Maria Horn

Last night my family pried all of my devices out of my hands and made me go outside and watch the meteor shower for a few minutes.  It was a reminder that there is still, indeed, a big picture out there, and that we will move through all of the obstacles that have been thrown in front of us, with the help of our neighbors, friends, family, and loved ones: with the help of our communities. 

 

Yesterday the state held a primary election.  There was only one contested race in our district, and many people voted by absentee this year to avoid COVID-19 risks, so the pace at the polls I visited was orderly and quietly humming. Town clerks, registrars, and poll workers put in a lot of work this week to prepare for the today’s primary election, including many new public health precautions. I thank all of them for their hard work, adaptability, and dedication to making sure that every voter got to vote safely, either at the polls or at home. I look forward to learning from all of them about how we can improve the process for November.

 

As of this morning, Eversource reports fewer than 1% of customers out of power in each of the towns of the 64^th District: that is major progress, but there are still about 40 people in the district without power, so I will keep pushing until everyone is back on the grid.  If you remain out of power, or if other utilities such as cable or internet have not come back online after power is restored, please continue to let me know at maria.horn@cga.ct.gov.

 

I have spent much of the last few days connecting with people in our towns, checking again with those who had reported problems to see how they were making out. I have also been communicating regularly with Eversource, in particular, pushing them to open up lines of communication with town officials.  The poor quality of that communication has been one of Eversource’s biggest failures, and has been the focus of a lot of my work over the last few days. In the wake of past storms, a plan was put in place (by Eversource) that gave each town a liaison at the utility, with whom to communicate during a crisis such as the one we have endured.  Unfortunately, as I have heard from First Selectmen and other town officials throughout the district, those liaisons did not reach out to town leaders to either give or receive information, were too overwhelmed to respond to the officials’ calls, and/or did not have any information to share when contact was actually made.  Today I spoke with several Eversource managers in order to improve that situation. I got commitments that they would reach out and speak to all chief elected officials, and that they would resolve situations that those officials have told me should have priority.  That has helped resolve the remaining problems, but there are many questions to be asked, starting at the hearing conducted by the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) on August 24 (see paragraph below). 

Here’s a list of today’s topics:

• Governor Lamont Executive Order No. 7MMM (allowing absentee ballots to be counted if received on or before August 13)
• Update from Optimum/Altice
• PURA hearing re Eversource on August 24
• Regional travel advisory updated to include more locations with high COVID-19 infection rates, several locations removed
• SNAP Benefits for recipients who lost power in the storm

Governor Lamont Executive Order No. 7MMM enacting the following provisions:

 

• Management of absentee ballots for the August 11, 2020 primary: Enacted at the request of Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, who submitted a letter to the governor this morning seeking an executive order, this order clarifies several administrative steps in the management of absentee ballots for the August 11, 2020 primary.

 

Update from Optimum/Altice

 

For those in our district whose cable service is provided by Optimum/Altice, they reported that the percentage of customers on Connecticut without service due to the storm fell from more than 44% immediately following the storm to less than 4% today.  

 

Service Restoration:  Trouble Shooting Tips 

Once power has been restored to your home, your Optimum services should be back up and running.   If you experienced a loss of power, it is best to restart your equipment using the following steps:

• Unplug your equipment from its power source.
• Wait 30 seconds.
• Plug your equipment back into the power source.

 

If your service does not return after restarting, it is possible that: 

• The power that feeds our network in your area comes from a different commercial power source than the power that feeds your home or business location or there is another issue relating to network power that needs to be addressed.   We are coordinating with the electric companies to identify these issues and ensure prioritization of repair or restoration. 
• There is damage to the Optimum network, like a downed utility pole or wire break, and our crews are proactively working to rectify this type of damage to restore service.

 

Optimum/Altice has created the opportunity for customers check on service status online by doing the following:  

• Go to optimum.net/support/outage and sign in with Optimum ID and password. Next, under Support, located in the upper right corner, click "Service status"

 

Report Service Issues:

If you are experiencing a service issue, contacting Optimum via any of these channels will result in a trouble ticket being created that will direct a repair team to assess and address the issue:

• Visit optimum.net/support/outage
• Message Optimum at optimum.net/chat
• Send Tweet to @Optimumhelp
• Call (866) 950-3278

 

Request A Credit:

Customers may submit a request for a credit by completing the information at optimum.net/support/request-a-credit

 

 

PURA hearing re Eversource on August 24

 

On July 29, the four caucuses of the legislature and the Energy Committee Leaders sent a joint letter requesting the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) suspend and investigate Eversource’s July rate increases. In response to that request, PURA has ordered Eversource to temporarily suspend the rate increases while it conducts a full review, the purpose of which is to ensure that Eversource is not over-collecting revenues in the short term at the expense of ratepayers. Likewise, a similar rate increase request from United Illuminating has been suspended indefinitely.

 

PURA has scheduled a formal hearing process for Monday, August 24 starting at 10:00am in which Eversource will respond to questions posed only by PURA and other formal parties to the PURA process. The hearing will be conducted via Zoom, and written testimony can be emailed anytime to the Authority at pura.information@ct.gov  prior to the conclusion of the hearing. CT-N will be covering the hearing.

 

 

Regional travel advisory updated to include more locations with high COVID-19 infection rates, several locations removed

 

The regional travel advisory between Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York that went into effect last month and directs incoming travelers from states with a significant community spread of COVID-19 to self-quarantine for a 14-day period was updated today and now includes Hawaii, South Dakota, and the Virgin Islands on the list of impacted locations. Meanwhile, the states of Alaska, New Mexico, Ohio, and Rhode Island have been removed from the list.

 

The quarantine applies to any person arriving from a state with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day rolling average or a state with a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average.

 

As of today, the full list of locations meeting this criteria includes:

 

• Alabama
• Arkansas
• Arizona
• California
• Florida
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Iowa
• Idaho
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Maryland
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• Mississippi
• Montana
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• Oklahoma
• Puerto Rico
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Virgin Islands
• Virginia
• Washington (Metrics for Washington are currently pending review, status may change)
• Wisconsin

 

This list will continue to be updated on a regular basis as the situation develops across the country. Anyone seeking the most up-to-date information on the regional travel advisory is encouraged to visit the state’s coronavirus website at ct.gov/Coronavirus/travel.

 

 

SNAP Benefits for recipients who lost power in the storm

 

If you are a SNAP recipient who lost power in the storm and your food has spoiled, you can request replacement benefits. You must act before September 3^rd. Either call the DSS Benefit Center at 1-855-626-6632 or fill out the request forms and mail them in.

 

You can find the forms here: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/Departments-and-Agencies/DSS/Common-Applications/W-1225.pdf , and here: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/Departments-and-Agencies/DSS/Common-Applications/W-1226.pdf

National Health Center Week 
As part of National Health Center Week, Community Health & Wellness in Torrington held an event today to celebrate the work of their staff and of other nonprofit partners in the community, including Friendly Hands Food Bank and New Opportunities, which was there representing the census, and several other community organizations - they all do such important work in our community and I’m grateful to be working with them. 

Governor Lamont encourages residents to sign up for the state’s CTAlert notification system

 

Governor Lamont is encouraging Connecticut residents to sign up for CTAlert, the state’s emergency alert system, which provides text message notifications to users. To subscribe, text the keyword COVIDCT to 888-777.

 

Providing information to Connecticut residents

 

For the most up-to-date information from the State of Connecticut on COVID-19, including an FAQ and other guidance and resources, residents are encouraged to visit ct.gov/coronavirus.