Menino: NStar Showing 'Complete Arrogance' With Customer Service
BOSTON (CBS) - The lights are back on in the Back Bay, but Mayor Tom Menino is still unhappy with NStar.
"Complete arrogance on the part of NStar when it comes to servicing their consumer," said Menino.
Menino said Wednesday that he wants the Public Utility Commission to come down hard on the company.
"They have to answer to the consumer. The consumer is the people that'll pay the bills, and NStar has not been responsive one iota to any of us," Menino said.
NStar said that during Tuesday's outage, almost 13,000 customers were without power for about an hour.
The Scotia Street substation, which had the issues Tuesday, also had big problems back in March when a transformer fire shut down power to 21,000 customers in the Back Bay.
NStar explained the cause of the outage in a statement Wednesday:
"NSTAR Electric's ongoing restoration of its Scotia Street substation involves the installation of several complex, integrated electrical components. Yesterday, during that restoration effort, a control and protection system at the facility operated due to a faulty power supply unit, shutting down the substation transformer and a 115-thousand volt transmission line.
The power supply equipment was quickly taken out of service and the substation transformer and transmission line were successfully brought back online. We have since replaced the malfunctioning power supply, re-tested the control and protection system and put it back into service."
The mayor told WBZ-TV he doesn't care how quickly power was restored Tuesday. It's still unacceptable.
"It inconvenienced a lot of folks. People call me who were stuck on the Prudential Tower 40 stories up, how do we get down? I mean, the public safety issues, the restaurants, also the construction business," said Menino. "There a lot of concerns of mine. I think Nstar should have the same responsibility. It doesn't seem they have that responsibility."
