Monroe County residents, the grassroots organization Metro Justice and Monroe County legislators Albert Blankley and Mercedes Vazquez Simmons held a town hall on Wednesday evening in an effort to get county legislators to move forward with an implementation study for a public takeover of Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation.

“To replace RG&E with a public utility it means lower rates for all of us who are affected by it as well as it means public oversight,” said Abdullah Watkins a volunteer for Metro Justice.

Residents like Watkins voiced frustrations with RG&E, arguing alleged poor customer service, down power lines and expensive or misbilling.

“I moved here from Houston, T.X. and I promise you when I got here I was amazed at what the bills were like,” he said.

Metro Justice is calling for Monroe County legislators to provide more funding for conducting the study and provide oversight after receiving a guarantee for $500,000 from the city of Rochester.

“Once we get the county on board, we need a million dollars from them and then we believe that public pressure is going to make it happen with town halls like this,” Watkins said.

It’s a change RG&E says is not the answer.

“Service and reliability will be compromised while putting taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars by significantly raising rates,” said RG&E’s head of communications, Alexis Arnold. “[It will jeopardize] needed grid improvements and [halt] any transition to clean energy.”

But it’s a change some residents feel is both necessary and inevitable.

Earlier this month, the state Public Service Commission approved a rate hike that RG&E/NYSEG had proposed, however, the increase was roughly half of what the companies originally asked for. Under the initial proposal, the companies sought a total of $447 million in the first year, while the rates approved provided $217.3 million in the first year, roughly 50% less.

State officials say the rate hikes are necessary to offset higher company costs such as increases in the property tax burden. 

The rate hike has been one of the major arguments for those advocating to turn RG&E into a public utility. The other has to do with customer service. The Public Service Commission fined RG&E/NYSEG earlier this year for "failing to meet reliability and customer service targets."

According to the PSC, "NYSEG and RG&E each failed to meet all four of their respective metric targets." That means the state will cut $5.9 million in customer revenue from RG&E and $8.72 million from NYSEG.