Scarsdale Mayor Marc Samwick to Testify At NYS Legislature Hearing on Con Edison's Failures

Photo Credit: Lika LeviAfter many in Scarsdale lived through a hot, uncomfortable week with no power, Mayor Marc Samwick vowed to take meaningful action to address Con Edison’s repeated failures. In storm after storm, the utility has had inadequate response times, inaccurate reporting of outages and poor communications with their customers. Municipal officials are unable to get answers or coordinate with the utility to speed recovery.

Most galling, at the same time they were failing their customers, they were earning billions of dollars in profits.

Just two weeks after Tropical Storm Isaias crippled Scarsdale and many neighboring town in Westchester, Samwick has been invited to testify before the NYS Joint Legislative Hearing focused on utility preparedness and response in association with Tropical Storm Isaias on Thursday August 20 at 11 am.

The Joint Public Hearing will be streamed live online on Thursday, August 20, at 11:00 AM, from the NYS Senate and NYS Assembly webpages, with more viewing information available online. 

In his written comments submitted to the NYS Legislature on behalf of the Village Board and entire Scarsdale Scarsdale Mayor Marc Samwickcommunity, Mayor Samwick related, “As a community leader, I have experienced a high level of frustration in connection with being virtually powerless in helping our residents, local businesses, and other important members of our community to get their electric power restored and return their lives to some semblance of normalcy amidst the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.”

“I am incensed by ConEd’s failure to develop, manage, and maintain the electric grid in such fashion that our community can count on it for delivery of reliable, cost-effective energy through an efficient and resilient network capable of reasonably-paced recovery following a severe weather event.” Village officials are aggressively pursuing accountability for utility storm response failures, calling for impactful change in the manner in which ConEd operates during and in the wake of emergencies, and demanding appropriate investment to storm-harden our electric infrastructure and enhance its resiliency.”