Frustration with National Grid and Talking Small Businesses

According to a , 73 percent of you feel that as paying customers, National Grid should not have taken so long to restore power. However, 23 percent of people who voted in the poll said that the company was doing the best they could given their resources. , "National Grid was forced to lay off some 1,200 workers earlier this year..."

Northborough Patch blogger supports the majority of the voters in his comment and offers his own explanation, "The service provided by this company has been ghastly. It is what happens under deregulation when foreign investors move in and are both clueless about local customer service and such things as preventive maintenance. Prior to National Grid it was common to have trees on our street trimmed and lines to the street checked. Now we get rotten information, a lot of marketing blather about how hard they are working to fix things with out-of-state workers (having laid off over a thousand employees He recently) and hokum about how bad mother nature is..."

He continued, "It's time for our legislature to get in a fix. What with climate change we're going to have more bad weather and we should not have to risk chimney fires, stoking up ancient camping equipment and losing work (if we are telecommuters) when this is human and managerial failure unthinkable ten years ago."

Other readers agree with Goodenow on preventing the problem by keeping an eye on the trees.

C. Faulkner said, "Unacceptable response. Obviously 2,500 people were not enough. Looks like they needed 10,000 people....They simply are not doing the necessary tree trimming to save money and [are] put[ting] more money in their exec[utives]'s pockets."

Kristen Pemberton said, "In the six years I've lived in the Northgate area, I haven't seen any trimming back of trees hanging over the wires. I think we would have had less outages."

is coming up fast. Nov. 26 is the day chosen by the team of the Better Business Bureau and American Express OPEN to encourage people to shop at local, small businesses. Northborough Patch asked our readers to share which Northborough businesses they had planned to shop at on Small Business Saturday. Reader Andi Daunais and Patch contributor both said , and among others. Leslee Robinson mentioned , and as a few of her choices.

Ben Rutan of Northborough is one of three students accepted into the Assabet Valley Mastersingers Apprentice Singers Program. Also chosen were Emily Spiewak and Stephen Tzianabos, both of Southborough. The program gives students the opportunity to sing with professional soloists and accompaniment. They were chosen based on an audition with Assabet Valley Mastersingers Artistic Director, Robert P. Eaton and upon the recommendation of their high school choral director.

The clue is a . Five commenters have guessed unanimously on the Pickle Haus as this week's answer to "Guess the Restaurant." On Friday, Northborough Patch will reveal the answer. All of the people with correct guesses will have their names put into a hat and one winner is picked. That person gets a cool, Patch water bottle.