>> so my name is tom locascio.
I'd like to welcome you to our december 2nd public
comment session on the reform management contract
with pseg long island.
I'm going to turn it over to life as chief executive
officer tom falcon, who's going to go through a
presentation on some of the key elements of the
reform contract that will be before the life of
board on december 15th.
and then we'll go to our public comment portion,
tom.
um, good evening everybody.
and it's my pleasure to be here with you.
I would say that it is a special treat to spend any
evening with a group of people that want to are
interested in and want to spend time talking about
their local electric utility.
you are my kind of people.
uh, I'm joined here tonight by many members of
lipid, senior staff and our board.
uh, the comments as tom locascio mentioned are
recorded, uh, they will be put online.
uh, you will be able to look at the webinar on
life website and a summary of the comments will also
be provided to the lipid board at its december 15th
meeting for their consideration.
uh, this is one of a series of public events,
uh, and we are also accepting written comments
on the reform contract.
the one thing I wanted to do is start tonight with a
little bit of background to frame our discussion,
and then we're here to listen to you.
and so with that, uh, can we move to the next
page, tom?
so what brought us here tonight?
it's been a rather long journey along odyssey and
it all started as you may recall, on august 4th,
2020, uh, that was tropical storm east
[inaudible] and it was a big storm.
uh, it was very damaging to the electric grid on
long island measured by the damage to the grid.
it was one of our top five storms to hit the long
island electric grid.
it caused about 645,000 customer outages.
uh, and it took about eight days to restore.
we're not here though because, uh, 645,000
outages, uh, we're here because the restoration
did not go well.
if it had, we understand and know that we live on
an island and occasionally we're going to be affected
by big storms.
it doesn't make it, uh, something that we strive
for.
in fact, we strive to minimize that dislocation,
but occasionally there will be big storms and
there will be damaged the electric grid and it will
take time to restore, but you have a right to
expect, uh, good information and quick and
efficient restoration.
and to be able to get in touch with your local
electric utility, these are all reasonable
expectations and you have a right to expect that.
and the storm didn't meet that criteria.
in fact, all of our major it systems failed.
and these were systems that you, our customers
had invested a lot of money in on august 4th.
it was not clear what was going wrong, but it was
clear that something was going wrong.
and on august 5th lipa at the request of its board
began an investigation to get to the bottom.
even while the storm was ongoing.
you get to the bottom of what happened.
uh, the department of public service, which is
the staff arm of the state public service commission,
the regulatory commission also opened an
investigation.
those opened on august 5th and lipid at the request
of its board issued a 30 day report with our
initial findings in september, that initial
report focused on the failure of the it systems,
their proximate causes and immediate fixes that
needed to be done to stabilize the systems, go
to the next page.
then the board also requested a 90 day report.
by the time of that 90 day report, we had looked not
just at the proximate causes, but the underlying
root causes of what failed and concluded that they
were management issues.
and then deciding that they were management
issues.
and that lipid pays a lot of money for management
services, the board of trustees, as well as the
department of public service, uh, voted and
asked the lipid staff to either terminate our
relationship with pseg or renegotiated unacceptable
terms.
the board also adopted 85 recommendations that were
made public and that pseg filed plans to implement.
and we have in a quarterly basis, uh, shown you the
progress against those plans, that decision to
either terminate or, uh, renegotiate the contract
led to an initial view.
once again, at the lipid board's request to hear
and present publicly what our alternatives were.
we delivered that report in december, which was a
complete report, but a quick one, uh, the board
asked us pursuant to that report and its findings to
proceed with discussions with pseg and simultaneous
simultaneously also evaluate our other
alternatives.
those alternatives included privatization of
the utility.
we're a public utility publicly owned or
renegotiated contract with pseg or a contract with
somebody else as our management service
provider or life management.
we issued a report on april 28th in that april
28th report.
we detailed and made public, uh, our findings
on those options, as well as the requirements.
if we were to reach and renegotiated deal with
pseg, what it would need to look like, go to the
next page, uh, at points, it did not appear like we
would be able to seek adequate terms.
the board directed us to issue and fully explore
alternative providers.
and in may, we issued a request for information
and began that process.
we also sought from you members of the public,
your feedback on those alternatives.
in that report in june, by late june, we had reached
a tentative settlement agreement with pseg long
island that met the eight reform objectives that the
board had set out in that tentative agreement.
we presented those terms publicly to the board, and
that was a settlement, but it was a term sheet.
it wasn't the final contract language.
if you go to the next page, I think the most
important thing was that it ensured stronger
management structure, accountability, and
oversight, and it also shortened the contract
term.
we, uh, at that point proceeded at the board's
direction to negotiate with pseg.
if you go to the next page and it took until november
9th to reach an actual settlement agreement, a
proposed settlement agreement, the final
terms, and we made that more than a hundred page
agreement available on our website.
in addition to making that a hundred page
agreement available on our website, we also posted
2022 performance metrics that would be under this
agreement.
and I'll talk more about those in a minute.
you see to the right, those eight items that we
detailed in that options analysis.
and I'll spend a minute talking about each of
those eight elements, the things that were requisite
for us to continue a relationship with pseg the
board instructed us to not come back without
addressing at least these eight things you go to the
next page, I'll briefly cover these and these
materials are also available online on our
website, but objective one, a greater share of
pseg is management compensation had to be at
risk.
we pay approximately $80 million a year.
and under our old contract, only 10 million
of that was at risk compensation for
performance under the new contract proposed new
contract, 40 million or 51% of the contract fees
would be at risk.
number two, the board said that there have to be
a new way of gauging performance under the old
contract.
the performance measures that that $10 million were
determined by were set in 2013 and it required
mutual agreement to update.
I think the contract was well-intended however, as
time marched on those measures became somewhat
stale and reaching mutual agreement to update to
stronger, more strict performance measures that
also accounted for all the variety of services pseg
provides to weipa and its customers became
challenging under the new agreement.
the board said, no, there has to be an independent
process to set standards pursuant to the, uh, the,
uh, desires of the board for the service to the
customers.
and that, that this contract does that.
it also expands the number of metrics from
approximately 25 to more than 110 covering all the
scopes of services.
so for example, under the prior contract, there were
no performance measures related to the it systems
that failed under the new contract.
there are many go to the next page.
it wasn't, uh, it was not just sufficient that we
have incentives.
we also have to have penalties for failure to
achieve minimum levels of performance.
and under the contract 10 to $20 million is at risk
for exceeding budgets.
five to 10 million is at risk for failures to, uh,
to implement the emergency response plan that the
lipid board and the department of public
service approved each year, that pseg is
supposed to execute in the event of outages.
this is about a thousand page document, and you can
see it on our website.
uh, if reliability, the average minutes, uh,
customers out of power fall below a minimum
standard.
there's a 10 million automatic penalty in the
contract customer satisfaction, a 3 million
penalty.
and if there's two consecutive failures, we
have the right to terminate the contract.
I should mention failures to implement the emergency
response plan for a 72 hour or more storm.
also give us a right to terminate the contract
violations of the emergency response plan or
failure to provide safe and adequate service
subject to an investigation, another 20
million.
so in total 10 million is at risk based on a
calculation of failures to meet a minimum level on
the emergency response plan.
and we can terminate and additional 20 million.
so 30 million in total, if an investigation finds
other violations of the emergency response plan in
the event of a major outage, a failure to
implement minimum protocols for
cybersecurity, also an event of failure or an
event of default for which we can terminate the
contract term has also been shortened.
and, uh, the importance of this is that the old
contract had a, uh, gave to pseg, essentially a
right of renewal at their option for an additional
eight years.
so while the contract term extended to 2025, with
that right of renewal, the contract could extend all
the way to 2033.
we eliminated that option, uh, of pseg to
automatically extend the contract at their right.
uh, if we agree to extend the contract, it will be
based on the performance over the next four years.
and that will be a future decision of the lipid
board based on how the contract goes.
number, uh, the next objective on the page, in
the middle of the page management, it was
ultimately a management failure.
and you can read all about in those publicly
available reports, but we insisted on a dedicated
and strengthened management team with all
the authority necessary to provide service to long
island, to make sure that those individuals who run
the utility every day are exclusively focused and
dedicated and coming in every day, thinking about
long island, it also requires the addition of
five new senior level positions, all based on
long island.
