Bad tow trucks in trouble

The big news is our Duke Energy case.

In short:

Duke asked to raise your bill by 18%.

We pushed back.

Then they asked to raise it by 11%.

We pushed back.

Now they’re asking to raise it by 9.5%.

Still too high. We’re not agreeing to that, and we’re pushing the Utilities Commission - who makes the ultimate decision - for a lower rate.

Why?

Because we ran our own independent analysis of what Duke actually needs to meet growing demand, and we think they overshot. And since you’d be the ones paying the difference, that’s a major problem.

There’s a second part to this case, and it’s about data centers.

Basically:

When a data center (or another large energy user) shows up, it needs new transmission lines and new generation to serve it. That costs a lot, and right now you pay for it - the money comes out of one big pot.

We’re trying to keep those costs from shifting to you, and the good news - maybe - is that Duke has told us they’re open to putting those protections in place. The bad news is there’s a lot of disagreement on the details, and on something like this the details are everything.

So we’re still working on that.

I’ve got two more Duke Energy cases going on, but I’ll save those updates for next time.

Sometimes I have to work on something for a while before I can tell you about it. This case was one of those. Here’s the story.

“A1 Towing” operates in Charlotte.

Our evidence showed:

• They towed vehicles they had no authorization to tow.

• They charged more than $4,000 to give a vehicle back.

• They put a second boot on vehicles that were already booted, so they could collect the release fee twice.

• And they were racially targeting the people they towed.

I’m not putting up with any of that, and now we’ve got a court order against them.

There are about a dozen things they now have to do differently, and all of them are mandatory.

But the main one is money. They have to pay back tens of thousands of dollars to the people they mistreated.

And if they don’t pay, they’ll owe an additional $100,000. We added that part to motivate them.

My thanks to our civil rights unit for handling this case. Good outcome for victims, and good message to send to predatory towing companies across the state.

People are always surprised by this, but it’s true.

As things stand, millions of North Carolinians aren’t going to hear from me again until the next election.

Why?

Because newspapers and local TV just don’t reach as many folks as they used to.

That’s not ideal. I’d love to share with them the fights we’re taking on, like this video on our Duke Energy work:

But we can’t run TV ads this early. Can’t afford it.

However, we can run a monthly digital message (on YouTube, Instagram, etc.) to roughly half a million people in NC.

That costs about $9,500.

So we started the Lighthouse Fund.

Once a month, we deliver a clear beacon to a large group of independent voters in the form of a targeted digital message. This is my way of tapping them on the shoulder and politely saying, “Hi - we’re working hard for you, check this out.”

It’s been a few months since I asked for your help with this, so I’m asking today.

The most effective way to support this is a small, monthly donation - but of course, we’d also appreciate a one-time contribution. You can do either one here (ActBlue) or here (non-ActBlue).

Thanks for standing with me.

Best,
Jeff

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P.S. - Every year, NCDOJ goes to a Durham Bulls game as a office event. Last week was the big night, but as soon as we arrived it started pouring rain and the game was canceled. But Owen and Avery still had fun!