On February 17, 2009, Street Corner Conservative filed a Freedom of Information Request with NYPA to receive, among other things, Richie Kessel’s “schedule and/or calendar kept and compiled on a daily basis” from September 23, 2008 through and including February 13, 2009.

Mary Jean Frank, NYPA’s Associate Corporate Secretary, replied to the request on February 24, 2009 and said NYPA “will advise you whether your request will be granted on or about March 10, 2009.”

On March 10, 2009, Ms. Frank e-mailed this excuse: “Because of the potential number of records that may be responsive to the remainder of your request, Authority staff will need an additional period of time to identify, locate, retrieve and review any such responsive records and will contact you on or about May 6, 2009 with the status of your request.”

WHAT NONSENSE! To e-mail Richie Kessel’s daily calendar for his first four months in office should take under 5 minutes.

Richie Kessel, who purports to be a transparent reformer, obviously is stonewalling the FOIL request for his calendar. That’s because he spends very little time in the White Plains office or upstate on NYPA business. He is too busy pursuing his personal political agenda on Long Island. NYPA employees claim he doesn’t even show up at the White Plains office to pick up his pay stub.

Richie Kessel recently told Dan Janison of Newsday (March 19, 2009), “Most of the time I’m upstate. I’m on Long Island sometimes because of energy projects that impact Long Island…. But a preponderance of my time and effort are aimed at upstate.”

Which is it Richie: Do you spend most of your time upstate or spend most of your time on Long Island thinking about upstate?

Richie Kessel quit hiding behind your corporate secretary. Be a man and release your calendar.

Street Corner Conservative wants to thank the many dedicated and hard working NYPA employees who have provided information concerning their absentee CEO, Richie Kessel.

The Niagara Gazette (March 5, 2009) reports that NYPA was planning to file for a 13 percent electrical rate increase as NYPA CEO Richie Kessel was permitting Governor Paterson to raid $750 million from NYPA’s coffers to fund the State’s operating deficit.

Richie Kessel, New York’s leading political hack, has not only violated his fiduciary responsibility, he has deceived ratepayers.

When Kessel recommended that NYPA’s board approve the $750 million giveaway – without any legal requirement to repay – Kessel said, “the move will not result in layoffs or rate hikes for consumers.”

Niagara County legislator, Majority Leader Richard Updegrove, publicly rejected this claim pointing out that “On the very day that the Senate Democrats agree to sweep $750 million from the power authority, the same power authority was drafting a letter informing us that they are going to request a rate hike.”

Instead of using the surplus $750 million to maintain or lower consumer electrical rates, Kessel squandered the money. Kessel will do anything to please his political masters and their favored lobbyists. And that includes running NYPA into the ground, just as he did LIPA.

This article I wrote appears in the New York Post on March 3, 2009.

“It’s a voluntary contribution we’re making.  If NYPA didn’t do this, they’d have to get funding someplace else.”  NYPA CEO Richie Kessel quoted in The Buffalo News, February 7, 2009.

On the morning of Tuesday, February 3, Richie Kessel, the new CEO and President of NYPA sat, alone, in front of a videoconference camera in Westbury, Long Island.  In light of the import of the matters to be considered by NYPA that day Richie wore a billowing light-colored, short-sleeved polo shirt and chinos.  Kessel, a full-time, highly compensated chief executive, declined to travel the 21 miles from Westbury to NYPA headquarters in White Plains so he plugged in at public expense from Westbury Expedite studio in Nassau County.

Kessel and the NYPA Board were gathered to discuss and consider the transfer of $488 million of NYPA funds to the State to help bridge a budget deficit of about $1.6 billion in the current budget year and $14 billion in the next.

Kessel and the NYPA Board approved two separate transfers of $318 million in fiscal years 2009 and 2010 pursuant to a memorandum of understanding and a “voluntary contribution” of $170 million.  Bank of America, Ernst & Young and Hawkins Delafield & Wood advised NYPA and the preordained approval of transfer of NYPA’s excess funds to the State was duly obtained although three members of the then six-member NYPA Board voted no or abstained.  So, instead of reducing electric rates to hard-pressed upstate manufacturers, Kessel’s NYPA threw its excess funds into the State budget maw.

NYPA will receive no interest on the amounts transferred and there is no obligation on the part of the State to repay the money except that the Division of the Budget has generously agreed to include a request to the Legislature for appropriation of the funds in the future.  Indeed, it was pointed out at the meeting that the State had not promised, nor was there a general obligation, to repay the funds.  Whether the Legislature will in fact deign to repay those funds at some future date; whether the State will then have the wherewithal to repay those amounts; and how badly the inflation, expected to follow the current federal super fiscal stimulus will erode the purchasing power of the advanced funds are all open questions.  Some observers wonder whether the discredited rating agencies will arise from their decade-long slumber and consider the impact on NYPA’s credit rating.  As every schoolchild knows, a reduction in the authority’s rating would lead to an increase in NYPA’s cost of money.

Interestingly, having made the voluntary contribution deal with the Governor’s office, Kessel was silent during the meeting except for one perfunctory question but, as is his practice, spoke to Tom Precious of The Buffalo News following the meeting and provided the typically blustery quote included above.

A colloquy between two NYPA trustees may indicate that more avaricious designs on NYPA cash await:  The newly appointed Vice Chair assured the Board and public that NYPA could endure a “50% decline in revenues or more” and maintain its credit ratings or at worst experience a slight downgrade after the approved transfers suggests to some that he believes NYPA has more to give.  An upstate trustee responded that NYPA would have to be “more stringent in the future with respect to these ‘voluntary contributions’ and whether they met the “deemed feasible and advisable test” of State law.

NYPA bondholders, customers and rating agencies should worry whether the State, having been temporarily sated by this tasty $488 million morsel to solve the relatively small current year deficit, will now move to consume other cash amounts on the NYPA balance sheet to fill the yawning $14 billion deficit in the upcoming fiscal year.  A review of the NYPA financials reveals additional decommissioning and other cash balances available for the taking.

Finally, after the vote on these questionable cash transfers, one member of Kessel’s staff reported, as previously requested, that, yes, NYPA had bought the trustees Directors and Officers Insurance.  Given the next demands that are likely to come from the Governor’s Office, a healthy D&O policy seems well advised.

Street Corner Conservative will be watching the other monies held by NYPA which are at risk as long as Kessel remains at NYPA and will keep its readership posted.

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 the whereabouts during business hours of the peripatetic CEO of NYPA, Richie Kessel, who is solely focused on spending time in his native habitat, Nassau County.

Specifically, Street Corner Conservative has demanded access to Kessel’s schedule, phone logs and information about NYPA’s proposed merger with LIPA that Kessel has been pursuing.

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 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. Copies of the schedule and/or calendar kept and compiled on a daily basis by or on behalf of the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NYPA from September 23, 2008 through and including February 13, 2009;

2. Phone logs of calls from and to the President and CEO of NYPA from September 23, 2008 through and including February 13, 2009;

3. Information as to each NYPA facility or office the President and CEO of NYPA was physically present in during each business day of the period from September 23, 2008 through and including February 13, 2009;

4. Information and records as to discussions, memoranda, financial and analyses and information as to any proposed merger, consolidation, combination or other transaction of any kind between or among NYPA and the Long Island Power Authority created (whether or not by or on behalf of NYPA) from September 23, 2008 and through and including February 13, 2009.

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