Surprise!

In today's Journal & Topics newspaper, we read that the Park Ridge - ComEd town hall meeting was not well attended. Park Ridge's Public Information Coordinator, Aggie Stempniak said, "There weren't a lot of people there...I was a little bit surprised by the number. I thought there'd be more."

We are not surprised. We are not surprised even a "little bit." We understand some things that seem to be escaping city officials:

1) Anger fades pretty quickly.

2) The city waited too long to hold this meeting, perhaps by design.

3) Citizens want to hear about solutions, not be suckered into telling their stories over and over and over again at municipal group therapy sessions.

4) Citizens are not likely to have faith in a utility company that promises to "do a report and get it back to the city" as the sum total of its' response to the problem of frequent power outages.

5) Citizens are incredulous of the abilities of a city administration that tells them "the key thing ComEd emphasized was calling the company when power is out".

6) Citizens really do expect utility companies to know when their power is out; that's not an expectation of "osmosis" - that's an expectation of monitoring and maintenance. If their car's dashboard can tell them when it's time to change their oil, why can't ComEd's dashboard tell them when power is out?

Scheduling a succession of town hall meetings is an exercise in condescension. How many tales of woe do the city administration and ComEd need to hear before they begin providing real solutions?

Here are some free clues for city officials: Read the story in the Journal & Topics. Take note of the 419 utility poles "taken down" during the storm. Stop scheduling group therapy sessions for citizens. Begin discussing the merits and costs of burying power lines.

Shazam!

No need to thank us. Really, we are very self-interested on this one.