrageous. “If Bob Schoenberger is doing such a wonderful job for investors, then how do you explain the unfathomable bills people are getting?” Mr. DiNatale continued. Robert V. Antonucci, president of Fitchburg State College and a member of Unitil’s board of directors, declined to comment, saying he has been advised by the utility’s lawyers to leave public statements to company executives. Nicholas C. Pappas of Fitchburg, one of the plaintiffs in the class action suit, said his lawyers have also told him not to publicly comment about the company. Mr. Schoenberger, 58, has been chairman of the board and CEO of Unitil since 1997 and president since 2003. Before that, he was president and chief operating officer of the New York Power Authority. In addition to his $443,302 base salary last year, Mr. Schoenberger received stock awards worth $125,748; non-equity incentive compensation valued at $294,796; $366,736 in pension and other deferred compensation earnings; and $56,404 in other payments. He made a total of $1,295,985 last year, up from $1,179,819 in 2007 and $1,019,013 in 2006, according to the SEC filing. “To read that the executives of Unitil are getting bonuses is an insult to the city of Fitchburg and to the ratepayers,” said Mr. DiNatale. Other Unitil executives made the following incentive bonuses for 2008: • Mark H. Collin, senior vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, $99,820; • Thomas P. Meissner Jr., senior vice president and chief operating officer, $101,000; • George R. Gantz, senior vice president, Unitil Service, $77,532; • Todd R. Black, president, Usource, $45,987.

On June 6, 2009, it is being reported that Massachusetts State Attorney General Martha Coakley is recommending a 4.6 million dollar fine to be levied against criminally negligent UNITIL for their criminally negligent response to the Ice Storm. Criminally negligent UNITIL says this is unfair. I congratulate Ms. Coakley. It seems she is the only Massachusetts Politician that has any balls in doing something to criminally negligent UNITIL.

As for me, I do not feel this is enough. I believe, with all my being, that criminally negligent UNITIL must have their license to work in the state of Massachusetts revoked and they should be kicked out. The response or lack of response was CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT on so many levels. The bonuses given to the CEO and other Executives of this criminally negligent company are obscene, disgraceful and typical of how Corporate America flips the middle finger and spits on the average American citizen. Now, I would love to see CEO Schoenberger and all his top executives hanging from a tree on the center green in Fitchburg. But, I guess we are to civilized for that. (Damn it!) I’ll just have to settle for them being kicked out, if that even happens at all. For now, I plan on moving out of the area if criminally negligent UNITIL remains the power utility and the present incompetent administration remains in charge here in Fitchburg. I have had enough. Oh by the way, my utility bill has gone up over seventy five dollars, a month, more than at this time last year. So much for the rate reduction that criminally negligent UNITIL said was coming.

That’s How I See It.

Websites of reference;
http://www.unitil.com/
http://www.unitil.com/content/aboutus/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/06/06/ag_seeks_46m_in_fines_for_unitil/
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:UTL
http://www.northernutilities.com/
http://wbztv.com/icestorm08/unitil.ice.storm.2.1032820.html
http://news.prnewswire.com/ViewContent.aspx?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/05-27-2009/0005033557&EDATE=
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/05/12/utility_promises_better_response/
http://www.telegram.com/article/20090315/NEWS/903150415/1160/SPECIALSECTIONS04&source=rss
http://unitilsucks.blogspot.com/