Ocean County officials are threatening legal action against Jersey Central Power & Light, their power supplier, unless service improves.

“We have outages on a weekly basis,” said Ocean County Commissioner Frank Sadeghi. “Our message to JCP&L is that electricity and power is a necessity. It's not just a luxury item anymore.”

News12 has reported on recent mass outages that delayed school openings and disrupted holidays across the region.

Sadeghi says the lack of capacity is even turning away business development.

“It impacts the economy of Ocean County on many levels - the rateables that are not going to occur for five-10 years, the jobs that it creates that are not going to be happening,” Sadeghi said.

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County government is now threatening a massive lawsuit if things don’t improve.

“I'm saying $1 billion,” Sadeghi said. “I think maybe the billion dollars is light - I think maybe we should go $1.5 billion. I need to have concrete answers. When is it going to happen, how much money is it going to take, when are you going to complete - when are you going to start the project?”

JCP&L spokesperson Chris Hoenig replied with a statement, saying:

“JCP&L continues to invest in our infrastructure along the Jersey Shore and throughout our service territory to enhance service reliability and meet the current and anticipated future demand for electricity. We look forward to working with our elected officials at the municipal, county and state level now and into the future.”

The county and the power company have been meeting, with the next update set for February.