Geauga County Commissioners do not believe The Illuminating Company’s assertions that closing its Middlefield line shop and consolidating operations in Concord Township will not negatively impact response times.
Geauga County Commissioners do not believe The Illuminating Company’s assertions that closing its Middlefield line shop and consolidating operations in Concord Township will not negatively impact response times.
FirstEnergy Local Engagement Specialist Dave Conley and Director of Operations Tinh Khongphatthana appeared before commissioners May 6 in response to a letter commissioners sent FirstEnergy President Torrence Hinton outlining their concerns about the Middlefield office’s impending closure.
“To ensure responsible resource management, The Illuminating Company plans to consolidate operations currently handled at the Middlefield line shop with our Concord line shop,” Conley recapped. “The date for this consolidation remains under review and has not been established, yet.”
Relocating the workers from the Middlefield line shop would not impact response times to outages and emergencies, nor would the process for handling those emergencies change, Conley said.
“The company’s first responders to emergency situations are called trouble crews and currently, no trouble crews report out of the Middlefield line shop,” he said, adding the closest trouble crews are often dispatched from Concord.
Line crews are dispatched after trouble crews on scene to diagnose the problem, he said.
“The line crews currently assigned to the Middlefield service center will continue the same work they do day to day, they just will start their days at the Concord line shop,” he said.
Commissioner Ralph Spidalieri disagreed with Conley about response times, expressing concern not having a crew in Middlefield would slow response — something that could be damaging to a village packed with industry.
“When Middlefield goes down, that’s an enormous amount of dollars to those factories,” he said.
A situation with wires down is also dangerous and could put people at risk if not repaired quickly, he said.
“I just think that there’s other areas you probably could cut on before you take Geauga’s service away,” he said.
Service always prioritizes more densely populated areas, Spidalieri said, adding neighboring Lake County has a higher population and lots of industry.
Khongphatthana reiterated there would not be a delay in service.
Commissioner Carolyn Brakey noted Concord Township is 30 minutes away from Middlefield.
When the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is deciding FirstEnergy’s base distribution rates, they are looking at the costs from 2024, which included the Middlefield shop, Brakey said.
They are taking the shop off the books to save money while basing the rates everyone pays on 2024, she said.
“That doesn’t seem like a good-faith negotiation with the PUCO regarding what customers’ rates should be,” she said.
Brakey also raised ongoing depositions before the PUCO regarding FirstEnergy’s rates.
As part of his deposition, Hinton said on the record that the shop’s removal from Geauga would have a negative impact to service times, she said.
Middlefield Mayor Ben Garlich recalled the power being out constantly before new power lines and a substation were installed.
“It cost us thousands and thousands of dollars,” he said.
This is a step backward, Garlich said.
“Not only do we need a service team there, we need a first responder team there,” he said, adding he was surprised no one in Middlefield could be the first onsite.
Garlich requested Middlefield retain its service team and have a first responder team on hand so problems could be diagnosed faster.
Service has declined in Middlefield over the years, Garlich added.
Acting County Administrator Linda Burhenne questioned if FirstEnergy’s decision to consolidate with Concord would save any money.
“If you’re not reducing staff and you already own the (Middlefield) building, how is this action really saving you money?” she said.
The move is responsible resource management, Khongphatthana replied.
Conley emphasized he and Khongphatthana are not the ones who made the decision.
Geauga County Sheriff Scott Hildebrand said his department has also had problems with FirstEnergy’s response times.
“Right now, if we call for FirstEnergy to come out, their standard answer is one-to-two hours,” he said. “That’s if you’re not in storm mode. As soon as it snows a little bit, or rains, or wind blows, you go into storm mode and we have no idea how long it’s gonna take.”
He cannot believe the response time will be the same from Concord, Hildenbrand said.
“I truly think that it’s gonna affect us. Your response time, quite frankly, is not good as it is,” he said. “Now, you’re gonna pull the only garage you have in Geauga County out and move it out there.”
This will impact emergency services and FirstEnergy will be responsible for that, he said.
Conley said he would share the information they gathered from officials with their management.
As FirstEnergy is not reconsidering the decision, Geauga County would be filing public comment with the PUCO in FirstEnergy’s rate case, Brakey said.
