MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Hits of the Day
Further Results are in on Gov. Mario Cuomo's Government-Run Utility "Solution"
By artappraiser on Wed, 11/14/2012 - 10:05am |Suffering on L.I. as Power Agency Shows Its Flaws
By Danny Hakim, Patrick McGeehan and Michael Moss, New York Times, November 13/14, 2012
[...] The trustees’ approach toward the looming disaster reflects deep-rooted problems at the authority that have hobbled its response, causing hardship for hundreds of thousands of its customers, according to an examination of its performance by The New York Times. The bungling of the storm has called into question the authority’s very future. [...]
In many ways, the Long Island Power Authority, known as LIPA, reflects the shortcomings of the state’s quasi-independent public authorities, which are often criticized as a shadow government that resists scrutiny. Long Island is the only region of New York where the main electrical utility is run by the government.
While oversight has drifted, politicians have installed relatives and friends in executive positions at the authority, turning it into a rich source of patronage jobs, according to interviews and a review of state records. These positions have an average salary of $110,000, the records show.
“There are many, many people who have been placed at LIPA during my tenure here who have no utility experience or training in the job that they have been placed in,” said Tracy Burgess-Levy, the authority’s director of community relations [...]
Gov. Mario M. Cuomo set up the authority in the 1980s when the Long Island Lighting Company enraged customers by failing to restore service quickly after Hurricane Gloria. The company had also stirred controversy over high rates and plans to open the Shoreham nuclear power plant.
The elder Mr. Cuomo vowed that the authority would keep costs down and communicate better, but even before Tropical Storm Irene and Hurricane Sandy, it had alienated customers, who pay some of the highest rates in the nation.
The authority ranked last in two recent national satisfaction surveys of utility customers, one by J. D. Power & Associates and another by American Consumer Satisfaction Index.
Politicians often seem to focus on the authority when they are looking to place relatives and friends at jobs there, according to interviews, local news reports and payroll records.
Lynda Nicolino, the former counsel to the Suffolk County Republican Party, earns $260,000 a year as the authority’s general counsel. Barbara Ann Dillon, a $125,000 compliance officer, is the daughter of Denis Dillon, the former Nassau County district attorney. Andrew McCabe, an assistant general counsel paid $117,000 a year, is the son of a former top judge in Nassau County.
Other top executives include former aides to the state comptroller [...]
URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/nyregion/long-island-power-authoritys-flaws-hindered-recovery-efforts.html
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Comments
On Cuomo fils, from the article:
by artappraiser on Wed, 11/14/2012 - 10:08am
I really hate it when patronage appointments discredit public agencies. It is also discouraging to see the word 'privatization' usedas a possible remedy to the dysfunction that results.
Private companies providing public utilities can be equally dysfunctional but even when they are not there are other concerns. Recently our biggest private utility wanted to build new facilities for future population growth but did not want to do it the usual capitalist way by either borrowing the necessary funds or selling equity.
Instead they decided a rate increase on present customers was the way to go but knew the state public service commission could/would not approve it so they strong-armed the entire state legislature which passed a new law to allow it. Now they are building a new power plant with public funds that they will own outright. The current rate pre-payers will get no direct return on their investment. What a deal.
by EmmaZahn on Wed, 11/14/2012 - 1:09pm
As a resident of NYC for most of my adult life, I remember being surprised a few years back to discover that Con Edison (aka Con Ed) was no longer in the Electricity business. They are in the Electricity delivery business. In other words, they are merely electricity pimps. Why did they get out of the electricity providing business? Their shareholders thought it was not making them a big enough profit. Which naturally raises the question, why has a public utility been turned into a money-making enterprise? I don't want essential services like electricity privatized. But did anyone ask me? Nope.
by MrSmith1 on Wed, 11/14/2012 - 11:18pm
It was a legislated change, offering choice and competition to consumers as to their supplier of electricity and/or gas. Happened like 10 years ago.
One of the choices was (and still is,) to do nothing and let ConEd continue to sell the actual electricity and gas to you as well as charge you for the delivery system/services.
It was similar to theory in what happened when MaBell was broken up for telephone charges. One company still owns the infrastructure, but you now could get your local and your long distance service from other companies if you wanted. (Except that's a case of the competitors subcontracting from whoever has the infrastructure, and the ConEd case is not. The latter was instead separating two distinct purchases: one a commodity, the other a service.)
Most people ended up signing up with another supplier because there were a lot of companies hungry to compete and offer lower prices; many had salesmen come door to door to single family homes, give presentations, analyze your usage from bills, tell you how much they could save you, etc.
I must admit that this has worked out fine, I've seen few complaints, because, just like with telephone plans, if you have time to research the best company and price for you, you can save money. But you still have the benefit of the infrastructure and service with a regulated monopoly, ConEd. And knowing the charges individually for the commodities, you can even compare with wholesale in the commodity markets, follow what the markups are, if you have interest.
And for some reason, ConEd just didn't care about competing on price/wasn't interested in competing for that business, and is happy with the supply job. It's almost more like they'd rather you not bother them with getting the actual gas and electricity for you, and will charge you extra if you want them to do it.
The charges come together on one bill, it just tells you which company is billing you, so one of the services is that ConEd acts as a collector for the various gas & electricity suppliers.
I should point out that for us, the fees ConEd charges for delivery seem to often cost as much as the gas and electricity itself, so maybe there's the clue!
On the phone landline issue, there was one downside that we learned in the days after 9/11. Verizon owns the telephone landlines here. When the lines went dead erratically in lots of areas, they decided it was only right to fix the lines of their own customers first, and anyone with a competing subcontractor came second. So for example, if AT&T was your carrier, you had to wait until all those who choose Verizon for a carrier were repaired first.
But I can't see that being much of an issue with ConEd, because they really don't seem to want to handle buying and reselling electricity and gas! Really, they don't seem to care a wit who you buy it from.
And honestly, in the end, they did end up performing the best of the big companies in the area with this mess. Though there was lot to complain about, it's ended up pretty clear that they performed the best. (The Rockaways and nearby parts of Queens NYC that had the worst problems are serviced by LIPA, not ConEd; they are adjacent to the Long Island counties and somehow were made part of that utility district even though part of NYC.)
I do not know if this is the same with NJ, I just know about NY.
by artappraiser on Thu, 11/15/2012 - 2:48am