Residents tell PUC proposed HECO increase would worsen hardship after outages

Multiple public testifiers told the commission that modest monthly increases would be unaffordable for seniors, working families and disaster survivors. Santo DiMartino, an 80-year-old retired resident, said, "As an 80 year old retired Hawaii resident living on a fixed income, I'm asking the commission to recognize the real and immediate impact these proposed electric rate increases would have on people like me," and asked the PUC to scrutinize every dollar of the request.

Other speakers described recent long outages and wildfire impacts. Anna, an organizer with Hawaii with Alihi, said her household was out of power for eight days and asked the commission to explain what prior grid-resilience spending achieved. Stacy Alapai, a Maui resident, cited a reported shareholder settlement and criticized stock sales and corporate decisions: "I'm freaking sick of it. We are essentially being asked to pay more for less." Testimony repeatedly called for accountability and tied affordability concerns to emergency preparedness and maintenance.