“32 out of the 64 lights in the council chambers have been turned off because they are trying to save money, exactly what the people are trying to do. If they keep raising the rates then we will have to keep turning out the lights and next time we will have this council meeting by candle light,” said McCall.

McCall is one of about 200 people who attended a public hearing Thursday night at the city hall building in High Point. Dozens of people stood before the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission to vocalize their opposition to the rate increase.

“I came here to beg the utilities commission to stop a corporate wolf from fleecing us, the middle class of America, so they can get even richer. Duke Energy made 1.3 billion dollars in profit last year, that’s a 23 percent increase in 2010. They are not struggling to make ends meet the way North Carolinians are. North Carolinians are struggling and making terrible choices between whether they should pay for medicine or the power bill,” said Donna Lisenbee, who lives in Vilas, N.C.

Duke said it needs most of the increase to recover from $4.8 billion dollars it spent on upgrades at its plants to meet federal environmental regulations. Residential Customers would pay around 17 percent. That translates into an increase of about a $20 per month for utilities. Commercial users would pay around 15 percent and industrial customers would pay 14 percent. 

“We own a horse farm and we are trying to keep the cost down so the kids can ride and when you have to have the lights for the barn, electric fencing, air conditioners and we run a camp for kids, a reasonable rate increase is one thing but a big  jump is another,” said Mimi Smith of Colfax.

Jimmy Flythe, Duke Energy’s Director for Government and Community Relations for the East region said the company needs to make the changes to stay competitive.

“We don’t doubt, we know that the public will have a tough time paying increases. Of any kind with the way the economy is but it is reflective of the cost in the investment that we have made in the system on behalf of our customers that will help us maintain reliability and our focus at Duke Energy is to provide reliable, clean and affordable energy and so we are having to balance all of those. Yes we are having an increase but our rates right now are well below the national average and in some places in the United States our rates are well below the national average and in some places in the United States rates are double what they are in North Carolina,”  said Flythe.

During the hearing, members of the state Utilities Commission didn’t take residents questions and warned a few people in the crowd not to clap or respond to a speaker’s testimony.

Chris Reardon is a High Point grandmother. She wanted to make sure the commissioners knew how she felt. During most of the meeting she held a poster board size sign that says “Grandma says Shame on You”.

“We are retired and living on Social Security and an electric rate increase of the magnitude of Duke Energy’s proposed rate increase is outrageous,” said Reardon.

Jonathan David Woodfield, a Winston-Salem State University student said the rate increase would also impact many young people like him.

“I live with my family so they have to pay the power bill and it will increase for them and I have friends that are students that are barely scraping by you know staying in apartments near colleges and the rates are going to increase for them stuff is already bad enough. They have student loans and all this other stuff going on and its nuts and ridiculous so we are sticking up for everybody,” said Woodfield.

Woodfield is helping organize Occupy WSSU and hopes to get other colleges involved in the issue.

Many people at the hearing said they hope the North Carolina Utilities Commission will at least consider drastically reducing the rate hike, if one is approved.