Last week our office received a number of calls and emails concerning repeated power outages in Ward 6. I was frustrated to find that this had happened on more than one occasion in the past ninety days. These outages are affecting some of our most vulnerable residents who are bed ridden and have respiratory needs, not to mention those days when the temperatures soared. Many others have lost food due to lack of electricity.

When our office has received inquiries we have contacted PEPCO directly for assistance.  We are often told that crews are on the scene and will stay there until the problem is resolved.  Unfortunately, we have not been able to obtain the cause for the outages, nor heard an outline from PEPCO for a permanent solution.

To this effect, I wanted to share with everyone another avenue of complaint if you feel PEPCO is not being responsive to your concerns. Of course, always feel free to contact us directly, but you can also file a complaint with the Office of the People's Council (OPC) and of the Public Service Commission (PSC).  The OPC serves as the advocate for customer complaints with utility service and provides information on consumer rights and actions that can be taken against the utilities.  The PSC is the regulatory agency over the utilities. The contact information is as follows:

The Office of the People's Counsel for the District of Columbia
1133 15th Street N.W., Suite 500
Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: (202) 727-3071   Fax: (202) 727-1014   TTY-TTD: 727-2876
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District of Columbia Public Service Commission
1333 H Street, NW, Suite 200, West Tower;
Washington, DC 20005

Phone: (202) 626-5100 Fax: (202) 393-1389
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Both of these agencies will work to help solve your problems related to PEPCO. PEPCO has also encouraged people to contact them directly through Ms. Linda Jo Smith at PEPCO who can be reached at 202-872-2024 or email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it