Hervey resigns from LIPA (Huntington, Nassau: 2014, attorney, salaries)

[twingles]

Cuomo was talking about Jon Kaiman as a replacement...yeah...that will work.

[lvoc]

Originally Posted by Pequaman

This board is a disgrace! It IS the ABSOLUTE epitome of corrupt big gov't NY style political cronyism!

They put venture capitalists, lawyers, an OTB guy (an OTB guy!), a special ed teacher, health care exec, and an accountant in charge of LIPA?! All these political crony hacks to run one of the most, if not the most, crucial utility on Long Island. This must be some kind of sick joke! I'm stunned - and speechless.

They don't run it. They actually represent the public to be sure it is run right.

Now don't misunderstand that is not an endorsement that they did it right or well.

And in fact things like 25 year old computer systems controlling recovery and logistics would indicate they did not do well.

But the actual performance is inevitably do to the quality of the leadership.

Look up Pat Mulroy...who runs the water system in Las Vegas.

I don't much like Pat...having spent some years in battle with her. And she is not always right. But she would know if she had a computer system that needed to be fixed and would have gotten it done.

So go after the director or the leader. And get rid of the board if they did not pay attention to who had the job.

[LongIslandEddie]

Originally Posted by nuts2uiam

I respectfully disagree. IMO in order to plan effectively you need to have an understanding of the subject matter, having bean counters determine what to do in a storm aftermath is fool hearty. I of course am not talking about the ruin of the mill guy next door electrician but a person who had the background to understand the bigger picture.

Creating a parallell universe between the recent presidential election, the handling of Sandy could be likened to the collapsed economy issue or,
proposing that Mitt Romney, the business man, would be better equipped to deal with our catastrophic rising debt, better than that,
`run-of-the-mill Obama guy. The bigger picture has been visible to LIPA for too long for them to be dealing with aftermath issues, the barn door
had rusted hinges and was was bound to go long before the horses ran off. The key word in your comment is planning, something that even America
has neglected to do for too long now, and if Katrina wasn't a `wake-up call to all of those who administrate, then we are fools to believe that things
will ever change. Romney had no plan prepared, Obama offered status-quo, LIPA has always been run as a "for profit" utility, an unregulated monopoly
which has been modeled after the methods of thieves and pirates, the `haves as versus the `have nots. Whenever I need to get in touch with the
`bigger picture, I roll a joint and smoke it, remove the veil over my eyes, and step through the mirror so that I can get a realistic understanding of the
subject matter. Us against them...

[OhBeeHave]

Originally Posted by VA Yankee

How big a separation package are they giving this smuck?

Golden parachute away!

[bubbathedog]

In today's NY Times, the article entitled
Suffering on L.I. as Power Agency Shows Its Flaws

is a good commentary on some of the major ills at LIPA and National Grid. It notes that LIPA has long been a great source of patronage jobs by our fine politicians, most of which are staffed with connected people who have absolutely no utility experience.


Frankly, LIPA should be cleaned out. Hervey is going, but everyone, the trustees included, should be asked (told) to leave. They have been negligent in their support of the Island's infrastructure while stealing huge buckets of rate payers' cash.

Frank Petrone, Huntington Town Supervisor, sums up the Sandy situation very well:
“The upper management couldn’t communicate with the middle management,” he said. “The middle management couldn’t communicate with the crews. And finally, when we had sufficient crews coming in — resources that should have been arranged before — they came in and had very little direction and they were flabbergasted at the condition of the infrastructure, the wiring, the entire system.”

[mongoose65]

Privatize the whole damn thing. Public entities do not invest in infrastructure or productivity. Visit any govt office on LI. It's 1997 at best. Typewriters, thermal faxes, etc. It's no surprise LIPA is running on a 25 yr old COBOL system. That's the public sector on LI. Every penny for salaries, pensions, benefits. Nothing for systems. Private companies need to be effective and productive so they INVEST in capacity and technology. Are they a nightmare to deal with? Of course. Is LIPA any better as a public entitiy? Any cheaper? Any more customer friendly? Nope.

Starting to be convinced that ALL OF LONG ISLAND will eventually be a patronage mill. A big employment Ponzi scheme.

[bubbathedog]

Originally Posted by mongoose65

<stuff snipped for brevity>

Starting to be convinced that ALL OF LONG ISLAND will eventually be a patronage mill. A big employment Ponzi scheme.

Absolutely... it's the only way to keep with the rising tide of prices, taxes, fees and surcharges. The rest of us idiots will be hustling until death, trying to keep up!

[BigMike50]

Just shuffle the deck and get ready for the next hand. Business as usual on L.I..... Like I said many times before...the game is rigged and the house always wins !

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by twingles

The dude has plenty of appropriate background - I think the organization as a whole is just inept. They can never seem to get anyone in there to lead - which means it's impossible to change the culture there for whatever reason.

What do you know about him?

From what I previously read on his bio on LIPA's webpage, it did not mention ONE other employer he had worked for besides LIPA and all he had was a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and a MBA, both degrees from non-notable schools and both degrees as common as dollar bills.

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Goodnight

He seemed to have decent credentials, electrical engineer, MBA, and a background in private power although the companies were not indicated. This is very bad timing he should have stuck it out because of the present situation. It has to be crazy for any CEO to have to deal with a Board of Trustees laden with political appointments of unqualified people, not one Electrical Engineer or anyone with a significant power background. Still can't believe they removed the detailed resumes for the bios.

Cuomo indicated he would conduct a really serious investigation, the first question is why he reappointed the same incompetent board members. This is not some agency that fell to earth, our elected officals that are complaining, are the same elected offials that appointed the management in LIPA. Why weren't more questions asked since Irene, why was Sandy a "test"??


Some of the Trustees experience ( they dropped from the LIPA website)

John Fabio - served since 2003, prior experience was at Nassau County OTB appointed by Silver
Suzanne Smookler - served since 2006, a distinguished career in health care appointed by Skelos

I found the bios of the rest of the board that was removed from the LIPA website, not one engineer, some cast of characters.

nassauotb: LiPa and Andrew Cuomo

I found it very suspicious no other employers were mentioned. What were they trying to hide? Who knows what he was really working as before LIPA. The degrees he had are as common as dollar bills.

Yes, the trustees were a bunch of political hack disasters with absolutely NO appropriate background. Reminds me of Bush's FEMA faux pas during Katrina -- remember "Brownie," Bush's friend who was the head of FEMA, whose last job before FEMA was being head of an Arabian Horse society? Ridiculous!