Chicago Defender

Quinn rejects bill raising electric rates

Gov. Pat Quinn (Defender/Worsom Robinson)

Gov. Pat Quinn on Sunday vetoed a plan to increase electricity rates by up to $70 million — a proposal that Commonwealth Edison Co. had pitched as a way to get electrical grid modernization back on track.

The Chicago Democrat said the bill would have undermined oversight and forced automatic rate increases on the public.

"We cannot allow big utilities to take over and run roughshod over families and business in our state," Quinn told reporters.

ComEd had touted the bill as a way to clarify so-called Smart Grid legislation approved in 2011. That bill authorized a decade-long, roughly $3 billion project aimed at improving the power companies' delivery systems by installing "smart meters" in ComEd homes and most Ameren homes. Proponents had said the work, affecting millions of Illinois customers, would create about 2,500 jobs.

But executing the smart grid system has been tricky.

The Illinois Commerce Commission, which regulates utilities, and ComEd disagreed over implementation. ComEd filed a court appeal over a dozen highly-technical matters worth roughly $100 million annually to the utility.

ComEd also faces a class-action lawsuit for delaying the installation of smart meters. ComEd had put off starting the installation until 2015, when a lower-than-expected rate increase left it short of the cash needed to install nearly 4 million of the high-tech, energy-saving meters. ComEd said the lawsuit, which seeks at least $182 million, is without merit.

The new bill — which easily sailed through both the Illinois House and Senate — was designed to address some of those issues and would have required ComEd to begin installing the meters this year, among other things.

Quinn, who helped start the consumer advocacy Citizens Utility Board early in his political career, said that he supports the idea of Smart Grid technology but that the utilities have gone too far for repeatedly asking for rate increases. The governor initially vetoed the 2011 smart grid legislation, but lawmakers overrode the veto and made some changes to the bill.

Legislators could override his veto this month before the summer break.

ComEd officials said Sunday that they were disappointed by Quinn's veto.

"The delay of the Smart Grid harms Illinois' overall economic competitiveness and ability to attract and grow business here," said ComEd spokeswoman Martha Swaney in a statement.

Police: Illinois fugitive arrested in Wisconsin

Police stage at Fire Station 2 on King James Way during a search for Paris Poe, 33, who fled the Chicago area to avoid arrest in Madison, Wis., Thursday, May 2, 2013. The search prompted several Madison-area schools to lock down for at least a few hours but no injuries were reported. (AP Photo/Wisconsin State Journal, Amber Arnold)

MADISON, Wis. — An Illinois fugitive was arrested Thursday evening on a Madison highway after a daylong manhunt in south-central Wisconsin that drove several local schools to lock down for hours and left neighbors on edge, police said.

A SWAT team arrested Paris Poe, 33, of Chicago, in a vehicle on state Highway 30 shortly after 7 p.m., Madison Police Lt. Cory Nelson told The Associated Press. Nelson said police received a tip from the public that Poe and a woman were driving a Ford Crown Victoria.

Police performed a "high-risk traffic stop" by pointing weapons at the vehicle and ordering Poe out of the car, Nelson said. Poe did not resist arrest, Nelson said. No one was hurt.

Poe was wanted for questioning in a federal murder investigation and for an alleged parole violation. He was spotted at a hotel in Madison on Thursday morning, prompting authorities to swarm the area. FBI agents said they believed Poe was possibly armed with a handgun.

"We are urging anyone who may see something suspicious, if they see something that's amiss in their backyard and they're in this area, please call us," FBI spokesman G.B. Jones said at a news conference in Fitchburg, a town just south of Madison.

Paris Poe (AP Photo/FBI)

Poe was convicted of aggravated battery and robbery in 2009 and paroled in June 2011. He's now charged with traveling across state lines to avoid custody for a parole violation. An FBI bulletin issued last month did not include details of the federal murder investigation or how it relates to the current charges.

An FBI spokeswoman in Chicago declined to comment on the homicide investigation Thursday.

Poe was spotted Thursday morning at a Country Inn & Suites in a rural area near Madison's border with suburban Fitchburg, home to about 25,250 people. Police converged on the hotel but missed Poe by 10 minutes, Jones said. Someone at the hotel apparently tipped Poe off, Jones said, but he declined to elaborate.

The FBI released photos taken from security-camera footage and announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

Leads in the search had begun to dwindle by early Thursday evening, however.

Loraine Hill, a 47-year-old cashier at the Bavaria Sausage Kitchen, a cheese and sausage store down the road from the hotel, said police arrived at the store around 11:30 a.m. and told employees to lock their doors and stay inside.

