Crazy Or Criminal? Expired Power Utility (LIPA) Trustees Approve Contracts.

Despite protest from candidates and environmentalists, Long Island Power Authority trustees voted to approve a new $3.6B, 15-year-old, contract for dozens of National Grid power generators.

New York (I-Newswire) October 8, 2012 - Do retired police officers jump in a squad car and start issuing tickets anytime they want to? Our society has some basic and obvious rules of governance --- those that ignore those rules are either nut jobs or criminals.

So why is LIPA a headless beast lead by pretenders? At the LIPA Board meeting of Tuesday, October 2nd, Trustee Neal M. Lewis (of Molloy College) pointed out that LIPA is commonly administered by those that do not have legitimate authority. So Mr. Lewis, as a Trustee, why don’t YOU protect the people from such outrageous practices?

Howard E. Steinberg (former chairman, whose term expired over a year ago: August 31, 2011) is still pretending to be “chairman”, set agendas, chair meetings, and even vote on LIPA matters, then submit expense reports and get reimbursed for his new “chairman” expenses. This is only one of the many frauds that allow for pillaging of LIPA ratepayers. Since only our Governor can appoint a chairman, Andrew Cuomo is therefore complicit to Howard E. Steinberg pretending that the LIPA Board is operating lawfully. Similarly, the board lacks quorum regardless of what they said. They had no authority (or quorum) to renew contracts with National Grid, set rates, change-billing practice, engage fuel managers, request proposals, etc. Bad again, since National Grid is poorly rated foreign entity, it never should have been awarded any contract to control critical gas or electrical infrastructure (much less the additional $3.6B jackpot it just received by way of an illegal board vote). The LIPA Board ignored requests (by Senate Candidate Bridget Fleming, Cablevision Corporation, and others) for voting to be delayed until a lawful board was in place. LIPA also let on that it is involved in energy market manipulation and overspending for fuels. The Governor is suborning all these violations of law.

Instead of filling the LIPA Board with elected Trustees (as specified by the original LIPA law) Governor Cuomo, County Executive Mangano, and County Executive Bellone have all ordered their attorneys oppose those suits. Despite what those politicians say about wanting more government transparency, lower costs, and lower taxes, all three politicians have ordered wasteful and expensive litigation to maintain secret government and raise taxes. Worse, if they are defending National Grid then they are helping to move LIPA’s increasing revenues the United Kingdom and and impoverish Long Islanders.