POWER OFF - KALB

POWER OFF: KALB responds to the City of Alexandria’s claims about utility disconnections

ALEXANDRIA, La. (KALB) - On Tuesday, July 11, the City of Alexandria published a response to a story KALB aired on Monday, July 10. The report detailed how the City’s utility department turned off utility services to 83 customers on Monday, June 26 - the start of Central Louisiana’s hottest week this year.

KALB’s report aimed to uncover what protections, if any, are in place to protect Alexandria Utility Service customers from disconnections during extreme heat, even if those customers are behind on their bills. It was discovered that no such protections exist - the City of Alexandria has no rules or regulations for when utilities cannot be disconnected.

Other utility companies, like Cleco, are regulated by the Louisiana Public Service Commission, which has strict rules in place for when utility companies can disconnect utilities in extreme weather. The utility system in Alexandria is municipally owned and operated, so it is not regulated by the LPSC - yet, both in previous correspondence with Utility Director Mike Marcotte as well as the city’s response to KALB’s report, the City of Alexandria claims it “has chosen to exercise its discretion and adopt policies and practices which parallel the LPSC’s 2007 General Order concerning disconnects during extreme weather.” If the City of Alexandria was following the LPSC’s guidelines on June 26, no customers would have been disconnected.

For example, in the City of Alexandria’s response to KALB’s report, it states that “the disconnect order in question was dispatched well before any weather advisory was in effect.” This is true, as the advisory for June 26 was in effect from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. that day, but is contradictory to LPSC guidelines the City of Alexandria claims to follow.

According to the LPSC, utility companies are banned from disconnecting service to customers “on a day” when a heat advisory has been issued by the nearest National Weather Service. If an advisory has been issued, as one was for June 26, utility companies cannot disconnect services that day - no matter the time the advisory is in place. In fact, the heat advisory for June 26 was issued by the NWS in Lake Charles the previous day on June 25, giving utility companies plenty of notice that June 26 would be abnormally hot.

The City of Alexandria cannot claim to follow the LPSC’s policy and practices, specifically its guidelines for disconnecting customers during extreme heat, while it disconnected 83 customers on a day when a heat advisory was issued.

In its response to KALB’s report, the City of Alexandria also makes claims about the citizen who gave KALB the tip that disconnections were happening on June 26. As shared in the story, the citizen is an 83-year-old disabled man, who was far behind on his bills. The man wanted to remain anonymous, but was forthcoming about how much he owed - the root of KALB’s story was his concern for his safety in the heat and the 82 others who had their utilities shut off on June 26.

Much of what the City of Alexandria’s response says about that citizen relates to the fact that he himself is not the “account holder.” To be clear, the man rents his Laurel Street home and is responsible for paying the utility bill, even though the utility account is in his landlord’s name. That citizen was the one affected by the utility disconnection, not the landlord.

The City of Alexandria’s response also makes claims about Marcotte disclosing reporters Alex Orenczuk and Dylan Domangue’s personal utility bill payment history to the KALB newsroom staff. According to the City of Alexandria, Marcotte did not email “the entire newsroom.” This is false. The news@kalb.com email is a distribution list that goes to every newsroom employee, almost 30 people.

Despite Orenczuk asking Marcotte to respond to questions via his direct email, Marcotte sent his message to Orenczuk along with CC’ing the newsroom email. That email made claims that Orenczuk and Domangue’s “sporadic payment history” made their reporting on this subject a “conflict of interest,” while also attaching documents with the reporters’ payment histories.

Additionally, the City of Alexandria claims that it emailed written responses to the news@kalb.com email “just as it has with countless other press releases, updates, road closures, boil advisories, and similar critical information, the customary practice for over a decade.”

That custom ended earlier this year on May 16, when Mayor Jacques Roy implemented a new media policy at a City Council meeting that ended direct email communication with KALB, electing to publish information on City-owned websites and social media accounts. At that City Council meeting, Mayor Roy stated “any media policy that was under the previous administration, I have revoked formally. I have reviewed them, four if not five, and revoked them because they are not consistent with what we think should be the proper policy.”

Since that new policy has been in place, KALB has only received boil advisories and City Council agendas via email. No other official emails from the City of Alexandria have been sent to the news@kalb.com email until Marcotte sent Orenczuk and Domangue’s personal information.

Lastly, in KALB’s initial story on Monday, it was reported that if the City of Alexandria’s guidelines were to be changed to protect customers from disconnection during extreme weather, it would have to be done through the Alexandria City Council. The council would have to propose and pass a new ordinance setting those regulations for the City of Alexandria.

KALB has reached out to every member of the City Council for their opinion and is awaiting their responses.

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