Pumped up on adrenaline, Hill went outside anyway and started snapping pictures of SWAT team members searching the fields around the hotel with weapons drawn. Her co-worker, 49-year-old Ginny Meier, was still so shaken up Thursday afternoon she forgot to give a customer his change.

John Bentz, 87, lives in a subdivision near the hotel in a house with a front door plastered with National Rifle Association stickers. He said he didn't know anything was amiss until he turned on the television news and saw a story about Poe. His son checked his garage to make sure Poe was not hiding in it, he said.

"I thought, 'Holy crap, this is right in our backyard,'" Bentz said. "This guy must be pretty dangerous. My God."

The daylong manhunt for Poe prompted several Madison-area schools to lock down for at least a few hours but no injuries were reported.

Luis Yudice, a spokesman for the Madison Metropolitan School District, said officials locked down Chavez and Leopold elementary schools Thursday afternoon as a precaution after consulting with police. He said the students were all released safely within about two hours.

"Our doors are already locked anyway, but under this situation it means all outdoor activities are canceled," Yudice said.

Madison police officers went to both schools to make sure the local areas were safe, police spokesman Joel DeSpain said.

All the schools in the Verona Area School District were locked down for almost three hours, with classroom doors locked and students told to stay down, according to the district website. Bus services were discontinued pending an all-clear from police, and students were only allowed to leave if their parents or guardians came to pick them up.

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Associated Press writers Dinesh Ramde in Milwaukee, Doug Glass and Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis and Sara Burnett in Chicago contributed to this report.

ComEd fair reaches out to struggling customers

Smart Grid construction is underway along State Street in the Bronzeville community on Chicago's South Side by ComEd. The electricity company will continue to assist struggling customers with paying their bill through a ComEd Cares fair Saturday, May 4, 2013 at the Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church, 4100 S. King Drive. Defender/Rhonda Gillespie

In partnership with ComEd, representatives from the Community and Economic Development Association will be at the Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church Saturday as part of program to help customers with their electric bills. The church is located at 4100 S. King Drive.

Through its ComEd Cares program, the electric utility will offer financial assistance for struggling customers from a $10 million pool the company has dedicated to help those in need. The money is part of a $50 million commitment the company says it made to help some customers, and it comes as a result of the 2011 Smart Grid law.

 “We understand that some customers are going through difficult financial times and may need help paying their electric bill,” said Kevin Brookins, senior vice president of Strategy and Administration for ComEd. 

·   Sign-up for ComEd’s CARE programs and LIHEAP assistance

• •Find out about available payment plans to help pay their electric bill
• •Receive no-cost and low- cost tips on how to save on energy and lower their electricity bill

Customers who would like to sign up for assistance Saturday should bring the following information:

• •Current ComEd Bill
• •Social Security cards for everyone in their household
• •Income information for the last 30 days

For more information on ComEd’s customer assistance programs click here. 

Former soul food restaurant owner succumbs to cancer

Dolores Jean Grey Reynolds

Dolores Jean Grey Reynolds, a Chicago businesswoman and the long-time owner and operator of the celebrated Army & Lou’s soul food restaurant on Chicago’s South Side, died April 24 in Detroit after a three-month battle with esophageal cancer.

Funeral services will be held May 4 at 11 a.m. at True Believers Missionary Baptist Church, 7801 S. Wolcott Ave. in Chicago. The service will be preceded at 10 a.m. by a wake at the church. Burial will immediately follow the service.

Reynolds was a classic Chicago success story. Born in Blytheville, Arkansas, she was brought to Chicago as a child by her parents, Mary L. Grey and the late Horace Noel Grey. One of seven children, she graduated from Calumet High School and from Roosevelt University – both in Chicago. She earned a master’s degree in psychology from the university.

Reynolds entered the corporate world as an executive at Jewel Food Corporation. She later became the vice president of Marketing at Preferred Meal Systems and thereafter launched her own business, Excel Services, Inc., a food service firm.  In the early ‘90s Reynolds bought Army & Lou’s Restaurant on East 75th Street, the legendary dining spot established in 1945 and known widely as the favorite restaurant of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington.

Its clientele included such luminaries as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., entertainer Smokey Robinson and many political figures. President-elect Barack Obama and his advisers met there regularly during the presidential transition of 2008-2009. Reynolds operated and personally managed the restaurant until she sold it in 2010.

Most recently, Reynolds has served as the chief financial officer of White House Services, a health care firm headquartered in West Bloomfield, Michigan.