CL&P's Jeff Butler resigns

Connecticut Light & Power's president and CEO, Jeff Butler is resigning, Northeast Utilities has confirmed.

Northeast Utilities' Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Charles W. Shivery, said Thursday the utility company has accepted Butler's resignation, effective immediately.

Butler came under fire from his handling of the massive power outages during a freak October snow storm that left more than 800,000 CL&P customers without power, some for as long as 12 days.

Noreen Cameron of West Hartford said one of the worst mistakes CL&P made was saying 99 percent of their customers would have their power back on the Sunday following the storm. It was a promise that was not kept.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's Senior Advisor, Roy Occhiogrosso, released the following statement regarding Jeff Butler's resignation from CL&P.

"Gov. Malloy made clear that he thought Northeast Utilities needed to address CL&P's management issues, and it's clear that process has begun. It's also likely that there will be other changes on other fronts as a result of CL&P's performance in the lead-up to and aftermath of the storm," the statement said.

He's a scapegoat for Malloy..obviously...problem is, people have become conditioned to expect the instant fix, the next day remedy..they don't understand the scope of the damage that was done.

He did make a BIG mistake promising that most would get restored the next day, but if he had come out and said that if will take a week or more, to repair the infrastructure..he'd have been run out of town..

I see you’ve already pointed out Malloy’s typical Demorat habit of doing nothing and then throwing somebody else under the bus, so I won’t repeat it.

And a lot of the blame goes to the towns and the homeowners, who refuse to let CL&P trim the trees along the roads where the wires run.

Then when the storm hits, everyone blames somebody else.

Typical whiny lib Northeasterner. "We should get special treatment, because it costs so much to live here!"

There was absolutely NOTHING the electric companies could do but just go systematically through the communities, getting the power restored. Because the legislatures of the Northeastern states control how much the power companies can charge, the companies have to make sure they don't have too many employees on staff. I don't know about CP&L, but National Grid had just had a large round of lay-offs in the summer. Our neighbor was concerned he'd lose his job. He didn't but many did, and because of that, there were fewer linemen on hand to do the work that needed to be done, so the job took longer than it might have otherwise. Of course the heads of the power companies cannot SAY that out loud, because the public would have their heads, but that's the TRUTH of the matter.

Yes, we pay more for power than some areas of the country, but the companies cannot control the weather, and how it affects the trees that hang over the power lines. Oh, and some of the communities doing the most complaining also have ordinances that don't allow the power companies to cut away limbs that threaten the power lines, because it would make the trees 'look ugly'. And other communities have 'tree wardens' that, by law, must be present when any tree limbs are removed. If there is ONE tree warden in the town, the power company had to wait for that person to get to each area where a limb was on a line. How do you think THAT affected the timing of the clean-up, and the restoration of power?

Northeast Utilities' Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Charles W. Shivery

I have to credit my town's first selectman, a Democrat, who broadcast a warning on day one that it might take a week or MORE to get power back.

It took SEVEN 7 days to get CL&P electricity running again. I was glad there was a wood stove, firewood and a generator at my home, waiting to be called into service eventually. It was a great practice run.

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