uh, the contract requires a duty of candor.
and if there's a violation of the duty of
candor, uh, as described to you on the page that
also provides a right to terminate the contract
early, go to the next page.
it requires that if lippa fines and the board adopts
with the recommendation of the department of public
services, well, if lipid finds that there is a
deficiency and operations, there is a period of time
with which to correct that deficiency under the
contract and it's term limited objective seven,
uh, long-term planning, budgeting development, and
cost management.
the contract requires the development of long-term
plans to meet the scopes of services that are
required.
uh, objective eight, uh, the partitioning of the
long island.
it systems separate from new jersey, which provides
greater clarity responsibility.
this was another core ease-of-use finding, and
you can read all about it in our report.
if you go to the next page, those described the
contract terms, but let's come back to what we're
trying to achieve.
we're not just trying to achieve a better contract.
the real ultimate goal is to provide great service
to our customers service that you should be proud
of, clean, reliable, resilient service at
affordable prices.
the lipid board has adopted standards
directives of what that service should look like.
and you can read all about them on our website, but
they include great customer satisfaction,
high reliability benchmark to the top 10% of
utilities industry leading emergency response, clean
energy, 70% renewable energy by 2030 and
entirely carbon-free grid by 2040 and rates that are
comparable to our region.
so you can read all about the board's standards in
this contract, provides the mechanism to make sure
that pseg management comes in every day, focused on
achieving those objectives.
if you go to the next page, I mentioned there's
$20 million at risk for meeting these performance
standards.
and there's another 20 million at risk for
failures to provide safe and adequate service.
basically subject to an investigation.
did talk a little bit about these performance
standards, because they're a key part of the contract
on the next page.
what you can see is that they cover all the types
of services that pseg management or pseg is
managing to, to, uh, provide services to lipids
and its customers.
so reliability, resilience, risk
management, customer satisfaction, external
affairs, it operations major projects, and they
cover all the scopes information technology,
customer service t and d business services, power
supply, and clean energy.
you can read all the details on our website.
if you click on that link or go to ally [inaudible]
dot com forward slash reform contract, there's a
more than a hundred page document.
and on that a hundred pages you can see for each
measure how it's defined and whether how pseg would
get paid under that measure.
if you go to the next page, I'll just highlight
a few examples.
so you understand the types of things I'm
talking about.
for example, there are three performance metrics
metrics of the 96 performance measures.
there are three around asset management.
why should you care about asset management?
well, the utility business is a very asset intensive
business, all those poles and wires and substations,
and they will have to be maintained reliably.
and, uh, not just reliably, we have to
collect the right data.
we have to maintain them.
uh, and, uh, on the right schedule, we have to use
the data that's available to us.
doing all these things increases reliability and
reduces costs.
implementing a world-class asset management program
is what this goes, uh, is about and the standards
and progress towards that.
you can read all about, uh, customer information
system.
why should you care?
well, that's the backbone customer system that when
you call and interact with our call center, or you
get a bill, that's the backbone system by which
we deliver all services.
and if you don't have a modern customer
information system, it's going to be very hard to
keep up with providing the types of services that
people come to expect in an age when you can do one
or two clicks or use an app and find out more
about your service, your billing, and meet your
needs, your own way, reliability.
there are many standards in the 2022 metrics that
you can read about just to highlight it.
uh, pseg has to fall within the top 10% of
utilities for, uh, reliability on blue sky
days.
they have to reduce the number of customers that
have four or more outages a year by 22%.
next year, they have to reduce the numbers that
have flicker outages by, uh, more than 13% and
reduce customers with six or more flickr outages by
20%.
these are all good reliability measures,
resiliency.
we have very aggressive storm resiliency programs.
we all know storms are getting worse.
we have not just things that we'll be executing
next year, but also pilots that will lead to new
plans and programs in future years.
and you can read all about those types of initiatives
that we'll be delivering on in the coming year.
and in future years, customer satisfaction,
pseg has to implement seven particular projects
to improve customer satisfaction.
next year, they have to respond to your calls and
emails in a timely manner.
they have to respond to social media and tweets,
especially ones related to health and safety in a
timely manner.
they have to expand our low-income discount
programs for our customers that are less well off by
34% compared to the historic level of
participants.
in those programs, you go to the next page.
more of these measures include an integrated
resource plan, which is something that we've run a
public process around.
this is planning for how we're going to meet a zero
carbon electric grid over the next 20 years, uh, to
deploying more energy storage on the grid in a
word, those contracts complete the analysis to
award those contracts by the end of next year, meet
very aggressive energy efficiency and
electrification goals for transportation and for
home heating.
these will reduce carbon in other sectors of the
economy, not just the electric grid, but in the
biggest sources of carbon emissions for long island.
and you can read all about those plans on our
website, doing things to make long island more evie
ready, uh, simplifying the interconnection process
for customers who want to put solar on their roof,
uh, expanding time of use rates.
what does that, that's an option for you to pick
different rates that perhaps better meet your
needs or save you money, a work management.
we all want efficiency tracking work better.
uh, making sure we have the right staffing levels,
uh, reducing over time, completing capital
projects on time.
these are all just examples of measures,
including the it measures where one is about, uh,
measuring and benchmarking, uh, to a
life, a hired a benchmark expert consultant to come
in and look at how well we implement our major it
systems and make sure we're following best
practices in those areas.
go to the next page.
so the importance of all this is that this is not
a, a second chance for pseg that's based in hope.
this is a second chance based on binding
contractual commitments with incentives, with a
stronger local management structure that we believe
fundamentally address the core issues out of
tropical storm east.
yes, we're putting this in front of, uh, our, uh,
citizens you're on long island, our customers, our
stakeholders, and ultimately our board.
and what we're here to do is listen to you.
and what you think about this, uh, our timeline for
public review includes, uh, a, uh, having released
the contract on our website, which you can
download it if you have not already, uh, starting
on november 9th, our november 17th meeting,
where we hold heard from some members of the
public.
and we also discussed in detail, the contract and
the performance standards, these public comment
hearings, as well as the ability to submit written
comments to help tonight, I will be accepting
written comments through december 9th, and then we
will be presenting the, uh, the, uh, views of our
stakeholders to the board on december 15th.
and they may consider the pseg contract on that date
as well, along with metrics and budgets
further that you can find right on our website.
so if you go to the next page, there is a lot of
information on the website.
we've put out a couple of fact sheets that
summarize this information.
there's links here on this page, where you can find
it on the website, but you can find everything.
you can find all those investigative reports.
you can find our quarterly reports.
we issued over six written reports, each one,
generally in the 50 to a hundred page range over
the last 15 months, you can find previous public
comments that we have received.
you can find videos from the last, uh, year, uh,
you can find summaries.
so there's a lot of information there.
and if anyone has suggestions or more
information, we're happy to have it.
and with that, if you go to the next page, we're
going to turn it back over to you for what we intend
to do tonight, which is hear from you.
but I, as I started out with, uh, we're here to
listen and we're excited that you're excited and
have participated many, uh, of the people on this
call participated with passion over the last 15
months and care about your community and care about
your electric service.
and so we celebrate that.
we thank you for your active involvement and
participation, and thank you very much.
great.
thank you, tom.
so this will begin the public comment portion of
our meeting tonight.
uh, at this point I would ask anybody that's in the
attendee log to please raise your hand if you
would like to speak.
um, what I will do is I'll call off three names.
um, and then we'll keep adding to that list.
we do have several members of the community here
tonight that would like to speak on this, and we want
to make sure we give you ample opportunity, um,
prior to calling on you.
um, so our first three speakers, uh, based on an
order that hands were raised, uh, legislative,
bridget fleming, casey scheid, and fred harrison.
so at this time I'm going to bring legislator
fleming, um, into the panelists from hi
legislator.
good to see you again.
good evening, mr. Locascio good to see
you as well.
I appreciate the opportunity to be heard on
this important topic and that you'll be hearing
from members of the public as well.
suffolk county.
I am suffolk county legislator, bridget
fleming.
I serve as the vice chair of the public
transportation.
the public works transportation and energy
committee.
