To: The Maryland State House, The Maryland State Senate, and Governor Larry Hogan

Dump PEPCO

We want to revise the Montgomery County Charter so that PEPCO shall be replaced by a public utility that is directly and only responsible to county citizens.

Why is this important?

Are you tired of power outages?

When a storm hits PEPCO immediately announces that it's "assessing" the situation and developing a "strategic" plan. This is nonsense. What it's not doing is putting adequate repair crews on the street. When PEPCO says it's getting crews from Texas or Ohio what it's really saying is that the food in your refrigerator will rot, the elderly and the young will suffer, community businesses will be closed, the police will be on traffic duty and the state and the county will lose tax money. PEPCO is also saying that it's not hiring people in Maryland, something which harms our economy.

PEPCO says it has a five-year plan but the results in every storm are always the same. Meanwhile, bondholders and executives never miss a check -- and PEPCO wants higher rates!

As recently outlined in The Washington Post by Eric Hansel, we can replace PEPCO with a public utility. This is not an easy or a short process, but it's very important to start now by amending the country charter. As a place to begin we want to have a public referendum on the subject.

The Post article can be found at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-time-to-take-over-for-pepco/2012/07/27/gJQApg0hEX_story.html