LIPA to hold hearings on its future direction Tuesday, Thursday

Long Island ratepayers will get the chance to weigh in on LIPA’s future direction as the first of two public hearings on whether it continues with PSEG starts on Tuesday.

LIPA for months has been considering options as it scrutinizes its relationship with PSEG Long Island in the wake of PSEG’s missteps during Tropical Storm Isaias. More than 535,000 customers experienced at least one outage for up to eight days, and PSEG was plagued by communication and computer problems that, LIPA found, predated the storm.

LIPA will either renegotiate a better contract with PSEG, find a new service provider, or manage the system itself by becoming a fully public utility with a beefed-up management team that takes on the unionized workforce of more than 2,000. LIPA has largely ruled out the notion of selling the system to an outside buyer.

PSEG, during a recent LIPA board meeting, said its systems are largely fixed and ready for the storm season, which starts June 1. But LIPA in a recent report said customers face "considerable risk" from not just buggy computer systems but PSEG’s New Jersey-centric management structure and other flaws.

Information about LIPA’s options (and to register for online hearings at 6 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday) can be found here.

Customers who can't make the public hearings but want to submit written comments directly to LIPA can do so here.

Groups favor public option

Groups who favor the public option say they plan to use the forums to advance the fully public power model, which they say will give customers more control over their energy destiny, while saving LIPA hundreds of millions of dollars. LIPA says it could save at least $80 million a year it now pays PSEG to manage the system.

Ryan Madden, the sustainability organizer for the Long Island Progressive Coalition, an activist group, in a statement said last week the "only" option is the fully public option.

"The LIPA Board must terminate its contract with PSEG, not solicit inquiry from other private providers, and instead commit to a new paradigm of energy management on Long Island," he said.

"These decisions should be made immediately after the May public hearings," he said. "Further delay is further time, money, and resources wasted on a utility model that is structurally unreliable, unaccountable, and more expensive."

Patrick Guidice, business manager of Local 1049 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents over 2,000 PSEG workers, said the union "hopes PSEG and LIPA can come to terms," but added the group would work with LIPA no matter which option is ultimately chosen. "We'll work with whatever the people of Long Island and the Power Authority look to do," he said, emphasizing that the union expects whichever group will protect its workers' jobs.

PSEG: Public-private partnership is best

PSEG, while acknowledging mistakes, "continues to maintain that a public-private partnership is the best option for Long Island customers," the company said in a recent statement, noting it has been "dedicated to improving system reliability and enhancing customer service while being an engaged and responsive community partner" since it took over in 2014.

When the state earlier this year held hearings on possible damages ratepayers suffered following the August storm, several PSEG contractors and union leaders representing PSEG workers spoke favorably about the company. Some public officials urged LIPA to give PSEG another chance.

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.