I am the chair of the, uh, community choice,
aggregation task force and the renewable energy task
force at the legislature and the chair of the ways
and means committee suffolk county is a major
customer of the utility.
our electric bill has run as high as $20 million in
recent years on june 8th, noting with alarm that
prolonged power outages and a breakdown of the
system use to communicate with the public after a
tropical depression, ies caused widespread hardship
and tried the patients of long island electric, uh,
customers, the suffolk county legislature, uh,
wrote, uh, to life, a board of trustees
unanimously urging that full consideration.
be given to the analysis of alternative options to
the current third party management system, rather
than seizing the opportunity to make real
change to the failed third-party management
system that has given us high costs, reliability,
and customer care failures and outdated technologies
as the world faces increasingly alarming
climate impacts.
we now see that we are returning to a
relationship with a failed partner.
from my perspective, this is a mistake on november
10th.
in fact, senators gordon, senator gordon, and
assemblyman feel urge the board to delay voting on
the contract and to suspend the process until
the current investigation by the attorney general is
complete in her investigation as to
whether the failed response to eis actually
violated state law 535,000 customers were left
without power and without any effective
communication about when the lights would go back
on some for as long as 10 days, the public needs
additional time to review this contract work is
underway, uh, by legislators to take a hard
look at the alternative option of a fully public
utility with some of the highest rates in the
nation.
and with another rate hike proposed in the 2022
budget and more than 90% reliance on fossil fuel
resources.
it's high time that we pause before obligating
rate payers to another four years with a partner
who has failed in so many ways has not been fully
forthcoming throughout this process and is still
missing milestones with revamping the outage
management system.
um, I know, um, tom, that you mentioned that, um,
that this all began on august the fourth.
uh, I want to disagree with you on that.
I think the failures, uh, at following the storm
ease ias in fact, gave us the opportunity to take a
hard look at a failed third party management
system.
unfortunately, the options analysis, which was a
great effort that was underway in august was
suddenly hijacked.
and without notice to many of the stakeholders who
had been involved, we were informed in the newspaper
that a contract was being pursued.
once again, with a failed partner tweaking this
failed third-party management system will not
serve rate payers.
I appreciate that increasing penalties for
failure to perform a shorter term and
flexibility to terminate the contract for failure
to comply with a long list of new items is moving in
the right direction.
but I urge you as have others to recognize that
considerations are underway both in albany,
under the attorney general and the state legislature
to look, take a hard look at what you, once we're
looking at.
and that is a real rigorous, uh, options
analysis and consideration of a fully public utility.
the urgency for fresh thinking that was
presented to us on, uh, on august the fourth, that
the hardships that our rate payers payers
suffered in august needs to be capitalized on
before we move forward with a contract with a
failed partner, I urge you to return to the public
options analysis delay entering into this
contract with someone, with a partner who has
failed to be forthcoming and has failed to meet
metrics time and time again, that basic
third-party management system is not serving
library.
quit payers.
please take the opportunity presented by
the hardships suffered by our rate payers to take a
fresh look and not go back to the same old ways.
thank you very much for the opportunity to be
heard.
it's a tough issue.
I wish you all the best.
I know we're all in it to serve the rate payers in a
reliable and cost effective way, and I offer
my support for that those efforts.
thank you very much and have a great evening.
thank you, legislator fleming.
and, uh, one other thing that I didn't mention, but
I do think it's important is that among all of our
termination rights is the right determinate for
municipalization who would have to pay a penalty to
do so about a $60 million, which was, uh, built into
the options analysis, but that is not different than
what we have currently.
so I do want to just note one thing, which is, uh,
if the governor and the legislature as a life, as
a public entity, to decide that we should go a
different way, uh, we have done nothing in the
contract that precludes that decision.
I do appreciate that.
and I know there's no, you, you don't want to
back and forth, but $60 million is three times the
annual cost of electric to suffolk county, uh, uh,
taxpayers for the suffolk county services.
but I appreciate that.
and I hope that you continue to think hard
about the things that I've presented.
thank you.
thank you, legislator.
next step.
we'll have casey casey shy, followed by fred
harrison and then followed by antonio cruz.
so casey, we're going to move you in to the
panelist mode now.
hey guys, how are you?
um, okay.
uh, my name is casey shine.
I'm the political and communications director
for the international brotherhood of electrical
workers, local union, 10 49.
we represent 4,500 proud members.
that's almost 2000 members working each day to
operate, maintain the electrical transmission
and distribution system.
um, I wanted to come speak tonight on behalf of the
union and support other advise contract between,
uh, long island power authority and pseg long
island.
uh, lifetime pseg have been, they've maintained
such a strong partnership with ivw 10 49, and
they've always provided open lines of
communications on issues are important to our
members besides consistency, being
beneficial for our workforce.
uh, pseg took over in 2014 and the company's
commitment to safety has resulted in a 62%
improvement in osha cases.
this means our members are going home to their
families safely every day.
uh, in addition, pseg long island's commitment to
reliability has not only benefited customers, but
it's created jobs for our members since they took
over 900 miles of distribution.
mainline circuits have been storm pardoned, uh,
in 2021, the section circuits that have been
storm hearted has seen a 53% reduction in damage
leading to outages compared to the rest of
the distribution system.
this increases reliability and enhances customer
satisfaction.
uh, we're proud of the work that we do to support
long island and we enjoy our partnership with
light, but npcg so thank you for the opportunity to
speak.
uh, let's see.
it looks like a beautiful cat.
thank you.
you didn't do this all day.
so just now just to start.
all right, thanks guys.
okay.
next up will be fred harrison again, followed
by antonio cruz.
and then charles means, uh, and one of the
reminder we are timing everyone.
there is a five minute limit per speaker.
um, so far we've been held to that.
so we are keeping track and we will let you know
if you hit that point.
fred, you're moving in now I've read the floor is all
yours.
okie dokie.
thank you.
uh, I'd like to start by.
my name is fred harrison.
I'm a homeowner in merrick.
I'd like to start by thanking, uh, the life of
staff and mr. Falcon for their work and for that
thorough presentation tonight.
um, I'd like to say about the new contract, the
following, the proposed new contract documents,
how peace ag has been a money pit for rate payers.
uh, I thought that the cost of having pcyc
managed system was $80 million per year.
that's wrong management fees and profits.
only part of the story, looking at all the new
metrics and deliverables required by the proposed
agreement.
those 96 performance standards makes it pretty
clear.
that piece said long island has been getting
paid for work.
it has not done adequately, and it's not
just it work.
this is the eighth year of pcyc managing the system.
they profited handsomely receiving hundreds of
millions of bottles, of rate payer money in fees
and profits.
what have we gotten for our money accompany, which
he needs intensive supervision in virtually
every area of operation, transmission and
distribution on t power supply programs.
you name them mr. Falco, 13 major operation areas
and all, and this is no ordinary contractual
supervision.
leica will be closely watching p sec and dps
will be watching as well.
lots of rate payer money and staff time will be
devoted to all of this.
