WEST MILFORD The township council voted on Wednesday night to bill electricity provider Jersey Central Power and Light for a recent spate of blackouts in the area. The council requested Township Administrator Rich Kunze to investigate the number of times electricity supply was lost in the area. The cost to the town arises when police officers respond to traffic lights on Route 23 which are knocked out due to the power outages. Council member Joseph Elcavage led the call to seek recompense from Jersey Central saying “This problem is not just something that happened over the past few weeks. It has gone on for years, decades.” The issue was brought to the attention of the council by local resident Pat Restaino who pleaded with the council to take some action. Restaino argued that attempting to get in contact with someone from the utility was near impossible and that those served by the utility were left in the dark both literally and figuratively, never knowing when their supply would be restored. Restaino also talked about families in his area who had gone to great expense to try and overcome the problem on their own saying, “There are people who are buying generators for their home. One family recently spent $10,000 to purchase a generator because someone in the family has medical equipment which needs to run permanently. The blackouts have been cutting power to this equipment.” Councilmember Bill Gervens is also affected in his home by the electricity problem and was concerned about the supply even when it was operating. Gervens said, “It is not just blackouts we need to look in to. We also have to worry about brownouts. When the supply is running low it can seriously affect your appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines.” Brownouts are when there is a sag in the normal incoming voltage to a home. When a brownout occurs, the voltage will drop from its normal voltage level to a lower voltage and then returns back to normal causing potential harm to devices. Gervens argued that brownouts were probably more damaging than blackouts. The council initially hoped to encourage the power company to come to town hall and explain the reasons why so many outages had occurred recently. Councilmember Bob Nolan asked, “Is there not a danger that if we demand money from the company we will be less likely to get them to come here to the town, that we will build a wall between us?” “You catch more bees with honey than with vinegar,” said Councilman James Warden, also against the idea of billing the company for fear of creating a barrier to open discussion. Elcavage responded saying “I still say we should invoice them. If they agree to act to improve the service then maybe we can tell them we’ll drop our demands for compensation, but at least we’ll have that to bargain with.” The issue was put to a vote with a majority of 4-2 favoring the idea to bill Jersey Central in the hope that this action will provide a swift and decisive response from the company. An attempt was made to gain a response from Jersey Central but no one could comment in the short period of time between the council meeting and the deadline for publication. Jersey Central is based in Morristown, NJ and is a subsidiary of First Energy. The company provides electricity to only part of West Milford to areas such as Oak Ridge, part of the High Crest area other residences near Route 23. Rockland Electric provides the supply to much of the rest of the town.