Advocacy Group and Customers Demand Citizen Oversight of Cleveland Public Power Following July Blackouts

When Jonathan Welle’s power went out on July 1, a flurry of worries came to mind: his house, the groceries in his fridge, and, most direly, what exactly to do with his three-week-old child as temps climbed.

“It was a scary moment when it got to be 81 degrees,” Welle recalled. “What were we to do? Dunk him in ice? Our doctor always tells us that heat kills more babies than cold.”

Welle and his family went to stay at his parents’ in Mayfield. But the widespread power outages throughout the July 4th weekend left an impression on Welle, an activist: Clevelanders paying for electricity should be more in the know when their power cuts out.

The holiday weekend outage, which left thousands in the dark due to overstressed underground cables, has put Cleveland Public Power customers further at loggerheads with the public utility they feel should be more transparent.

On Tuesday evening, two dozen of them gathered in a meeting room at the Lorain Ave. branch of the Cleveland Public Library. The meeting was an extension of activist group OurCPP’s mission: create a CPP citizens watchdog group while City Hall works on a master plan to overhaul the utility’s outdated system.

CPP Commissioner Ammon Danielson said at a town hall in Ohio City last Tuesday, Signal reported, that the utility would need at least $250 million to upgrade the electric system for the 21st century.

But West Side residents at the Tuesday meeting seemed more in need of a venue to vent. Eight out of ten of them raised their hands when Welle asked if they had lost power over the holiday weekend; four lost food; one woman had dealt with a dangerous health situation.

And all seemed to want a lot more information than CPP was conveying via their outage map and their press releases.

Jeremiah Escajada, an ER doctor living near West 33rd and Chatham, said he was without power for four days.

“What communication? It was abysmal. Horrible,” he told Scene.

Divya Sridhar, a resident of Gordan Square, suggested a citizen-led advisory group could help CPP be more proactive in its rapport with its 74,000 customers. Credit: Mark Oprea

“I mean, if you don’t have the capability of understanding what’s out—especially if you don’t have internet—there’s a big problem there,” Escajada added. “If you can’t even identify where the outage is? And communicating that to the affected customers without themselves reporting it? That’s just frustrating.”

Welle attempted to channel guests’ irritations into what OurCPP’s been at work on for the past couple of years. In 2025, the group published a “blueprint” for how CPP should revise its policies to better thrive as a public utility. Not one, like FirstEnergy, beholden to investors.

Along with renegotiating a purchase agreement with American Municipal Power, or re-evaluating rates they’re charging their 74,000 customers, OurCPP’s blueprint urged the utility be “more responsive” through the creation of a resident advisory board. Or, as Welle called it on Tuesday, a consumer representative committee.

CPP “is not sufficiently transparent with ratepayers,” that blueprint reads. “Information about outages, system performance, and planned maintenance and upgrades is not easily available or reliable.”

Cities like Austin, Sacramento and Eugene, Oregon have citizen-involved groups that act as liaisons between public utilities and those buying power from those utilities. A similar one in Cleveland could put pressure on CPP to, with City Council approval, shift its rates, or find funding for that gargantuan overhaul.

When presented the idea, City Council’s Utilities Committee chief Brian Kazy, who once proposed American Rescue Plan Act dollars to fund CPP’s overhaul, wasn’t as enthused.

“People want to form committees and tell people what to do,” he said in a phone call. “I mean, I want to be six-foot-nine and play in the NBA. But come on.”

“No one should be out representing CPP without the inner working knowledge of what’s actually happening there,” he said.

On July 10, CPP released an explanation of the holiday outages, tying them to overheated feeder cables serving its Western Substation. Along with those cables, CPP said, 53 downed wires were eventually fixed, ten transformers were repaired and five utility poles were righted.

“CPP remains committed to improving communication during outage events while continuing to invest in the reliability of the electric system,” they said.

A little too late of a notice, in the minds of those present on Tuesday.

Survey data gathered throughout the summer, Welle said, will be presented to Kazy and Council’s Utilities Committee in August or September.

“I think our aim is to be strategic about how we align with them,” Divya Sridhar, a resident of Gordan Square, told the room. “And make sure that they’re hearing us this time.”

“And also telling CPP, we are on your side,” she said, “and we want to see you succeed.”

In a statement to Scene, a city spokesperson said outage data from the July blackouts is still under review.

As for lost groceries?

“We know many customers experienced real hardship as a result of these outages,” they said.

“Under these circumstances,” they said, “the city is not able to reimburse customers for spoiled food or other outage-related losses. We are, however, happy to provide outage verification letters to support insurance, replacement benefits, or other claims.”