I was a high school teacher for decades.
the contract reads like a pins petition on steroids.
what exactly does of corporate bring to the
table?
how does piece of tech management contribute to
pair interests?
the evidence leads to the conclusion that piece sex
orientation is to advance peace.
and that's understandable.
we've seen that in their past performance.
we see it in their new ad campaign on subs september
22nd, mr. Eichorn declared in a report to the lack of
board that peace was quote back to controlling the
messaging unquote that's for sure.
and it's new ads piece seg takes credit for the hard
work and goodwill of its workers.
it takes credit for the programs and improvements
paid for by life and its repairs.
not by pisa.
they don't do the job they're paid to do, but
they do take credit for what others do.
not a bad racket.
mr. Icahn's language gives it all away at that same
september 22nd meeting, he reported that quote, the
next storm will benefit us.
we welcome the next storm.
mr. Falco remembers that incident.
can you imagine welcoming a major storm?
think the death toll from ida, mr. Eichorn was not
thinking about me or my neighbors.
he's focused on what's good for peace second at
shareholders.
so the contract is clear evidence that you do not
and cannot trust pisa.
you've said that if the inadequate all contract
remains in force, the misfeasance suit continues
and we have a peace sag, which must be heavily
policed by lifeline.
if we have a new, stronger agreement, that it is a
much better and stronger agreement, no doubt.
we have a piece that must be thoroughly policed,
either way.
we have the albatross of peace and it's 80 million
in fees and profits.
we are counting on you to find a way out of this.
we need you to outline a clear roadmap leading to
the well-documented rate savings there for the
taking.
we don't need [inaudible] or any other profit molded
service provider to manage things for us.
we trust the capabilities of a life of staff.
they are very good at what they do.
they are fine public servants.
we hope that you trust them to trust them enough
to run the system without peace sec.
thank you.
thank you, mr. Harrison, for your very consistent
interest in lipid fairs over the last year, you've
come to many, many board meetings and public
comment hearing.
so we do appreciate your interest.
thank you.
okay.
next up, we will have antonio cruz followed by
charles leaves and then eric weltman antonio,
we're going to move you in to the panelists for you
now.
awesome.
can y'all hear me?
okay.
great.
thank you so much.
and to begin, um, mr. Falcon, I saw that,
um, in 2019, your base pay was over $280,000.
and, you know, for the sake of creating
cost-effective measures for ensuring people have
access to public utilities, um, ensuring
that electricity access is basically a right at this
point.
um, I think we need to address some concerns
about, um, the privatization of our
electric grid and our energy system here in long
island.
um, I see that the contract being proposed,
but essentially render long islanders putting the
cost of and efficiency, whether that is in the
form of a 2.3, um, price hike in 2021 in 2022 is in
your contract, which I believe even pseg
projected was supposed to be lower in costs, but
anyway, or in the tens of millions of dollars, uh,
should pseg fail to meet the demands for
eco-friendly efficient and consistent power
distribution on long island.
now I bring this up because regardless of good
faith arguments or speculation, which is
essential, but long islanders are going to be
doing at this point, because at the end of the
day, until we have a dangerous storms and stuff
like that, that are caused by climate change, which
again, pseg is not even projecting, um, to meet
these deadlines by like 2040, which is still
beyond recommendations to meet this by 20 25, 20 30.
so again, we are seeing issues with this, but, um,
I don't think long islanders should be paying
30 milli should have paid 30 million for a poor
system maintenance and stuff like that.
and I believe that if we need this supplies, we
could see cost cutting measures like municipal
bond access department income, and having this
all be, um, essentially streamlined.
in my case through suffolk county departments, like
the public works department and
infrastructure funding, as well as the long island
power authority, all of these institutions can do
a lot more to ensure unionized jobs, lower
costs, um, safer electric systems, et cetera.
so to bring this back, and again, I'm really
trying to be brief here.
this contract really doesn't address the
concerns that a lot of us have.
this contract creates more administrative level jobs
that would be salaried and protected this, um,
doesn't ensure that, um, we'd actually be
addressing as well as the inflation crisis here in
long island because higher utility costs are part of
that problem.
and that's why this crisis goes beyond just keeping
the lights on so people can afford to actually
sustain or live on these costs than just access
another barrier for people to be able to live here.
and that's really what a lot of this comes down to.
so people are paying for an efficiency,
subcontracting, and privatization.
then we see that climate change, electricity access
and power redistribution.
aren't the priorities.
so again, regardless of good faith arguments, I
really do think that, um, like, uh, should undergo
municipalization efforts.
I think we need to ensure that efforts to make sure
that this is strictly a public utility and not
something that is contracted would make this
far more efficient, far more safer, and far more
cost effective.
thank you.
thank you, antonio.
uh, next step is charles then eric weltman and then
margaret mahler will be up next on charles.
we're going to move you in to panelists view now.
good evening.
my name is charles nunez and the ecosocialist
working group chair of the nassau county chapter, the
democratic socialists of america and a partner in
the re-imagined life.
but coalition, I keep my statement relatively
brief, but I'm just going to come tonight to say
transparently I'm off from the time of tropical
storm.
esa is he sets failures, which they lied about on
multiple occasions.
you all even sat there on the board, calling out to
your sides lies.
dan eichorn lie to everyone's faces multiple
times about the progress we were assured that you
said had gotten their act together.
but when hurricane henry was threatening to coast,
my memory, according to my memory, I remember seven
to 14 day warnings of failure, potential
failures.
you know, power might be also in 14 days.
I thought pcyc had said they were fixed
everything, but that's, that's what we heard.
thankfully for long islanders.
henry did not hit long island and mind you, it
hit rhode island and their power was back in one or a
one to two days.
I believe, you know, versus the seven to 14
days that piece said was warning us about, you also
said at the beginning of this, that to listen to us
through the public comments, 90% of the
comments or for full municipalization.
tell me how us coming here.
talking about a renewed contract with p sag was
listening to us.
it wasn't, I'm just going to say this in closing.
if you all vote for this contract, you all should
resign.
and if you don't, the legislature needs to step
in and take over.
and if they don't, then they should resign.
thank you.
okay, eric, weltman followed by margaret
mahler and then laura mckeller, eric, we're
going to move you in now, eric, you're on mute.
sorry about that.
great.
my name is eric weltman and I'm a new york senior
organizer with food and water.
watch a national non-profit environmental
organization, food and water watch is a proud
member of the re-imagined lipid campaign, along with
the long island, progressive coalition,
mothers out front or energy, and so many
incredible activists and allies.
and we're here to send a message to the lipid board
and to governor hoeckel long island deserves long
island needs a publicly owned, controlled and
managed power authority.
long island deserves long island needs to sever its
relationship with pac and g a company with a track
record, a long track record of failures and
lies.
it's time to establish new standards for
accountability, equity, resilience, and democracy
in our energy systems, and to create an institution
that's equipped to meet these standards and one
that will prevent climate catastrophe by moving the
region off fossil fuels and transition long island
to soar and wind power.
the time has come.
the time has come for the long island power
authority to end its relationship with pse and
g.
and to finally end decades of failed public private
partnerships, they have put profit over people, no
contract, no contract can alter repair or rectify
the fundamental disconnect between pse and g and the
region's needs.
the fact that the proposed contract contains a duty
of candor requirement is alarming.
we have to ask pse and g to commit not to lie.
what if they're lying about not lying, no
contract can overcome the fact that this is a flawed
model that is causing widespread widespread
hardship at great pasta rate pairs.
long island has been repeatedly battered by
storms, the intensity and fruit qfc, which are
heightened by climate change.
climate change is an existential threat to long
island.
creating an urgent need to move off fossil fuels.
we must stop transporting and burning
frack gas.
public power is the means by which we can ensure the
long island fulfills our legal and moral obligation
to transition to a hundred percent clean, renewable
energy.
we have a new governor.
we have new board members and even more will be
appointed the hopeful administration and the
lipid board have the opportunity to acknowledge
and move past the mistakes of andrew cuomo and put
the relationship with psng where it clearly belongs
in the dustbin of history.
food and water roster concludes with our call to
governor cuomo.
coco now is our moment to re-imagine lippa and
corporate control and abuse of our energy
systems and realize the benefits of public power
and formulas of smoothness or polarization, real
accountability where liable service, affordable
power and a transition off fossil fuels.
thank you.
thank you, eric, for your comments.
next, we're going to move in margaret mahler
followed by laura mckeller and then mike brady will
be up after laura.
hi, welcome.
hello.
all my name is margaret maher.
I'm a volunteer for food and water watch.
I'm a long island power authority rate payer as
well.
and I just want to put my 2 cents in saying that we
need public power.
now this new contract with pse and g does not fix or
lower outreach.
we need to manipulate view, sorry, municipalize.
now we all know how much it costs to live on this
island.
it is so expensive between the taxes, the water, the
gas, the electric, these municipalities should all
be public.
we pay high bills that seem to serve stockholders
over rate payers.
and this is just unacceptable.
we had many issues in the past, such as tropical
storm isis in 2020 pse and g needs to be held
accountable for their readiness of this storm.
we know they lied about their preparedness, their
response and the upgrades it made afterwards.
we want public power to serve the rate payers, not
the stockholders.
