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Politics & Government

City Manager To ComEd: 'If You Don't Know It, Don't Say It'

Mayor, city staff join other suburbs in asking utility for honesty.

With representatives from Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) in attendance, Thursday's gathering of more than 40 mayors and managers from a dozen north suburban communities in Lake Forest soon turned to the utility company's inability to be honest in its communications during the recent storms that 

 convened the meeting at the Lake Forest Municipal Facility to find ways for all branches of government to work together when crippling storms hit. The last one on July 11 left more than 800,000 ComEd customers without power.

Across the board, village and city officials expressed frustration at ComEd giving out inaccurate answers rather than admit it does not have one. 

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“If you don’t know, don’t promise,” Lake Bluff Village President  told Commonwealth Edison Vice President for External Affairs . “When you don’t know what to expect that is a problem.” 

ComEd struggles to answer

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Guerra explained the difficulty of assessing storm damage in response to Letchinger’s comment, but gave no explanation for information provided by the company’s customer service department that proved inaccurate. 

“We had to take two, three, four days to review the damage,” Guerra said in response to Letchinger. “If you have a storm with 800,000 people out (of power) it takes time to deal with it all.” 

was not satisfied with Guerra’s answer to Letchinger. He lodged the same complaint. 

“If you don’t know it, don’t say it,” Limardi said. “My residents are tearing the faces off my staff because we don’t get information from ComEd.

"If we ran our cities this way," he continued, "It wouldn’t be pretty.” 

Guerra said the were a significant challenge. He said the lack of accurate information was something his company was reviewing because of the inordinate amount of problems. 

“This is something we are discussing a lot at ComEd,” Guerra said. “This was just a tsunami. I had 1,400 priority items.”

ComEd's Past History

Glenview Village Manager Todd Hileman was not convinced. He has a history of difficulty with ComEd trying to help shepherd his community through storms in the past as well as the recent weather. 

“I sat in a room like this four years ago. ComEd made promises. Nothing has changed,” Hileman said. “I’m sure we’ll be at another meeting like this in 2015. Let’s not wait until the next crisis.” 

Guerra had no response to Hileman other than to describe the severity of the storm that spurred the past meeting.

In direct questioning by Patch, Guerra was not surprised to hear that its customer service representatives have provided false information rather than admitting a lack of knowledge.  

“It’s something I’ve been hearing quite a bit,” Guerra said. “It’s something we are going to discuss. We will talk about working it into our planning.”

When Patch asked the question a second and third time, Guerra simplified his answer. 

“I don’t know,” he said.

had an explanation for ComEd’s failure to admit it has no answer. “It’s their corporate culture,” she said.

Electrical Infrastucture Targeted

Northbrook Village President Sandra Frum sees the electrical infrastructure as part of the problem. She wants a plan for ongoing improvements. 

“My residents will pay more to have the system improved,” Frum said. “We don’t see money for ongoing improvements.” 

who also attended the meeting, was quick to say she would go to the Illinois Commerce Commission with the idea. May, who was without power at her own home for several days because of storm damage, is also growing impatient. 

“Individuals need to come together,” May said. “We need better performance (from Commonwealth Edison) now before the next crisis.”

As the meeting came to a close, Garrett organized a committee of city and village managers to make specific recommendations. Hileman will head that effort.

“We have to hold (ComEd's) feet to the fire,” she said.

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