The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Rev. Annie Chambers: Last week I went into a home and a lady had an infant that we had to get out of her house because her utilities was cut off and she had no way to keep that baby warm. Along with four other children.

Mark Conway: We had folks who were deciding between their rent and their energy bill. We had folks who were deciding between their medication and their energy bill. We had a senior roll her oxygen tank up and tell us that she was unable to refill her oxygen tank because of her energy bill.

Bobby LaPin: Last night, more than 250,000 Maryland children went to bed freezing and this morning they woke up freezing. But BG&E, but BG&E, they made $2.4 billion last year.

Taylor Smith-Hams: We need to hold BGE accountable for raising rates on working families, for shutting off people’s power, for forcing households into utility debt, and for investing our money in more gas infrastructure in the middle of a climate crisis.

Angela Clark: We just had a rally out here today to call out BGE for their exploitative monopoly and to call for public power. We want a publicly owned utility so that the people have a choice in where their power comes from and can actually afford to live and have energy, which is a basic human right at this point.

Taylor Smith-Hams: We were calling out BGE for their corporate profiteering off of our communities. And to really say that energy is a human right and that it should be publicly owned, not something that is sold by a monopoly corporation for profit, which is what BG&E does.

Rev. Annie Chambers: When people say that it’s a commodity, no, it’s not. If you don’t have utilities, you can’t exist. You don’t have density electric in this city, in this country, just about let’s live up in the mountains somewhere. You can’t exist. It’s a necessity. It’s a need. Yes. And we should fight that the people own it. But it allows to the people, not you. Nobody can make money. I mean, they make money even off the water we drink. After while they want the air that you breathe. I know you ain’t going to say that. I’m going to say it. I’m a minister. But sometimes you got to stand up and pay back.

Angela Clark: The public power campaign is extremely important because BGE, as a monopoly, not having any choice in where our power comes from, it allows them to exploit working families. If you can’t pay your utility bill, they can charge you as much as you want. And if you can’t pay your utility bill, you get your power shut off. And if you get your power shut off in extreme weather conditions and extreme heat and colds, people are dying.

Mark Conway: We see prices rise year after year after year. We’ve seen delivery costs triple within the last 15, 10 years. We see the increasing demand in energy from data centers across the country, and especially here in this region. It’s becoming unsustainable for folks to pay their energy bill. And we want to make sure that we put forward solutions that actually solve that problem. We’re proposing a Baltimore Public Power Authority that would generate store and distribute energy here locally, and would make sure that we can keep prices affordable for folks no matter what.

Taylor Smith-Hams: Public power is about local control, making sure that the utility is publicly owned. It’s accountable to the community, not shareholders that live in other parts of the country who don’t care about Baltimore. It’s about making sure that rates are affordable, that people’s power is not shut off, that people can meet this basic need without having to pay extravagant amounts of their income and really make sure that everyone has access to this basic human right, which is electricity.

Rev. Annie Chambers: And I’m speaking, especially for tenants that live in public housing that cannot afford the BG&E bills that they’ve been getting, like thousands of dollars. I’m not talking five, six, 700 dollars, but then I got tenants that were two and three and $4,000 bills. Working class and the poor and the poorest of the poor. We do not have the money for the economical way they have brought up utility bills, gas and electric for people. They cannot afford it. The average working family chooses between feeding their children or paying their utility bills. We don’t have the money. Not just in public housing, but throughout this whole country. We got to say, this is the people’s property.

Mark Conway: And we know that BGE has weaponized its ability to shut off power against our residents. They’ve cut off power when folks didn’t want to put a regulator on their house. They’ve cut off power when folks weren’t able to pay the rising prices, and they’ll continue to do that because at the end of the day, they answer to the folks on Wall Street. And that’s why last year I returned every single dollar that I received from BGE. And I promise not to take any more money because my interest is on behalf of the people. And I’m calling on everyone in City Hall, everyone in Annapolis, and everyone beyond to stop taking money from BGE and from its parent companies and from any utility that is not working on behalf of the people. We don’t have to play this game. We don’t have to be victims to this system.
There’s another option. There’s a democratic option, an American option, and it’s called public power.

Taylor Smith-Hams: Winter Park, Florida made the switch to public power two decades ago, and has successfully lowered rates by 20% compared to Duke Energy. And they’ve increased reliability and resilience during storms. Public power is working for communities across the country. There’s over 2000 public utilities, and we want to see that in Baltimore. We need to be bold and we need to take control over our energy. This campaign for public power is very new and we are just getting started and we want it to be informed by everyone in the city who’s a BGE customer who knows that things can and need to change. So we’re going to be hosting listening sessions across the city in 2026, and we want to hear from you. We want to hear how you would run things differently if you were in charge of Baltimore’s electric grid, what changes you want to see. So we’re super excited to build this movement with you and to kick BGE out of Baltimore.

Crowd Chants: What do we want? Public power! What do we want? Public power! When do we want it? Now! Absolutely. Power to the people, for the people, by the people.