I can't even say this enough, who benefit from
our hard earned money, our money that we make, we are
giving away to stockholders the amount of
money that is made millions upon millions
every year is unbelievable.
speaking for myself and my neighbors.
we, the public want the board to terminate its
contract with pse and g and commit to public
power.
utility utilities like power and water should be
public.
they should all be public.
we need to go green to fight climate change.
we need governor hocal to champion this cause this
is extremely important.
we are paying so much money and the benefit to
us is very, very little.
it's really upsetting.
and one other thing, before I close, I don't
know who cuts the trees or who you hire to cut the
trees, but it is awful.
I just want to put that in there.
I thank you for letting me speak and say my piece.
thank you very much.
thank you, margaret laura mckeller, you are up next
then followed by mike brady and then call
merchenson after my hi laurie.
you're in the panelist view.
you're on mute.
am I unmuted?
can you hear me?
yep.
okay, good.
so my name is laura mckeller.
uh, I am a rate payer in greenlawn, new york.
I am also a, um, I'm a registered nurse and I'm a
mother of two teenage boys.
um, I think one thing that I've heard over and over
again, and I myself have said in these meetings is
that we are just all really fed up with pse and
g we are, we're just done.
we we're done.
we are done with this relationship.
um, not only were they ill prepared and not only was
their response poor to issais.
um, we relied too.
now, if this were any other relationship in my
life or in my children's lives or my friends'
lives, I would say just ended if this were an
obstetrician, for example, um, I would not be setting
new performance standards.
I would not be, um, creating a shorter
contract with him or her.
I would not be setting any sort of differences in
risk and compensation.
I would say this person does not delivery my next
child.
um, and I think that's what we need to do.
um, not only because of what we've seen in the
past, but because of what we are going to be
encountering in the future, we are truly at a
crossroads right now that I think all of us see
ordinary people like me see, in terms of climate
change, not just in terms of storms, but we see
what's going on out west.
we see the threat to our food.
we see the threat to our health health.
we see potential changes as the infectious disease
of elderly people dying because they're too hot.
like we see the threats, we cannot turn away
anymore.
um, so as we end the relationship with pse and
g, this gives us an opportunity for a new
relationship, that public power grants us.
um, we're also going to have to entirely change
the way that we produce and consume energy.
we have to do it.
there is no option.
um, and on top of it, the way we consume energy is
actually going to be more electrified.
so it's going to be putting even more pressure
and strain on the infrastructure that is in
turn, also threatened by these storms that are only
going to get bigger and bigger.
um, so in the process, we also need to be creating
clean energy and efficient energy.
we need to get away from fossil fuels so that we
are not exacerbating the problem that is creating
the storms.
um, but it's not all doom and gloom.
like I said, it really is an opportunity for public
power.
this is a huge opportunity for us.
um, we can create new jobs.
we can make sure that those jobs are going to
people who have been most unjustly effected by
climate change by pollution, by all of this,
by just the unfairness of life itself.
this is a huge opportunity and we cannot
rely on a corporate entity to do this.
this is something that we have to do together as
communities, as government, as scientists,
and we need community input.
we need community members at the table.
I said before, in other meetings, we know what we
need.
we know what we want.
and when we work together with experts and we work
together with labor, we can do this.
we do not need pse and g um, we need to end, um, we
need to end this relationship and we need
public power.
thank you so much for letting me speak.
thank you, laura, for your comments on next up
will be mike brady followed by ryan madden
and then george, povo like, we're bringing you
in now.
I, can you hear me?
we can.
great.
uh, my name is michael brady and I am a repair
from kings park.
I am also an attorney by profession and I am a
volunteer with law and progressive coalition and
cooperation long island.
I'm here to encourage the board to end leiper's
relationship with pse and g and to instead pursue
full municipalization of the long island power
grid.
other speakers tonight have.
and we'll continue to outline for you a variety
of excellent reasons for municipalization,
including enormous cost savings, operational
efficiency, and the overwhelming public
support that has been expressed in virtually
every recent meeting of this board.
as well as into public hearing that was held in
may your own options analysis shows the
overwhelming benefit of full municipalization.
it is abundantly clear that this is the only way
to go yet, almost immediately after the
hearing in may this board, perhaps with some strong
prodding from a certain governor, decided to
pursue a different path and double down with pse
and g despite its abysmal performance.
well that governor is gone now.
so perhaps we can revisit things and pursuing a
rational course.
I'd like to take a different tack and try to
convince you to change this course because
entering this contract is a horrible business
decision.
as an attorney, I often tell my clients that a
contract is only as good as the parties that are
involved in the transaction.
it is my belief that pse and g is not a good
partner and cannot be trusted.
why do I believe that?
because the lipid board has repeatedly told me, so
the board has accused pse and g of being woefully
unprepared for hurricane.
I say, yes, the board has repeatedly told us that
pse and g is not meeting the benchmarks that were
set to ensure that assistance upgrades were
completed in a timely manner.
so that such a disastrous storm response never
occurs again.
why would you trust pse and g and reward it with a
new contract?
well, we're told that this new contract is the
best deal that lipid has ever had, and that
includes large compensation penalties at
pse.
and g fails us again to that.
I say, so what, I'm here to tell you that as rate
payers, we don't want pse and g to reimburse our
money.
we don't want them to be paid in the first place.
what we do want is for our money to go towards a
durable and reliable power grid.
we want accessible communications and updates
in the advent of power outages.
we want rapid and efficient restoration of
service.
we want to pay electric fees that are not among
the highest in the country.
we want a utility that is agile and capable enough
to rapidly complete the critical transition to
renewable energy as mandated by the climate
leadership and community protection act.
as margaret said, we don't want our money going to
shareholders, which has been happening for far too
long after we built bailed out lipid, I'm sorry, loco
so many years ago, um, at a cost that we're still
paying today.
what we demand is utility that is responsive and
accountable to the people we demand public power.
thank you.
thank you, mr. Brady.
uh, next step.
we'll have ryan madden then george paval and then
timothy carson after george ryan, we're moving
you in now.
can you hear me wonderful.
um, good evening, everyone and lovely to see everyone
again this week.
uh, my name is ryan madden.
I'm the sustainability organizer with the long
island progressive coalition.
uh, we are a grassroots community-based
organization founded in 1979.
we fight for structural change at the local state
and national levels to attain racial justice,
build community wealth and realize adjust, transition
to a hundred percent renewable energy future
beginning in november of, uh, 2020, the long island,
progressive coalition, suffolk county and nassau
county chapters of dsa and food, or waterwatch came
together to urge the long island power authority,
determinate his contract with pse and g long island
municipalize and democratize in the
aftermath of tropical storm, sis, which resulted
in a 645,000 long island residents without power
for on average, more than two to seven days.
over the past, we have built a network of
supporters through the re-imagined lipid
statements consistently mobilized rate payers to
weigh in at monthly board meetings, held forums on
the benefits of public power with diverse
stakeholders and decision makers created toolkits.
this for additional public action, worked with
relevant elected officials to amplify those issue
statewide and publish op-eds and letters to the
editor and multiple media outlets and light all, all
of this.
um, the groundswell of community elected and
public support, um, for, uh, the full
municipalization of the long island power
authority.
uh, we are here to say that this new contract
does not fix the fundamentally flawed model
of our utility and that we need to meet as flies.
it is impossible to comment on this reform
contract without noting the structural issues
surrounding this.
we are also concerned as was raised earlier that
this contract is moving forward.
uh, moving ahead, uh, before the attorney
general finishes or investigation into whether
pse and g has failed sis response broke state laws,
uh, and before we know the responsiveness of the new
storm outage management computer system that pse
and g has been collected to deliver on, we urge the
lipid board to delay this vote and suspend this
process until they have more information on which
to make a sound decision as was noted earlier, too,
um, and reflected by, um, by other speakers, is that
decisions about the future of the long island power
authority and its relationship to pse and g,
um, should belong to the rate payers of this region
and the rate payers of this regional loan and
former governor.
andrew cuomo only had his legacy in mind when he
pushed light pcyc to renew terms earlier in july.
he, in that decision deliberately ignore long
island rate payers and elected officials, um, and
instead exerted his influence on behalf of pse
and g as was mentioned, his resignation, this
entire deal has been called into question, and
we believe the onus is now on governor.
