Street Corner Conservative.com has filed a request under New York State Freedom of Information Law with the FOIL officer of the New York Power Authority requesting certain public records of NYPA relating to various activities and policies of the C.E.O. of NYPA, Richie Kessel.

Street Corner Conservative will keep its readers informed of NYPA’s response to the FOIL request.

The following is the text of the letter sent today to NYPA’s FOIL officer:

New York Power Authority
Office of the Secretary
123 Main Street, 15-M
White Plains, NY 10601

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am a taxpayer and resident of the State of New York and pursuant to New York Public Officer Law and the provisions of the regulations of the New York Power Authority (NYPA) adopted pursuant to the Public Officer Law (21 NYCRR Part 453), I demand access to the following records by email to me if possible:

1. Information and records as to contributions, grants, donations, sponsorships, payments and purchase of tickets (collectively, “Expenditures of NYPA Public Money”) to or from not-for-profit entities, colleges, universities and research centers (collectively, “Recipients of NYPA Public Money”) from NYPA or any subsidiary or affiliate for the period July 1, 2010 through and including December 31, 2010;

2. Information and records as to whether each Expenditure of NYPA Public Money to each Recipient of NYPA Public Money from NYPA or any subsidiary or affiliate for the period January 1, 2009 through and including December 31, 2010 was processed in full compliance with NYPA board or entity policy and procedure for Expenditure of Public Money;

3. For each Expenditure of NYPA Public Money which involved purchase of tickets for an event held outside a NYPA facility, provide the names and relationship to NYPA of each person who used the ticket purchased or acquired by or through the Expenditure of NYPA Public Money;

4. Information and records as to health insurance coverage or benefits or indemnification against health insurance liability or reimbursement of expenses of any such health insurance coverage provided now or at any time in the past to any present or former NYPA Board member;

5. The names, titles and salaries of each person hired by NYPA since September 30, 2008, excluding union members covered under a collective bargaining agreement with NYPA. Provide in addition to name, title and salary for each such hire whether

          a. the hire was to fill an existing vacant position/title as specifically reflected in the annual budget approved by the NYPA Board;

          b.  the vacancy was posted internally and/or externally; and

          c.  the position was newly created and did not exist prior to the hiring of such person;

6. The names, titles and salaries of each person who has been promoted to vice president or above by NYPA since September 30, 2008 and the three year salary history of each such person, excluding union members covered under a collective bargaining agreement with NYPA. Indicate whether each such promotion was considered by or approved by the NYPA Board; and

7. The names, titles and amount of increase in salary of each vice president or higher who has received a raise in his or her salary since September 30, 2008, excluding union members covered under a collective bargaining agreement with NYPA.

If all of the records I have requested cannot be e-mailed to me, please inform me by e-mail of the portions that can be e-mailed and advise me of the cost for reproducing the remainder of the records requested.

If the requested records cannot be e-mailed to me due to the volume of records identified as responsive to my request, please advise me of the actual cost of copying such records onto a CD-ROM, if that is possible.

Please advise me of the cost of providing paper copies of the requested records.

If my request is deemed to be too broad or not to reasonably describe the requested records, please contact me via e-mail so that I may clarify my request and, when appropriate, please advise me as to how NYPA records are filed, retrieved, or generated.

If for any reason any portion of my request is denied, please inform me of the reasons for the denial in writing and provide the name, mailing address, and e-mail address of the person to whom an appeal should be directed. Thank you for your expected cooperation.

Very truly yours,

George J. Marlin

Fool Me Once, Shame on You; Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me

When Kevin Law was appointed as CEO of the Long Island Power Authority following Governor Spitzer’s decision to fire Richie Kessel in 2007, one of the first and wisest things he did in surveying the damage and destruction wrought by Kessel was to request an opinion from then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo about various questionable actions undertaken by Kessel.

Among the actions AG Cuomo was asked to address was whether Kessel’s use of public monies at LIPA to fund various Long Island and other not-for-profits was proper.  As Newsday learned after persevering in its FOIL requests (sounds familiar) Kessel gave away well over $1 million of LIPA public money over the course of his term.

In October 2007, in response to Kevin Law’s request, AG Cuomo wrote that many of Kessel’s contributions were improper.  In a formal written opinion, the Attorney General wrote:

In the event, however, that a financial contribution does not directly relate to one of LIPA’s powers, duties, or purposes, then we believe it would fall outside LIPA’s authority to give. As a creature of statute, LIPA lacks powers not granted to it by express or necessarily implicated legislative delegation. While we recognize that the LIPA Act is to be liberally construed to effect its purposes, Public Authorities Law § 1020-gg, its purposes must in fact be served in order for LIPA’s acts to be authorized.

With respect to the charitable giving program, we find nothing in the powers, duties, or purposes of LIPA that renders improving community goodwill or the well-being of the community unrelated to the provision of electrical service as part of LIPA’s mission. Moreover, while LIPA has “all the powers necessary or convenient to carry out the purposes and provisions” of the LIPA Act, Public Authorities Law § 1020-f, we believe that increased goodwill is neither necessary nor convenient for complying with the provisions of or achieving the purposes of the LIPA Act. “Indeed, the beneficial corporate public relations generated by the largesse made in the name of public utilities essentially advances predominately the private interests of the utility corporations…and are too peripheral to the service interests of the ratepayers.” Furthermore, the charitable contribution program appears to conflict with the “sine qua non objective” of the LIPA Act, “to give LIPA the authority to save ratepayers money by controlling and reducing utility costs.” For these reasons, we are of the opinion that the charitable contribution program is not authorized.

AG Cuomo’s written opinion is available at this link:

 http://www.ag.ny.gov/bureaus/appeals_opinions/opinions/2007/formal/2007-F4.pdf

Street Corner has deleted case citations in the quote above for purposes of readability.

Here’s Street Corner Conservative’s question. Newsday reported extensively on the AG’s opinion at the time and Kessel declined to be quoted (a rarity since he lives to have his name in the paper), so Kessel was fully aware of the position of the AG on donations of public money for purposes unrelated to the mission of a State public authority. Therefore, since Kessel had knowledge of the law and then intentionally and recklessly spent hundreds of thousands of public money on sponsorships in no way related to the mission of NYPA, shouldn’t there be consequences, serious ones?