Now that I have your attention, you will soon know why I put those two topics in the same sentence, but you will have to keep reading.
First, I will start with an old memory from around 2000.
While working in the Cablevision call center, I learned of Braintree Electric Light Department(BELD), another competitor for the cable TV market, but just in Braintree. It was the same situation as with RCN; it was one of several towns where the caller ID said “competitive area” to alert the CSR that specially scripted talking points were to be used, when applicable.
Here it is, nearly a quarter of a century later, and Eversource has competition, but it’s sneaky! More on that in a moment. Last year was an election year in Nashua, and our mayor had nine ward “town halls” earlier in the year. One of his David Letterman-style opening monologue talking points in his tooting-his-own-horn agenda was community power coming to Nashua. There was a small handful of communities participating, and I didn’t pay close attention to who they were, but I thought they were cities because this kind of pilot project tends to be in customer-dense places in the infrastructure.
I had no idea that community power (or programs with similar names) was coming soon to smaller towns elsewhere until I watched a video by Nurse Terese, a Loudon resident, on recent town elections, warrant articles, and related matters. When she mentioned community power, it sent my mind back to last year, Punxsutawney Phil-style!
In Nashua, community power was such that one had to opt out, which I did the day I received the (probably mandatory) notice of its debut. I’ll let the accountants talk numbers, but my reason for doing so was that it was an election year, and I hate the mayor and will be darned if I do anything just because he wants me to. I would have to follow up with Terese to confirm, but I think she said Loudon has the same situation with them.
Why not make it opt-in? You already know the answer as do all opposition members to bills on vax registry matters. It’s the battle for customers/voters/consumers or whatever you care to name the population that’s asleep at the wheel. THEY are the commodity both sides are fighting for. It’s also eerily similar to some HR and benefits things during open enrollment time: passive vs. active enrollment. Too many people are too lazy to spoon-feed themselves, but the time is now for those to recognize the deadly sin of laziness when it comes to passive enrollment because it’s all by design.
A good bill idea might be to make community power programs (or whatever they’re locally named) opt-in. My senator is the Energy chair and Terese’s is the vice chair. The four of us should have a talk about this.
