City residents shared their concerns about the rising cost of electricity during the February 25 Martinsville City Council meeting, calling on officials to address the financial strain caused by increasing rates.
Several residents shared their experiences with the rising utility bills, including Ms. Carter, who said her electric bill has continued to climb despite no changes in energy usage.
“I had a December electric bill of $415… January was four-something, and now March is $615,” she said.
Carter, who described herself as a middle-class working resident, emphasized that these rate hikes impact people across all income levels.
“If you guys continue to allow the city to hike these bills up, I don’t understand how you expect the average working person to afford it, let alone a person that’s on a fixed monthly income … I don’t understand how we can agree to raise these bills like this for these residents, whether they’re regular middle class working people like myself, or whether it’s my grandmother, or my disabled sister in law that has a $300 electric bill that lives in a basement apartment,” she said.
Carter criticized the increased rates and added that they contradict the city’s motto.
“You say it’s a ‘city without limits,’ but there are limits when you have three electric bills that combine to be $1,500,” she said.
Carter also said the electric bills seem to go up despite a lack of change in how energy is being used within the residence “There’s no change in washing clothes, there’s no change in heat, there’s no change in any of that, and the bills just continue to go up and up and up,” she said.
Carter, who is originally from New York, shared some of the differences she saw between New York City and Martinsville and questioned where the money from the high bills is going.
“Where is the money going? I’m not trying to be funny, but I look at one thing that hasn’t gone up in my bill over the 15 years I’ve been in my house is the garbage, and that’s because the trash is being picked up by the people who are incarcerated. You go someplace like New York City, picking up the trash is a government job, people making $50 an hour for that. Here, even with that, it’s just neglecting the inmates. The average inmate probably doesn’t have somebody to give them this or give them that, so the $19 or $20 that they’ve been picking up trash for 20 years, and now these price increases on water and sewer and electric, but no price increase for them?” Carter said.
Mr. Mayham, another resident, said he was shocked by his first electricity bill after moving into a one-bedroom apartment.
“I’m not home 60 percent of the time. The first 19 days in this residence… I got a bill for $413.55,” he said.
Mayham also noted discrepancies in billing.
“What bothers me the most is, I can go two streets over on either side, and the people with bigger houses than I have, and they have a cheaper light bill,” Mayham said, adding that this has been an ongoing issue.
“I know that the city council has been dealing with this issue for over 10 years, and all we, as citizens, have been seeing is increase, increase, increase,” he said.
Mayham also shared the struggles from the perspective of someone on a fixed income. “I live on a fixed income. If I pay this electric bill and my rent, I don’t have anything left out of my check.”
He called on city officials to take action. “As a citizen, and as you all being our representatives, we have got to do something. Citizens cannot make it. We cannot make it with the income that we get, especially on a fixed income,” Mayham said.
He warned that higher utility costs could contribute to increased crime rates in the city.
“People are going to do what they’ve got to do to try and survive,” he said. “It’s going to just increase crime in the city of Martinsville.”
City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides acknowledged residents’ concerns, emphasizing that raising rates was not an easy decision for council members. “When you talk about the electric bill, the council hears you,” she said. “This was a very, very tough decision for them.”
Ferrell-Benavides explained that Martinsville is one of the few cities that provides electricity to its residents, and as a reseller, the city faces rising wholesale energy costs.
“The issues that we had as a reseller (face), prices are rising while incomes are not, and we recognize that—as all of us actually live here in the city,” she said.
She assured residents that the city is looking for solutions.
“We are committed as a team,” she said. “Mr. (Aaron) Rawls has been working on some grant projects and other things, looking at what we can do to assist our residents.”
Ferrell-Benavides also noted that the issue extends beyond Martinsville.
“This is a problem not just in Martinsville,” she said. “This is a problem all over the country as we are buying electrical services from someone else.”
She encouraged residents to explore assistance programs available for utility relief.
“We’re going to work with our staff to make sure that we are reaching out to citizens because we see this and we hear this over and over,” she said. “But we’re going to try and do everything that we can to assist our citizens.”
In other matters, the council:
*Heard an update on the demolition list and process by Building Official and Zoning Administrator Kris Bridges.
*Heard a financial update from Chief Financial Officer Richard Steinfeld. The report is available on the city website.
*Approved the February 18 meeting minutes.
