it being that the Vermont Electric Division was making decisions that not only violated corporate policies but also rules, regulations and the laws of the State of Vermont.  One of the significant results of these violations, aside from the fact that they were violations in and of themselves, was that the electric rates of the Vermont Electric Division were inflated; both to its ratepayers and to the other electric utilities who utilized its transmission lines to wheel power across the State.  After becoming aware of these problems, I decided to make an effort to correct the situation and wrote a letter bringing some of these issues to the attention of senior corporate level management located in Stamford, Connecticut.  My concern, of course, was that I would be targeted for doing so and I was not to be disappointed.

After an “internal investigation” that did little to address the problems; I was offered a contract; that is , a contract in which I would receive a monetary severance package in exchange for resigning.  This contract also contained language that could be construed as an agreement on my part to remain silent.  Although given a week to consider the contract, there was really no decision to be made.  I said no and, upon my refusal, was terminated.  What Citizens Utilities Company did not anticipate was God’s intervention.

Within days of my termination, God gave me a vision in the night; a dream.  In this dream I had in my hands the end of a large thick rope as thick as my arm which ran down into a dark pit and was a tangled mess.  In the dream, I determined that I was going to pull the rope from the pit and straighten it out.  As I observed myself in the dream, I saw that upon giving the rope a mighty pull I succeeded in pulling the rope out of the pit and simultaneously straightening it out.  After doing so, I saw myself holding the end of the rope, the end of which had become unbraided such that there were three braids in my hand.  A pair of scissors appeared in the air that I then took and with the scissors cut off the three braids.  At that point, it was in my mind to bind the end of the rope and coil it back up so it was in good operating condition however before I could do that, the dream ended.

I understood that the rope was the Vermont Electric Division of Citizens Utilities Company, the tangled mess in the pit were its practices with respect to the rules, regulations, and the laws that were being violated, and the three braids that I cut off were the three individuals responsible for the mess.  I understood that I would succeed in my effort to straighten out the mess and that those three individuals would be cut off.  With that in mind, I determined to bring the matters to the attention of the Vermont Public Service Board of the State of Vermont which regulated the electric utilities in the State.  I knew that I would need the office files I had maintained while working with the Vermont Electric Division of Citizens Utilities Company to support my effort and arranged for a fellow employee, a close working associated of mine, to surreptitiously deliver the files to me.

Using those files I generated a dossier of the evidence that would reflect and support the information I intended to submit to the Vermont Public Service board.  On completing this dossier, I approached a Vermont House of Representatives legislator, Representative Nancy Sheltra, who represented that part of the State of Vermont in which many of the Vermont Electric Division ratepayers resided.  After making her aware of the circumstances, I gave her a copy of the supporting information for her to review.  Upon reviewing the information, Representative  Sheltra decided the concerns I had together with the information presented in the dossier warranted an investigation.  Representative Sheltra decided to accompany me to the offices of both the Vermont Public Service Board and the Vermont Department of Public Service for purposes of filing the dossier with both.  For clarification, the Vermont Public Service Board fulfilled the role of judge and jury in such investigations and the Vermont Department of Public Service fulfilled the role of investigating and prosecuting such investigations before the Vermont Public Service Board.

Upon reviewing the dossier, the State of Vermont, under the auspices of the Vermont Public Service Board and the Vermont Department of Public Service, opened an investigation.  The legal case took a little over five years to resolve with many long hours of depositions, testimony and cross examination of myself and others by attorneys representing the State as well as attorneys representing Citizens Utilities Company and other affected utilities.  To make a long story short, the Vermont Public Service board found that the Vermont Electric Division of Citizens Utilities Company had violated the rules, regulations, and laws of the State of Vermont.

Concurrently, the Vermont Public Service Board required the Citizens Utilities Company, using an independent and outside auditor approved by the Vermont Public Service Board to perform a physical audit of its poles, wires, and other facilities in order to correct its books upon which its electrical rates are based.  This required another two years to conclude and upon concluding this audit, the Vermont Public Service Board ordered Citizens Utilities Company to provide every ratepayer within its service territory with three months of power and energy at no charge in order to repay those ratepayers for the overcharges they had endured prior to my bringing the issues to the State’s attention.  In addition, the Vermont Public Service Board required the Citizens Utilities Company to lower the rates of the Vermont Electric Division’s ratepayers by approximately 15%.  Moreover, the case had carried over to the Federal Energy Regulatory Corporation as a case against Citizens Utilities Company due to the excessive wheeling charges I concurrently brought to the State’s (and to the attention of the other electric utilities in the State).  That case resulted in Citizens Utilities Company being required to refund millions of dollars to the various other electrical utilities in the State of Vermont for the overcharges assessed to those other utilities for the use of its transmission lines.

With respect to those three braids of rope reflected in the dream that I cut off, the Corporate Senior Vice-President of the Electrical and Gas Utilities owned by Citizens Utilities Company, the local Vermont Division Manager, and the local Vermont Division head accountant were terminated.  The total cost to the Citizens Utilities Company resulting from the filing I had submitted to the Vermont Public Service Board was, I was told, on the order of seventy nine million dollars.  All told, this investigation and the resulting audit occurred over a period of seven years, 1995 to 2002.  Not long after this, the Citizens Utilities Company sold its Vermont Electric Division and left the State of Vermont.

Well, winning such a battle doesn’t end with simply prevailing in the legal case.  There was another aspect of this battle; that is, dealing with the personal consequences to myself and to my family of losing my job and choosing to stay around and correct the situation.  My termination ultimately led to a personal bankruptcy due to a loss of earnings during the prosecution of the case and this loss of earnings and the resulting bankruptcy made life very difficult for my family and I.  Added to the stress of these difficulties was an expectation I had that God would also restore me to my position with the Vermont Electric Division of the Citizens Utilities Company and restore to my family and I the financial losses we had incurred; something that was not in the dream and was an error on my part.  The accompanying depression as I realized my error was most difficult.

There is more to be said about the period of time, between 1995 and the year 2002; a period in which God intervened in ways to encourage us and to help us.  Those stories follow in the subsequent webpages.