An Increase In Outages Due to Poor Management

• Several residents in Southampton have medical issues and these residents require electricity to run medical equipment.
  
• Several residents in Southampton rely on landline telephone service due to limited cellular phone signal strength. Some residents also rely on landline phones because they are unable to use or afford a cellular device. 
• Many residents in Southampton are on fixed incomes and can't afford an increased chance of having to use their generators. Some residents can't even afford to buy a generator.

Southampton is the only municipality with three electric companies. Southampton is also at the end of the grids and has fewer customers compared to other towns. Southampton receives lower priority during restoration due to this setup. Although Southampton's Shade Tree Commission couldn’t change the restoration priority procedures, their hazard tree mitigation efforts (discussed under the facts and achievements tab) have reduced outages.

An advisory board will lead to inadequate tree-care by basically eliminating the opportunity for mitigation and this will lead to increased power and phone outages. The Township Committee simply does not have the time to identify tree and powerline or phon line conflicts. Nor does the Township Committee have the time to meet with each utility company to collaborate  and make decisions on how to address the conflicts. This will result in limited vigilance on the ground for tree and utility wire conflicts and trees will have a higher likelihood of failing.