State Senate approves legislation to avoid electricity shut-offs in response to Marvin Schur's death

[The Straight Story]

State Senate approves legislation to avoid electricity shut-offs in response to Marvin Schur's death


The State Senate has begun looking closer at several bills brought forth earlier this year in response to the freezing death of a Bay City man inside his home.

Today, the senate passed legislation that will help low-income customers avoid having their power shut off.

The bill, which amends the Michigan low income heating assistance and shut-off protection act, calls for a state-run electronic payment process to help low-income customers pay their bills prior to shutoff.

A group of several other bills that would ban shut-off to senior citizens during winter months and stop the use of electric limiters still are being discussed in the Senate.

The bills are in response to the January death of Marvin Schur. The 93-year-old veteran was found frozen in his home on Jan. 17, four days after the city placed an electric limiter on his home for non-payment of his bill. His furnace had stopped working and Schur was using a space heater and other utilities to heat his home.

His electricity was turned off when he reached the maximum power allowed by the limiter.

http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2009/10/state_senate_approves_legislat.html

[Berry Cool]

1. Thank goodness. This poor man wasn't even lacking in money to pay his electric bill.

He just lost track of making the payments, and didn't understand when he got shutoff notices or know that a limiter had been put on his house. He was also unfortunately without family to look in on or contact him to make sure he was all right, and caring neighbors who might have noticed something was wrong.

If only because elderly people can lose track of taking care of normal bill-paying tasks if they have some sort of dementia issue, this should be law everywhere.

[The Straight Story]

2. Indeed - sometimes our elderly can be like children in their capacity to understand

or function. We need to protect them (and all of us really).