The monopoly we have given foreign corporations over our electrical grid has become a stranglehold on Maine people. This shall not prevail.

In any other industry, if you receive bad service, you can take your money elsewhere. With electricity, we are left without options, allowing the corporate utilities to ignore the people and focus on lining their pockets at our expense. No wonder we have some of the highest bills, worst service, and most frequent outages in the country. This is not a democracy until this stops.

To make matters worse, these corporate utilities have long stood in the way of long-needed changes necessary to combat climate change. Their continued ownership of the grid not only gives us the worst utilities in the nation, but also blocks progress to save the lives of our children and grandchildren.

The solution to these major problems is clear: Put an end to foreign monopoly ownership of the grid. Foreign governments and corporations should never own Maine’s critical infrastructure. Instead, we need a non-profit utility that is run by Maine people, and that keeps money in the pockets of Mainers instead of milking us for all we are worth.

Joan Frisina-Bowles

Benton