Progressive Democrats of Cambridge - DFA

Some important info for Area 4 residents, from the Area 4 Coalition email list:

WARNING; NSTAR SAYS THEY WILL SHUT DOWN ELECTRICITY TONIGHT FOR AN UNSPECIFIED PERIOD OF TIME BEGINNING AT AN UNSPECIFIED TIME

A few minutes ago we received a phone call from City Councilor Denise Simmons. NSTAR informed her that tonight they would shut down power to Area 4, affecting 2000 house holds with no warning. They claim that 'its gonna go out anyway' and that they need to make undefined 'repairs'.

Please take what actions you need to be as comfortable as possible. NSTAR will not say when this blackout will happen or how long it will last.

Councilor Simmons is asking the City Manger to intervene to stop this blackout.

The Area 4 Coalition is having NSTAR attend this Thursday night meeting at 630 at the Area 4 Youth Center at the corner of Essex and Harvard Sts.

Please attend as we need to tell NSTAR this behavior is unacceptable. If you or anyone in your family have any health conditions that can be affected by the heat we especially want you to attend.

It is time to do something about this.

I concur with David (who sent the email) - the NSTAR shenanigans have got to stop. I used to live in Area 4, and power would go out about once every three or four months, for a few hours at a time, usually at night. Sometimes we were notified of the outage, sometimes not. It's a pretty dangerous practice, especially when people may be relying on the electricity for health or safety reasons. And there appears to be no accountability - no easy way to stop NSTAR from socking it to Area 4, or any other neighborhood for that matter, without any cause or notice. Kudos to Councillor Simmons for staying on top of this situation.

I've heard that it's possible to get your energy through a co-op called MassEnergy, which among other things, offers alternative energy credits. I'm not sure if that's a viable alternative for Area 4 residents, and I'm also not sure if it would solve the problem (my hunch is that NSTAR owns the power lines, or some kind of foolishness like that.) But it's something to look into.

As mentioned in the email, Area 4 will be meeting Thursday night at 6:30 at the Area 4 Youth Center, corner of Harvard and Essex Streets, to discuss the NSTAR outages, among other issues.

You can sign up for the email list at http://groups.google.com/group/Area4Coalition