This past week, Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Far Rockaway) responded to a call from a constituent in the Far Rockaway Jewish community which allowed Shavuos to be observed without a poorly-timed power interruption. An interruption, if it happened, would have disrupted ovens and other timer systems set up to control electrical appliances during the holiday.

"This was community leadership at its best," said Joseph Lazar, the neighborhood resident who first alerted Pheffer Amato's office to the issue. "I got a voicemail from PSE&G late the day before the possible power shutoff. I reached out to the Assemblywoman's staff, who immediately got in touch with PSE&G. The company rescheduled the shutoff until the day after Shavuos. It’s a huge relief for me and my family. I want to thank Stacey and the company for helping find a solution that worked for everybody, and I’m happy my neighbors weren’t disrupted while celebrating with their families."

PSE&G were dealing with regular removal of tree overgrowth, which, had it been complex enough, might have required a deliberate one-hour power outage for safety reasons. The company’s field staff were unaware that a power outage might have disrupted systems important to those observing Shavuos. After Lazar, like his neighbors, received an automated voicemail telling him to expect a possible outage the following day, he called Pheffer Amato’s office, which reached out to the electric utility and asked them to reschedule the work.

“We appreciate PSE&G for making this accommodation, and we are pleased to be entering into more sustained communication so they can reschedule outages that might impose on families because of religious observances,” said Pheffer Amato. “We hope we’ve established a precedent for understanding what the community’s needs are before a shutoff with flexible scheduling. We’ll follow up to make sure that line of communication stays open, and we thank Mr. Lazar so much for reaching out.”