hocal just your course back towards public power.
she must reject her predecessors failed vision
for our region and embrace a power proven model for
ensuring long island enjoys, reliable,
affordable, and renewable power, regardless of the
content of this new contract, a decision to
move ahead and not commit to public power, um, would
be an insult long island and rockaway's
communities, the dereliction of
responsibility to the need of democratic management
of our system and a grave mistake as the climate
crisis worsens, as we know, lipid can save
nearly $1 billion over the next day decade through
this process.
so instead of bonuses to unaccountable managers and
dividends to distant stockholders, we could see
lower rates and improved services for customers.
it was communicated earlier this year, uh,
during a new york state senate budget, hearing
that life, uh, had in its power, the ability to
municipalize on its own, once the tentative
agreement was struck in july, this assertion was
walked back and pushed to albany to decide while we
will work with albany to make necessary legislative
changes.
we asked that lipid continue to flesh out
options for and support the development of a
roadmap to a fully system.
if the lipid board does move ahead with this
contract, it must at the very least commit to not
renewing it.
after 2025 and began working with community
stakeholders right now to build a public power
system, we deserve lipid must also heat the call to
engage in more robust, intentional community
engagement in the conduct of utility operations.
while these public comment sessions are
appreciated and vital, they also feel somewhat
insincere by their impact.
maybe not by their intense, the public had
less than 30 days to read a 300 page contract,
digest it, develop comments on it, and then
deliver those comments.
the majority of the turnout for these, uh, um,
sessions is based on the work of community
organizations like ours and not the efforts of the
utility to seek input.
and as seen during the options analysis comment
sessions, public input does not translate into
utility response.
it often feels that proposals put before us to
comment on our decisions already made.
we need a democratic lipid that is accountable to our
region's communities.
a lipid that is led by those most impacted by
decisions concerning our energy system.
that includes rate payers, workers, municipalities,
community organizations, low-income households, and
environmental justice communities.
we must ensure that those who use pay for and work
for the system have a say in how it runs despite the
flawed model utilized and its conduct lipid is, and
probably claims to be a public power utility.
and that must mean the operation management and
policy making of the electric utility
exclusively by the public for the public interest,
which can only be the case with ongoing and
meaningful engagements.
lipomas heed the call for public power, which only
grows louder every day on long island throughout the
state and across the country.
we can not afford more delays, further delay as
for their time money and resources waste on a
utility model that is structurally unreliable
and accountable and more expensive, more expensive.
none of this is addressed by the proposal before us
today, and we deserve better.
thank you for your time.
thank you for your comments, brian.
I was certainly always going to do want to
acknowledge the tremendous amount of time that ryan
has spent, and he's been at every life, a board
meeting and follow these first so closely.
so I do appreciate that.
uh, so george will be next followed by timothy
carson and then william novella, george, we're
bringing you in now, george you're on mute.
hey everybody.
it's george paul, val from all our energy executive
director.
uh, look, all our energy is a long island energy
and environment protection non-profit organization.
and I want to thank you, tom.
and the board for all of the work that you have
parked to improve our utility over the past 16
months in the push to move to what was for everyone
involved, the obvious choice of public power.
it's not that this contract doesn't make an
improvement.
the problem is not just about the contract, nor
the contractor.
it's the system of a public private
partnership.
it just continues to leave long islanders vulnerable,
to storms in favor of profits and business
interests above rate payer interests and leaves us
not ready for the future.
that system just has to go.
we need a full public takeover of pseg long
island operations to the municipal and accountable
lipid to gain greater grid security, cost reduction,
resiliency, responsiveness, and
accountability.
any new contract merely just extends the current
problems, risks, our safety and delays.
the inevitable transition that we truly thank the
past and presently outgoing board members for
their service with much of the board to be new
members early in the year, we do feel having them
decide such an important matter and then leave in
the coming weeks, just diminishes the great work
the board has done, and it diminishes accountability
that has been so missing from this entire process.
this regression back to unaccountability was
dropped like a bomb on all of us by the disgraced
former governor, and for better, for worse.
this allows his outgoing appointees to approve his
backroom deal and walk away.
and likewise we'll allow any new board members
simply to point to the past board, uh, leaving
the rest of us vulnerable for this, uh,
accountability, uh, that will be missing.
additionally, those contract on paper allows
for more metrics for accountability.
will the board actually go out of their way to fully
enforce it?
when we will be faced with the same question then,
which is who will control our grid.
if an unhappy contractor holds all the power and
stands between us and our grid, the provision for
nearly a year severance as well in management fees
for failure on such a short term contract still
leaves us in diminishing returns.
it might be a bonus for them to even get fired.
at some point, the proof of this is, is this being
a possible outcome is pseg long island testifying to
the new york state assembly a month after
this, uh, contract was announced that everything
was under control and not going to be a problem.
and then just a few days later with hurricane henri
coming up the coast, we were told to prepare for
10 to 14 days without power.
wait, what?
anyway, not withstanding that there still is no
guarantee.
they are going to be a willing and cooperative
participant in any transition away from them
ever.
and I see little difference, whether it
happens sooner or later, they have done much to
prove that they will not act in a way that benefits
us as, uh, as, as shown by their public duty attested
in accuracies and untruths, um, which I've
just mapped that past the breaking point.
we cannot allow them to continue to hold our power
over us.
we need to take it back.
this resolution to the ongoing problems though,
exemplifies why we believe that the lipid board and
ultimately governor hogan have a responsibility to
steer our course forward towards public power.
thank you all so much.
thank you, george timothy carson.
you're up next followed by william novella then
jennifer green.
good afternoon, everybody.
uh, my check.
everyone can hear me right.
cool.
could even hear me, everybody.
I live in cinereach.
my name is tim and I'm an organizer with the suffolk
county democratic socialists of america.
this reformed contract with peace egg is a half
measure when leiba needs to use a full measure.
the contract needs to be terminated.
the failed public private partnership model needs to
go and like it needs to be fully democratized, a
shorter leash on pse and g doesn't mean much when
public power is a better deal for long island.
maybe there's a $60 million fine.
like you said, mr. Falcon, but lipid zone analysis
says it would save nearly a billion dollars over the
next decade.
if the piece of that contract was terminated in
favor of full municipalization, the only
reason the contract was agreed upon the first
place is former governor cuomo.
so why should we settle for this?
exactly long island can make such a powerful
statement by severing ties with wasteful and
inefficient management of psa and siding with the
people that serves stakeholders and
ratepayers and climate change is unfortunately
here to stay.
we can expect some storms in the future to be worse
than tropical storms that we've witnessed in the
past.
personally, I want us to be prepared in the best
way we can not by having a private management service
provider, but a publicly owned and operated
utility, which of course already service about 15%
of americans are 13% cheaper and have 46% fewer
power outages.
the benefits of public power check, all the
boxes.
the choice is easy.
terminate the contract with peace sag and let's
democratize our power system.
thank you.
thank you, timothy.
uh, william develo will be up next followed by paul
merchenson.
I know, um, there were some folks that had their
hand up to put them down.
um, if there are people that would like to speak
on this matter, I would ask, please raise your
hand, william and the vela.
we are gonna move you in.
okay.
thank you.
my name is william novella.
