LIPA Chief Operating Officer, John
McMahon, left, and board member Marc S. Alessi, at a public board of
trustees meeting.LIPA board of trustees hold a public meeting, August 6,
2014, in Uniondale. Photo Credit: Johnny Milano
The
Long Island Power Authority has cut in half the number of trustee
meetings at which the public can testify, prompting complaints from
customer advocates and others that LIPA is trying to keep ratepayers "in
the dark."
After canceling a planned meeting in January due to weather, LIPA has released a schedule that cuts the number of meetings for the rest of the year to five, compared with 10 in 2014. The full board will meet only in March, April, June, September and December. Trustees previously met monthly, with the exception of two summer months.
The public meetings provide updates on the authority's finances and operations, and progress reports by PSEG Long Island, which operates the local electric grid. The meetings also provide a forum for ratepayers and interest groups to communicate with the authority, to express support or displeasure with utility mandates.
PhotosLIPA protestsdataSearch LIPA payrollinteractiveLinks between LIPA, pols The reduced meeting schedule followed cuts in LIPA staff, from 100 positions to 40 over the past year, as mandated by the LIPA Reform Act. Many LIPA duties, including most recently power resource planning, were shifted to PSEG.
Still, some longtime LIPA watchers aren't happy about the slashed schedule.
"It's pretty offensive that they're shutting off public access," said Assemb. Steven Englebright (D-Setauket), the new chairman of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee. "It's part of a pattern but it's not a pretty pattern."
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Englebright was referring to Newsday stories last year
that reported the LIPA board had attempted to limit the ability of
trustees to comment publicly. Former trustee Marc Alessi left the board
after another trustee sought an ethics opinion following Alessi's
suggestion that LIPA would be sued over a large Shoreham solar project.
LIPA spokesman Michael Deering said the decision to have fewer meetings reflected "the goals of the authority restructuring," which shifted some oversight to the state Department of Public Service and utility management to PSEG.
"The purpose of the restructuring was to get the authority, and by extension, its board, out of operations and have the utility be run in a way other utilities operate in the state," he said.
But Alicia Klat, an attorney and co-founder of Empowered Long Island, a ratepayer advocacy group, said, "By keeping the public in the dark, the distrust of our new utility PSEG-LI and LIPA will continue. We remain hopeful that this decision will be reconsidered."
LIPA trustee Matthew Cordaro said the reduction to five meetings is "definitely not adequate. This is a public utility and the board has the responsibility to exercise oversight over PSEG. . . . This doesn't facilitate transparency."
Peter Gollon, chairman of the Sierra Club's Long Island chapter and a frequent attendee at board meetings, said fewer meetings will "make our utility less aware of the needs and opinions of the public that owns it, and which it serves."
Gollon called it "unfortunate that PSEG Long Island, which now makes many of the decisions that LIPA used to make, and wants to earn greater public approval than LIPA had, does not have a comparable mechanism for input from the local citizenry."
LIPA said in a statement that it still will welcome input: "The board receives communications on authority matters on a regular basis, and the authority website is a source of information accessible to the public and includes financial and operating reports."
After canceling a planned meeting in January due to weather, LIPA has released a schedule that cuts the number of meetings for the rest of the year to five, compared with 10 in 2014. The full board will meet only in March, April, June, September and December. Trustees previously met monthly, with the exception of two summer months.
The public meetings provide updates on the authority's finances and operations, and progress reports by PSEG Long Island, which operates the local electric grid. The meetings also provide a forum for ratepayers and interest groups to communicate with the authority, to express support or displeasure with utility mandates.
PhotosLIPA protestsdataSearch LIPA payrollinteractiveLinks between LIPA, pols The reduced meeting schedule followed cuts in LIPA staff, from 100 positions to 40 over the past year, as mandated by the LIPA Reform Act. Many LIPA duties, including most recently power resource planning, were shifted to PSEG.
Still, some longtime LIPA watchers aren't happy about the slashed schedule.
"It's pretty offensive that they're shutting off public access," said Assemb. Steven Englebright (D-Setauket), the new chairman of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee. "It's part of a pattern but it's not a pretty pattern."
LIPA spokesman Michael Deering said the decision to have fewer meetings reflected "the goals of the authority restructuring," which shifted some oversight to the state Department of Public Service and utility management to PSEG.
"The purpose of the restructuring was to get the authority, and by extension, its board, out of operations and have the utility be run in a way other utilities operate in the state," he said.
But Alicia Klat, an attorney and co-founder of Empowered Long Island, a ratepayer advocacy group, said, "By keeping the public in the dark, the distrust of our new utility PSEG-LI and LIPA will continue. We remain hopeful that this decision will be reconsidered."
LIPA trustee Matthew Cordaro said the reduction to five meetings is "definitely not adequate. This is a public utility and the board has the responsibility to exercise oversight over PSEG. . . . This doesn't facilitate transparency."
Peter Gollon, chairman of the Sierra Club's Long Island chapter and a frequent attendee at board meetings, said fewer meetings will "make our utility less aware of the needs and opinions of the public that owns it, and which it serves."
Gollon called it "unfortunate that PSEG Long Island, which now makes many of the decisions that LIPA used to make, and wants to earn greater public approval than LIPA had, does not have a comparable mechanism for input from the local citizenry."
LIPA said in a statement that it still will welcome input: "The board receives communications on authority matters on a regular basis, and the authority website is a source of information accessible to the public and includes financial and operating reports."
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