Members of the Rocky Mount City Council voted Monday night against a proposal to halt utility cutoffs after a tense meeting at which angry constituents called for their resignations.
The decision came after a family of three and their dogs were found dead in their mobile home last week, shortly after their electricity was cut off by the city for lack of payment. The family was reportedly using a generator indoors for power, according to relatives.
About 300 other households have also been disconnected, city officials said at the meeting. State lawmakers of both parties said earlier Monday they're looking into that decision.
NC lawmakers look into Rocky Mount family's death after city cut off electricity
Rocky Mount resident Dorothy Cook was the first public speaker of many Monday night to criticize the council.
"Enough is enough. Y'all need to stop it. People don't need to die in order to survive here in Rocky Mount," Cook said. "The evil needs to be stopped."
Robert Lane said the current council gets the "historical high honor of being the worst group ever elected" to run the city. "I want to ask for your resignations, each one of you. None of you are above the other. If there's any shame, you should have it in the way you handled our business."
"When you disconnect a human being's electricity in the middle of a deadly heat wave, you are not engaging in administrative enforcement. You are issuing a sentence," said Nehemiah Smith. "When did we start trading an algorithm for common sense? Algorithms don't know what it means to gasp for air in a darkened, sweltering room."
Unlike in many North Carolina communities, electricity in Rocky Mount is supplied by a city-owned utility. The utility, which already charges higher prices for power than other utilities, has had problems with billing mistakes and delays that have left some city customers owing thousands of dollars, facing disconnection, and unable to contact the utility by phone for help.
The utility delayed shutting off power for several months, but recently resumed disconnections. City councilmen defended that decision Monday night.
"It is hurtful to know that people lost their lives. It is also true that people intentionally did not pay anything on their utilities, and I'm not speaking about this family because I don't know the circumstance, but I know the buzz," said Councilman Reuben Blackwell.
"Since October, November, we told everyone weeks before the cutoff occurred what was going to transpire," Blackwell said. "We didn't want to do it, but how do you extend services to some and not to all?"
Blackwell said state regulators had forced the city's hand in resuming disconnections, including the Local Government Commission and state Auditor Dave Boliek, who've been critical of the city's financial management as they oversee its recovery from near-bankruptcy.
"They told us when we have been subsidizing the cost of utilities, that the people need to pay the cost of utilities, so we had to increase the cost of utilities," Blackwell said. "What utility system in North Carolina will keep your power on for two months, three months, four months, five months without payment?"
Councilmember Andre Knight said he couldn't agree to a moratorium without a better understanding of what it might cost the city, especially since an earlier moratorium on disconnections had just ended.
"When the auditor came, he told us what we had to do, and the LGC," Knight said. "You call the state auditor, the treasurer, and the LGC because if they would have come in and taken over. That's exactly what they would have done."