I am a member of the nassau county chapter of
the democratic socialists of america.
and you know, when I came here tonight, there are a
few words that I had when I thought of pse and g um,
one was albatross.
the other was parasite, and either one was changed
by the presentation presented the speed,
meaning by life.
uh, there was absolutely nothing in that
presentation that demonstrated that pse and
g is performance in their time.
contracted out by life, uh, has done anything to
benefit really long island and has done nothing but
cost taxpayers much and bring harm to the people
in our communities.
excuse me, the relationship here seems to
be that lipid seems to be meaning to pay more and
more, create more and more metrics in order to
oversight pse and g for the work that they're
supposed to be doing on their own, creating more
costs for a mill managed relationship.
that seems to be quite more contractual and quite
frankly, abusive for the people of long island who
are clearly having this thrusted upon them.
because I would say that there are very few people
from the ordinary public.
you you're to actually give public testimony.
many of us who are privileged to be here this
evening, and quite frankly, you know, having
less than two months to provide public testimony
on it is very disingenuous on your part to push
forward such a contract on people.
so it seems to me that there seems to be very
little to be done here.
and this seems to be a decision that is going to
be pushed down no matter what happens after
december 9th.
so I just wanted to express that clearly
universalization would be the best course of action
that pse and g needs to be eliminated as a working
partner with lipid as soon as possible.
and if that is not the case and the flippa
refuses to do that, then it is up to the public and
to the state government to thrust a decision to
change that.
and that's where I'm at.
thank you.
and have a
good evening.
thank you, william.
next step will be paul merchenson, uh, followed
by jeremy joseph, and then jennifer green.
okay.
call your unmute.
okay.
thank you.
um, my name's paul mark wilson, uh, I'm uh, on the
steering committee of transition town, port
washington.
we are a local community group on the port
washington peninsula, where our mission is to,
um, make our community safe, secure, sustainable,
and resilient in the face of climate change.
and clearly this issue is, uh, you know, uh, dear to
our mission of accomplishing those
objectives.
uh, so we're really urging, um, light, but not
to make a rush to judgment.
please let the attorney general finisher
investigation delay your vote until all the
information is there.
and I believe, I hope that the timing of this public
session is to allow you to hear and gain enough
support from the public to do that and to move down a
more responsible path, secure and affordable
power.
it's too important to be subject to private profit.
um, I was, you know, I was struck as eric weldon was
by the phrase duty of candor.
and I just have to say that, uh, I've spent over
40 years, um, in the, in the private sector
managing, uh, large management and, uh,
capital projects and a lot all over the world and
never have I come across that phase.
now I understand in the public sector that there
are regulations and there are different things that
affect, uh, contracts, but I've also worked in highly
regulated industries in highly regulated
environments.
and that phrase to me is a exclusionary phrase.
it just indicates that there is no level of
trust.
and you've, you've indicated that in
yourselves, in the past dealings, this is not an
organization pse and g that's forthcoming and
honest and trustworthy, and they need to be
eliminated on that basis if not poor performance.
so, um, it also speaks if that, if that was in prior
contract, it speaks to the bankruptcy of the model,
the private public partnerships.
and again, municipalization has a
much better track record in terms of performance
and, uh, and course delivery.
so again, it's, it's just, I feel for you because you
have to be shaking your heads off screen and
saying, yeah, we know this, we know this, we
know this, but you obviously have a lot of
other things to, uh, uh, you know, to navigate in
terms of your decision making.
but, uh, the public voice has to be an important
part of that.
so, you know, as, as, as have said, public power is
not new.
it works.
it's something whose time has come, it's too
important, uh, uh, to, to put profit over a public
safety.
and I just want to say on a personal note that, um,
in the park section of port washington, where I
lived during, uh, ida, three of my neighbors,
their basements completely flooded.
now, I'm bringing that up, not to say that, that,
you know, that's a direct result of a pse and g is
mismanagement or that they all lost power, but it
indicates the severity of the climate events that
were facing these, uh, black swans are a hundred
year events that you're talking about.
they are totally unprepared to deal with
that.
we need a totally different model that can,
that can handle events that cannot be foreseen
because every year in every community we see
these is, there are things we read in the papers.
these are the things people are experiencing
and people feel threatened.
this is not just about their rates.
it's about their lives, their security, even if
they don't drown in their basements, as other people
have done in the region, they're at risk of living
in homes that have mold and have other, uh, health
and safety results as, as a result of climate
events, living and occupying a home that has
gone without power for any substantial length of
time, also prevents those risks.
so these are things that are affecting people's
safety, security, and lives.
and I just want to leave it at that because I think
that the personal element is very important.
you have safety of people and their livelihood in
your hands.
please make the responsible decisions.
thank you.
call, uh, next up will be jeremy joseph followed by
jennifer green and then amber ruth her, uh, again,
a reminder, if you are on and would like to comment,
you do need to raise your hand to do so.
jeremy you're being brought in now.
uh, so I guess my guiding principle for this is
pretty simple.
uh, utilities are a service to the public and
they should be publicly owned.
uh, in contrast investors in private corporations
like pseg have one motive it's making profit.
uh, you cannot provide an essential service to
people while operating under a profit motive.
these things are fundamentally opposed.
uh, a public utility should be accountable for
whether it is accountable to the people it serves.
uh, whereas a privately operated utility only
answers to its shareholders.
uh, if pseg were completely competent in
its current role, uh, hypothetically speaking,
they would still fundamentally not be able
to serve the needs of our communities.
uh, one of the greatest needs, if not the greatest
is to transform our energy system into one that is
environmentally sustainable.
uh, no one should trust a private corporation to
drive these critical changes.
they're only interested in these changes as long.
it is, it is profitable for them.
uh, I'm not willing to leave our environmental
fate in the hands of shareholders.
um, now as it stands, uh, pseg has not shown
themselves to be a competent partner.
they have a long history that falls well short of
our expectations, and they have not even provided
adequate service under a current agreements.
so why are we extending more grace to a
relationship that shouldn't exist in the
first place?
um, so I know tonight and even over the however many
months, this process has gone on that.
you've heard from private citizens, from advocacy
groups, even from politicians like
legislator fleming tonight, who is
extensively very connected to this sort of issue.
um, and if overwhelmingly, oppose, continuing this
relationship with pseg, the only people I've heard
speaking in favor of this contract are those who
directly benefits from this con, this, this
relationship rather, uh, I don't really see any
ambiguity and these discussions, uh, all
community stakeholders would benefit from a full
month municipalization of our power grid.
and this relationship with p seg should end.
thank you.
thank you, jeremy.
uh, jennifer green, then amber ruther and then
billy roberto.
and I would remind everyone, if you do have
an interest in speaking tonight, raise your hand.
there's a button on the bottom of the screen on
zoom.
somebody had suggested we point that out in case
there was some confusion.
so jennifer, we're bringing you in now.
thanks soundcheck.
can I be heard?
we can hear you.
great.
hello, and thank you all for the opportunity to
speak.
turn on my camera.
there we go.
this is my first time at a public hearing and I will
be brief.
I am a longtime rate payer in bellport.
I'm also a member of suffolk county, democratic
socialists of america, and I'm the daughter of an
energy economist who studied utilities among
other things.
and if he were alive today, I know he'd be here
speaking to you too.
so I'm here tonight to add my voice to the many who
are calling for full municipalization of long
island's power third-party management.
isn't what we need publicly owned utilities,
better on numerous counts.
and when I learned that the former governor may
have exerted undue influence undemocratic
interference.
I was disturbed.
we deserve better.
I, and so many others don't want to see you vote
in favor of this contract.
we want life, but to commit to public power.
thank you.
thank you, jennifer and birther will be next and
then followed by billy rubber king.
hello, my name is andrew ruther and I'm with
alliance for a green economy, which is a member
of the statewide public power in new york
coalition, as well as an intervener in utility rate
cases around the state.
um, and I'm here to ask for an end to like this
contract with pcyc in favor of fully public
power that is democratically controlled
for now.
I urge the wipe of board to delay this vote,
suspend this process and fully commit to developing
a roadmap for public power.
we will also be working on developing legislation to
implement public power with the real logic
reimagine lipid coalition, since legislation is
clearly needed at this point, this new contract
with p sec, well making minor reforms does nothing
to address the root of the issue with their poor
performance, that their for-profit monopoly, who
profit for providing an essential service because
of this, no matter how much we try to micromanage
them with complex incentives, which
essentially amounts to doing their job for them.
and no matter how exhaustively we spell out
their responsibilities in a contract, they will
always have an incentive to prioritize their
profits over workers, rate payers in the environment.
and they will always have an incentive to find
loopholes to lie and misreport metrics to do
the bare minimum in terms of service, to defer basic
grid maintenance and to operate with a skeleton
crew of workers who are then unable to restore
power quickly during climate disasters.
so just tropical storm as aas, and then intervener
and utility rate cases around new york.
and I've seen the ways in which complex performance
metrics such as earnings adjustment mechanisms have
largely failed to address performance issues and
have only led to increased rates for rate pairs at a
time when over a million new yorkers already can't
afford their utility bills.
there's also no true way to hold.
