Queens Tribune
 
....July 20, 2:53 PM
 
Carrying Flashlights Of Hope

By J. David Goodman

A year after the blackout that roiled Western Queens and left residents with a seething resentment towards Con Edison, community members protested the utility in a flashlight march though Sunnyside and Woodside Tuesday evening. The event attracted local politicians and around 100 protestors.

“They’ve ignored us, they’ve refused to admit that they made mistakes, and there’s no guarantee that it won’t happen again,” said Assemblyman Mike Gianaris (D-Astoria).

The outage, which Con Edison had initially downplayed to local leaders, was especially harmful to elderly residents, many of whom were trapped in stifling apartments when the elevators stopped working.

“It was very dangerous,” Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) said.

“The people who really suffered are the people who aren’t here, the people who can’t march,” said Alice Boso, a Sunnyside resident.

Western Queens Power for the People, a group of local residents and volunteers that was formed in the weeks after the 2006 outage to protest Con Edison’s response, organized Tuesday’s event. They continue to demand that the utility pay for damages and losses that resulted from the blackout. They also oppose a proposed 17 percent rate hike, which they see as rewarding bad behavior.

At a rally in Thomas P. Noonan playground on Greenpoint Avenue before the march, organizers passed out small keychain flashlights and a petition. A handful brought flashlights, which glowed dimly in the hazy evening light.

“I came out for the community,” said Patrick Barnhart, 41, a Sunnyside attorney whose 7-year-old Weimaraner, Mercury, wore two green stickers loosely on his back. “A lot of the residents were deeply affected.”

“People lost work that day,” Madelene Deleon told the crowd through a megaphone. “And when you saw your bill, you were charged!”

“Why aren’t they capable of keeping the electricity on?” Deleon asked, standing on top of a park bench and holding her 2-year old Milla, who wore only a diaper. “Why are we made to lower our air-conditioning?”

The march, which weaved its way to Skillman Avenue and over to Woodside, attracted a sympathetic response from the surrounding community.

“There’s a million things you don’t think of when the lights go out,” Alison Gibney, 28, said as she watched the march from outside of The Brogue pub, where she is a bartender. “My boyfriend is a Type 1 diabetic and we had to go into Manhattan to chill his insulin.”
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