Thank you, Dubya.


You will be missed.


As expected - no response from Lawrenceville officials

January 14th, 2010 FinanceBuzz Posted in City of Lawrenceville |

About a month ago, I posted an article about the poor customer service of the City of Lawrenceville in handling payments for its monopoly natural gas service.  I sent the following message along with a link to the article to Mayor Rex Millsaps, City Council members Marie Beiser, Bob Clark, Mike Crow, and P.K. Martin as well as then-incoming council member Katie Hart Smith.

Mayor Millsaps and members of the City Council,

I am writing to you to complain about the poor customer service in paying gas bills to the City of Lawrenceville.  While I do not live in Lawrenceville and am not a voter, I would hope you would still reconsider your business practices and make your bill payment system more customer friendly.  I have posted my serviceexperience with the City to my website, The Gwinnett Buzz.
I am not shocked to say that I did not even get the courtesy of a response from either the mayor or any member of the City Council.  Apparently, my observations in the article were quite prescient:
…the City of Lawrenceville has a monopoly. I have no recourse whatsoever. I cannot vote with my feet and move to another gas provider. Not being a Lawrenceville resident, I do not have the ability to express my displeasure at the ballot box. While I am sending a copy of this article to Lawrenceville Mayor Rex Millsaps and the members of the Lawrenceville City Council, what incentive do they have to serve a non-voter who will continue to be a customer regardless of what they do?
The answer to my question is apparently obvious: they have no incentive to serve anyone from whom they cannot receive a vote and from whom they have no risk of losing their revenue stream.  I would suggest that government service monopolies outside jurisdictional boundaries is a matter that our legislative delegation should consider.  However, the lone voice of a single blogger is not going to spur any action.  As such, I would encourage anyone who has to suffer a government monopoly but fails to have any ballot box recourse to speak out about this unfair structure.  Contact your state representatives and state senators.  The silence of Lawrenceville’s elected officials speaks volumes as to how much they care about their customers.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Related Posts

  • New survey question now up
  • First phase of Sugarloaf extension ahead of schedule
  • Check out Oyster Bay in Lawrenceville!
  • Police standoff at Lawrenceville house
  • School to be named for Bartow Jenkins




    • You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    4 Responses to “As expected - no response from Lawrenceville officials”

    1. dewood says:
      January 14th, 2010 at 8:40 am

      Additionally, I can’t even vote for the political “leaders” over the city owned monopoly. I live outside the city limits.

    2. lbeany45 says:
      February 24th, 2010 at 3:33 am

      I’m posting this message in outrage. I went down to the city gas dept today after having to leave work early without pay because of the hours of operation (8a.m. to 5p.m.). This will hurt my family in the long run because we are a one income house hold with 2 children. Upon the completion of the application for gas service I was told the owner which I am renting from had to pay their last bill before new service is established; all well and good. Then I was told even though my credit score was a 619 “not the best but definitely not worse” the same process Georgia power use three day to establish service and I paid $150.00 deposit , I was told I would have to pay the city of Lawrenceville a $750.00 deposit up front before service could be turned on. My wife then called and was told the same thing. She then called the public commission service and was told that city of Lawrenceville did not have to comply with the state regulation and that it’s pretty much a monopoly in the city of Lawrenceville in regards to gas service. My wife (who suffers from asthma) has since started to contact new stations in regard to this issue. I believe a deposit should be made but a reasonable amount or some sort payment plan so that my family does not freeze why I try to come up with a week’s plus pay for the city of Lawrenceville deposit.

      I would appreciate a response to these issues and some type of guidance on how to resolve this matter.
      Thanks in advance lbeany45

    3. FinanceBuzz says:
      February 24th, 2010 at 10:14 am

      lbeany, I am sorry to hear of your situation. I do not know that there is really anything we can do. As you said, they have a monopoly and are not answerable to anyone except voters. If you are like me and live outside the city limits and cannot vote, they have zero accountability as I have zero recourse, save retrofitting my home to eliminate natural gas. The best thing to do is what you have done - publicize your situation and hope that we can shame the officials in Lawrenceville to address their lack of concern for their customers.

    4. dewood says:
      February 24th, 2010 at 10:47 am

      lbeany

      Call both your GA house and senator. I believe most are in their districts this week. Then call the Gwinnett Co. BOC.

      Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

      Don’t know how to get your reps, start here

      http://sos.georgia.gov/elections/polllocator/

    Leave a Reply

    You must be logged in to post a comment.

    « Gwinnett to become main mail processor for Atlanta?
    Update on the Gabe Lyons event at GACS »