[inaudible] accountable to the people they asked
sensibly serve.
while the dps may find them for more poor
performance, they're unable to find them an
amount that would severely impact share holder
profits, because then psa's cost of capital
would go up harming rate payers, and they may even
become unable to raise the capital, but they need to
function a basic human need.
that's a national monopoly should never be left up to
a for-profit and long islanders have been harmed
by the impacts of failed public private
partnerships for far too long.
we've seen the worst case scenario of what can
happen in places like texas or the energy people
need to survive is treated as a commodity to profit
from instead of as a human, right.
there's a reason that p sag has poor risk
management.
it's because they know the biggest risks of their
utility operations.
the risks of climate change, the risks of
safety issues for workers and the risks of blackouts
that will force people to miss work through his food
and medication, or even freeze to death will fall
on the backs of long islanders, not on
shareholders in any private monopoly, risks
and costs are socialized and profits are
privatized.
peace is the only utility in the country that
operates with a public private partnership model.
and there's a reason for that.
it doesn't work in the words of assembly member,
doug smith.
we have a frankenstein monster of utilities.
it's the worst of both worlds.
life is unaccountable to the people and we have the
monopoly of peace egg, which under the current
structure is guaranteed to make a profit while
utilizing lipos nonprofit status.
it's reprehensible that the options analysis,
which clearly showed that a fully public system was
by far the best option for rate payers and that the
public hearings were around 90% of testimony
was in favor of public power.
it was essentially ignored and overruled by a
backroom deal made by disgraced former governor
andrew cuomo.
we believe the onus is now on governor hoco to steer
a chorus back toward public power.
she must reject your predecessor.
so's failed vision and embrace a proven model for
ensuring long island has reliable, affordable, and
renewable power.
why should long island rate pairs be forced to
pay 65 to $75 million more per year for public
private partnership that continually fails them?
u s the u s already has 2000 fully public
utilities are electric co-ops and we know they
work.
we don't need to guess on average, they're 13% more
affordable and have passed the average direct outage
duration times of private utilities.
public utilities also have more freedom to innovate.
many have expanded, renewable energy and
electric heat pumps more quickly than private
utilities.
and chattanooga's electric power board was the first
to invest in fiber optics, laying the groundwork for
world-class grid.
and that has reduced power outages by 60% and save
this city close to $60 million annually.
we know public ownership in and of itself is not a
panacea.
we also need robust democratic governance
mechanisms to ensure that the interest of workers
rate payers reliability and the environment are
balanced.
that's why I also support the proposal to add an
observatory and an elected light lipid board that
would foster public engagement.
people that are tired of spending hours at sham
public hearings, where they have no real voice or
influence this board has a choice to make vote in
favor of the contract and betrayed like this rate
pairs or cut ties with pcyc and commit to fully
public power on long islands.
I urge you to do the ladder.
thank you.
thank you, amber.
uh, next step is billy roberto.
uh, at this point, following billy, uh, there
are no other members of the public than currently
have their hands raised.
so I would encourage anyone that is here that
has not yet spoken that would like to please raise
your hand.
now we're going to bring billy in right now.
good evening.
my name is billy [inaudible].
I'm a member of mothers out front and have been a
homeowner in huntington station for 25 years.
I have lived through life, a key keyspan like the
national grid and lipid pc.
and I can tell you the public private model does
not work.
how many times does the model have to fail before
we rejected in favor of a fully public liper?
yes, this contract is better than the previous
one, but a less flawed contract cannot fix a
totally flawed model.
I will not belabor what has gone wrong.
others.
I've already done that.
what I will do is share my vision of what we need
from an electric utility and what life it can be.
if the cheapest one is the one we don't use, then the
cheapest private partner is none.
libre can do better as a municipal utility, but how
we redesign lipase key.
that is why I'm part of the re-imagined life.
a coalition.
we are calling on governor hochul to support us in
pursuing a path to an innovative, fully public
utility model.
the light by electric rate payers.
I believe that with the legislation being prepared
with the help of re-imagined lipid
coalition, we can have a light, but that will
become all we needed to be.
we need a customer focused utility that is
accountable, reliable, transparent, and equitable
with more public input and better leadership in
decarbonizing our buildings.
we need a light bulb that answers to its customers.
we need leadership focused on moving aggressively
towards electric electrification and the
greening of our grid.
our future lies in electrification.
and for that, it needs to be reliable and renewable.
we need to revise the rate structure and make it
totally transparent.
as it stands now, delivery and service charges are
skewed lower for fossil fuel users and higher for
all electric homes.
as the state moves into electrifying all business,
all buildings, we must have a rate structure that
shortages customers for what it actually costs to
deliver service.
this should be the same for both me and my
neighbors, but I pay more because I heat with an
electric heat pump volume metric consumption costs
can be recovered via charge, separate from the
delivery charge.
your current rate plan for 2022 creates a quote solar
tax for new solar adopters.
if instead, the basic service charge a per day
rate included all the costs associated with the
operation and maintenance of electric grid,
including the cost of debt service and the transition
to a new bubbles, but not the amount of kilowatt
hours consumed.
it would create a level playing field for all.
after all those with net metered solar systems like
me utilize the grid to and should pay for its upkeep,
as it is those who make this transition early,
like me are being penalized by the system
charges.
while those who remain on fossil fuels are
unintentionally incentivized to stay on
them.
this works against the goals of the climate
leadership and community protection act and light
bulb because the leica will benefit from the
increased consumption as electrification advances.
I trust that as we move into the future, both
municipalization and a new rate structure will be
instituted for the betterment of our children
and their children.
thank you.
thank you, billy.
uh, we did have one additional hand raised a
christian array.
we were going to bring in right now.
here we go.
hi, my check.
cool, good evening.
my name is krishna house and I am the co-chair of
suffolk county.
dss looked so a working group, suffolk county dsa
is a full partner in the public power, new york
coalition and to re-imagine the lipid
campaign, the lipid board members zoned findings
after tropical storm [inaudible] are enough to
disqualify pisa from handling our electric
grid.
yet the lipid board is poised to hand it right
back to the company that failed to take care of it
further.
the board determined that repairs can save nearly a
billion dollars over the next decade.
if it terminated the contract with pcyc, they
therefore have the responsibility to explain
why that money will be going to management fees
and not improving our infrastructure.
there are forms list open the terms of the contract
are positive, but we have no confidence that they
will be fully implemented.
pcyc has continued to lie and slow roll.
its promised improvements after sies and we are
still left in the lurch.
tonight is the only say we like the repairs we'll
have in the decision.
when we spoke last summer, we were nearly unanimous
and asking them like, [inaudible] full
municipalization.
yet you members of the light bulb board ignored
us.
when governor cuomo called you listen officially,
cuomo's no longer in charge yet.
this contract has his fingerprints all over it.
now with less than a month until your terms expire,
you're carrying out the disgrace governors
commands without second thought.
fortunately, when you municipalize, we will end
the days of points of boards that ignore to
people.
and we will democratize like was born then and
will be cleared that if anyone wants to take
leadership of our electric grid, they will have to
listen to liberate pairs, not political leaders.
thank you.
thank you, christian.
okay.
this time we have no one else lined up in the queue
to speak one last opportunity for anyone
that may have missed the raise hand function in
zoom.
okay.
being none on tom, I will turn it back over to you
to close.
I just want to thank everybody for spending
your evening or a good portion of it with us
talking about electricity.
as I started off with york, my kind of crowd
that you want to spend your evening talking about
electric.
uh, when I go home, my wife doesn't have the same
level of interest that I get here.
so I really appreciate it.
uh, and thank you for contributing to our public
dialogue.
uh, we will be, uh, conveying this material,
uh, on our website.
we will also be accepting additional public comment
at our december 15th meeting and in writing.
so if you're no anyone that wants to contribute
that wasn't able to make it tonight.
uh, we have a couple more opportunities, but with
that really appreciate everybody coming out.
your thoughts are important, especially when
I acknowledge many of you that have been, uh,
consistently interested reading reports, uh,
showing up at board meetings, contributing to
the public dialogue for a very long period of time.
and you are heard.
so with that, thank you very much.
and I look forward to continuing our conversation.