Peco

THE URBAN League of Philadelphia is holding its Empowerment Week Jobs Summit Tuesday at the Bossone Research Enterprise Center, Drexel University, 32nd and Market streets. Fourteen employers, including Aramark, Wal-Mart, Comcast, Enterprise Holdings and Peco, will be showcasing their companies and looking for new employees. Attendees will be invited to an introductory session about the Comcast-sponsored "Connect to Work" training program, a six-week course designed to train people to work in customer service.

Sparks flew yesterday over Peco Energy Co.'s $3.8 billion hostile bid for Allentown-based PP&L Resources Inc. In its first formal response, PP&L's board unanimously rejected Peco's bid. The company cited concerns over Peco's debt, high customer rates and the effect of the deal on shareholder dividends. "We have concluded that the Peco proposal is not in the best interests of PP&L Resources, its shareowners, customers, employees or the communities it serves," said William F. Hecht, PP&L's chairman, in a sharply worded letter to Peco's chairman, Joseph F. Paquette Jr. Hecht also warned Peco against any further pursuit of a hostile takeover.

Peco Energy Co.'s residential commodity charge will increase 7 percent on Oct. 1 from 10.42 cents per kilowatt hour to 11.14 cents. The increase in the generation charge, also known as the price to compare, is slightly higher than the utility projected last month. Since only the supply charge is affected, a typical customer's total monthly bill will increase 4 percent or about $5.40 a month. The charge for small commercial customers will increase 5 percent from 10.32 cents per kilowatt hour to 10.87 cents, said Catherine Engel Menendez, Peco's spokeswoman.

A few hundred homes in the five-county Philadelphia region remained without electricity as of late yesterday afternoon after Saturday's windstorm, according to Peco spokeswoman Cathy Engel. Peco expected service to be fully restored by early evening. At the storm's peak, Engel said, 28,000 of Peco's 1.6 million electricity customers in Philadelphia and Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties were without power. Peco said the outages were caused by high winds that knocked down power lines.

In recent years, a series of technological breakthroughs . . . has begun to coalesce around a new model for an energy system that would better serve the needs of the near future, while enabling power producers as well as consumers to lessen their impact on the environment in the long term. . . . The smarter energy network of the future . . . will incorporate a diversified pool of resources located closer to the consumer, pumping out low- or zero-emission power in backyards, driveways, downscaled local power stations, and even in automobiles, while giving electricity users the option to become energy vendors.

John A. Wojciechowicz, 89, formerly of Huntingdon Valley, a retired electric-company employee who was active in Polish American affairs, died Friday of a pneumonia at his home in Miami Springs, Fla. Mr. Wojciechowicz worked in the engineering and research departments at the Philadelphia Electric Company for 46 years before he retired in 1971. He moved to Florida in 1984. He was a graduate of St. Joseph's Prep and Drexel University, where he received a degree in engineering.

The Newtown Township supervisors Monday night postponed a decision on a request by the Philadelphia Electric Co. (PECO) to have a portion of its land on Route 332 used for a motel and restaurant. PECO made the request along with an offer to donate land adjacent to its office complex for a portion of the Newtown Bypass to be constructed later this year. The board postponed a decision on the matter until PECO conducts a study determining the feasibility of its proposed use of the land.

About 300,000 Peco Energy customers received a reply envelope with their latest bill that will not get their payment in on time. The address window in the envelope is in the wrong place, so the address will not show, Peco spokesman Ted Caddell said yesterday. Using an automated telephone-calling system, the utility is asking the affected customers to write the address - which is on the front and back of the bill - on their own envelope to send in their payment. "This is a one-time thing," Caddell said.

The West Goshen Planning Commission has reviewed sketch plans for a Philadelphia Electric Co. district service building on Bolmar Street, west of Eachus Mill Road. The company plans to relocate its district service office from Minor and Matlack Avenues, West Chester. The facility serves the southeast corner of the county. Robert Horne, PECO division manager, said at a Planning Commission meeting Tuesday night that the relocation would keep the facility near the borough, but would provide access to the West Chester bypass for servicing of other areas of the county.

The Upper Southampton Board of Supervisors will ask Philadelphia Electric Co. (PECO) to set a price for the township to purchase the approximately 900 street lights in the municipality. After hearing a presentation by Ronald Schwebel, president of Suburban Technical Associates, the board voted 4-0 Monday night to ask PECO for a price. Charles Martin, president of the supervisors, abstained from voting because he is a PECO employee. Under the proposal discussed by Schwebel, the township would save $302,010 over the next 10 years by buying the system and assuming responsibility for its maintenance.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a motion to assess a $75,000 civil penalty against Peco Energy Co. for failing to follow procedures related to a 2009 gas leak and explosion at a house in Upper Merion Township, Montgomery County. The proposed penalty, which is open for public comment for 20 days, is more than double the $35,000 civil settlement that Peco and the PUC's staff had agreed to. Commissioner Wayne E. Gardner proposed the stiffer penalty because he said Peco had failed to remediate a corrosion issue though it was aware of leaks in the area.

Peco Energy Co. announced Thursday it would prune the trees along 300 miles of aerial electric lines in Philadelphia and Delaware Counties to improve electric service reliability for about 80,000 customers. The work, which will cost $1.4 million, will continue through early September. Pruning will be performed in the Philadelphia neighborhoods of Bartram Village, Cedar Park, Eastwick, Elmwood Park, Girard Estates, Kingsessing, Packer Park, Paschall, Passyunk Square, Pennsport, Southwest Schuylkill, Spruce Hill, Tasker and Whitman.

THE URBAN League of Philadelphia is holding its Empowerment Week Jobs Summit Tuesday at the Bossone Research Enterprise Center, Drexel University, 32nd and Market streets. Fourteen employers, including Aramark, Wal-Mart, Comcast, Enterprise Holdings and Peco, will be showcasing their companies and looking for new employees. Attendees will be invited to an introductory session about the Comcast-sponsored "Connect to Work" training program, a six-week course designed to train people to work in customer service.

The outcry over the state's new voter-ID bill is not limited to the big cities. It has been dominating the public comment at Bucks County Board of Commissioners meetings, and it escalated last week when Det Ansinn, the Borough Council president in Doylestown, told of taking his wife's 91-year-old grandmother to a PennDot office, looking for a photo ID so she could keep her 70-year voting record intact. Joyce Block of Doylestown Township is such a dedicated voter that Ansinn took her from the hospital in a wheelchair to vote in 2010 because she couldn't get an absentee ballot.

Last month Peco Energy Co. began installing the first of 1.6 million new-generation electric meters, part of a transformation that it hopes will revolutionize the way that customers communicate with the utility. The new meters, which Pennsylvania is requiring for all large electric utilities, allow for two-way wireless communication with customers, setting the stage for time-of-use pricing next year. They also will improve utilities' ability to detect and manage outages, as well as to turn on or shut off customers remotely.

Phony utility workers steal from S. Philly homes * 15th Street near Moore, and Ritner Street near 3rd A group of people posing as Peco maintenance workers visited two houses last week saying that they needed to check for faulty electrical outlets. Police said $1,000 in cash, jewelry and personal checks were reported stolen after the crooks left on Thursday and Saturday. A man cased a house on 15th Street on Thursday, and two days later a different man visited, saying he was there to work on the faulty outlets that his co-worker found.

CASINOS RETURN TO 'PARADISE' His sonic style conformed to neither of the prevailing rock modes of the day - punk and New Wave - but Eddie Money, who headlines tomorrow at House of Blues inside Showboat Atlantic City, still managed to make a good deal of noise in the late 1970s and early '80s. The one-time cop born Eddie Mahoney blew up thanks to snappy, hook-laden tunes like his breakthrough single, "Two Tickets to Paradise," and "Baby Hold On. " More than 30 years later, he is still a regular, and reliable, live attraction.

Peco Energy Co.'s 160,000 electric heating customers, who are losing their cherished discounted rate at the end of this year, may be facing cheaper alternatives sooner than expected. A retail supplier affiliated with a western New York utility is the first company to offer a competitive rate aimed at customers now enrolled as residential heating - or RH - customers. Energetix Inc., a retail electric supplier, is ramping up an aggressive marketing effort to capture Peco customers by offering a discounted fixed rate for non-heating residential customers of 8.198 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh)

An SUV slammed into a utility pole on Lancaster Avenue at 61st Street in West Philadelphia this morning, injuring the driver and closing the roadway for hours. The impact of the 5:30 a.m. crash snapped the utility pole and left power lines and transformers dangling dangerously over the roadway. Police closed Lancaster Avenue in the area after the crash and PECO crews were summoned to repair the damage. The driver had to be extricated from the car by firefighters and was taken to a hospital.