STOP KESSEL BEFORE HE WASTES MILLIONS MORE

Congressman Brian Higgins (D-Buffalo) is to be commended for the public service he has performed by highlighting waste at Richie Kessel’s NYPA and for proposing that Western New York receive directly the benefits of the regions’ hydropower patrimony.  Last month, Higgins proposed that about 36% of the net revenue from the Niagara Power Project’s sale of hydropower be taken from Kessel’s control and directed to WNY economic development.  It’s about time.  NYPA itself has confessed that less than half that percentage remains in Western New York.

State Senator Darrell Aubertine (D), Chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, also deserves kudos for his proposal to create a North Country Power Authority and replace NYPA in St. Lawrence and Franklin counties in Senator Aubertine’s district.

After less than a year of Kessel’s “leadership” marked by an unprecedented divided vote on his selection as CEO, a stinging public rebuke from Governor Paterson, more coverage of Long Island by NYPA, an upstate utility, than by Macy’s and a growing Dump Kessel Movement—leading members of Kessel’s own Democratic party in Congress and the State Senate are moving to emasculate NYPA.

Thanks to our correspondents who pointed out Higgins’ cool, detached non-endorsement of the grossly wasteful Yahoo! Deal announced by Kessel on June 30.  In the Yahoo! Press release, Higgins did not speak to the Yahoo! giveaway but rather reiterated his belief that Western New York’s energy patrimony be kept in the region and not controlled by a NYPA run by a Long Islander.

Specifically, thanks to the intrepid reporting of The Buffalo News, we know that NYPA is paying Yahoo! as much as $800,000 per job which is multiples higher than the average NYPA subsidy and wealth destructive to the State and the region in every respect.  The sole beneficiaries are Kessel’s growing press apparatus and Yahoo! senior management who pulled one over on Kessel.  One can only assume that when Yahoo! googled Kessel’s history of rolling over for LILCO and energy companies and vendors on Long Island, the company was heartened and encouraged to ask for the moon.

As reported in The Buffalo News and Street Corner Conservative, energy hungry data centers in remote areas don’t generate Silicon Valley-type spinoffs but are sited in undeveloped areas with cheap, subsidized power for geographic diversification to protect the integrity of the Yahoo! System and receive the public subsidy to power and cool power hungry servers.

Finally, Street Corner Conservative notes that, as it predicted, Kessel’s premature announcement of the Yahoo! deal resulted in a loss of the State’s leverage and the bestowing of additional State and local subsidies on Yahoo!  Street Corner Conservative estimates that additional subsidy at about $40 million.  So, if additional evidence were needed, Congressman Higgins’ proposal is spot on and taking NYPA profits away from the innumerate and media hungry Kessel is sound policy.  Street Corner Conservative will be tracking the progress of the proposals by Higgins and Aubertine.

THE KESSEL COUNTDOWN: ­539 DAYS UNTIL RICHIE KESSEL IS FIRED BY THE NEW GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK.

Notes and Asides

Did Richie Kessel Violate State Law and NIFA’s Code of Ethics by Making Local Campaign Contributions?

Sections 73 and 74 of State Public Officers Law as well as the Code of Ethics of the Nassau Interim Finance Authority require minimum standards of conduct by appointed public officers, such as Richie Kessel.  The law proscribes the actions of public officers to avoid actual and perceived conflicts of interest.  Richie’s NYPA resume boasts that he served as Chairman for a number of years and a Board Member of NIFA from 2000 until his resignation from NIFA on December 31, 2007.  Over that period, Kessel was responsible for the State agency that was charged with overseeing Nassau County’s budgets, taxes, finances, borrowing and financial plans.  So, one would expect that Richie would avoid political entanglements in the County during service on the NIFA Board.  In fact, contrary to sound practice, good public policy and perhaps State law and NIFA’s Code of Ethics—that he himself voted to approve—Kessel made multiple political contributions during his NIFA service to Democratic members of the County Legislature, the very body charged with approving the County budget that NIFA would annually review, critique and possibly reject.

The facts are these: Kessel made eight separate contributions to six Democratic members of the majority party in Nassau County Legislature while serving on the NIFA Board, in each case in the months leading up to the election of the County Legislature.  Legislators Roger Corbin, David Denenberg (one contribution while Richie was at NIFA and another weeks later), Judy Jacobs, former Presiding Officer (three contributions).  Joe Scannell, Wayne Wink and Diane Yaturo (the current Presiding Officer) were also beneficiaries of Richie’s political largesse. Inappropriate and unseemly?  Definitely.  Illegal?  Street Corner Conservative will leave that determination to the appropriate authorities.  Violative of NIFA’s Code of Ethics?  Street Corner Conservative’s read of the Code suggests that there is a real question as to whether Kessel’s multiple political contributions directed solely to majority members of the County Legislature in an election year was permissible under the NIFA Code.

But these questionable political contributions raise many questions:  Did Kessel exert pressure on these Legislators? Did the past Chairman of NIFA and LIPA extract any concessions with respect to NIFA business and perhaps other matters, public or private? What message did Kessel’s contributions, including to the current and past Presiding Officer of the Legislature, send to other Democratic members of the Legislature who were not similarly funded by Richie?  What message did Kessel intend to send to minority members of the Legislature?  Ultimately, was the County’s relationship with NIFA on budgetary and the County’s sky-high taxes affected by these contributions?  These questions demand investigation.

NOTE TO READERS:  Starting this week, The Kessel NYPA Watch will be on a fortnightly summer schedule.

THE KESSEL COUNTDOWN: ­559 DAYS UNTIL RICHIE KESSEL IS FIRED BY THE NEW GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK.