With LIPA working to restore power to some 14,000 customers in the dark 15 days after Hurricane Sandy hit Long Island, the power company is now facing legal action.
According to a report in Newsday, Melville attorney Kenneth Mollins was planning to file a class action lawsuit Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Nassau County against the Long Island Power Authority and National Grid. The suit charges the companies with negligence, reckless disregard and intentional failure, Newsday said.
“Long Islanders are being kept in the dark by LIPA,” Mollins told Newsday. “Long Islanders are tired of waiting. They want their power and want to know what’s going on.”
Specifics on the level of monetary damages being sought were not made public. Mollins, however, told Newsday that the class action suit could be “the biggest class-action ever filed.”
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of public rebukes against LIPA following Hurricane Sandy. The power provider has been chastised by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and numerous federal, state and local officials for what they said was LIPA’s poor response and poor communication as it worked to turn the lights back on across Nassau and Suffolk counties.
On Saturday, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone’s frustration with LIPA led him to sever communications with LIPA executives, and instead work directly with local substations across the County in an effort restore power to some 33,000 customers.
By Tuesday morning, slightly less than 4,000 LIPA customers in Suffolk were still without power. In Nassau, 11,265 customers remain without power.
There is a need to get the facts straight about this patronage mill that is run by NYS. Here are some good links: http://www.lipower.org/company/profile/mission.html http://www.lipower.org/company/profile/trustees-bios.html http://www.lipower.org/company/profile/transparency.html http://www.lipower.org/shoreham/history.html Ooh, transparency. :-) http://www.lipalies.com/Abridged%20History%20of%20LIPA.htm http://assembly.state.ny.us/Reports/Energy/199707/ http://www.osc.state.ny.us/press/releases/oct12/100312a.htm www.gfxtechnology.com/RICO.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/21/nyregion/l-taxpayers-still-losers-in-lilco-lipa-deal-496472.html
Prism2
For nothing... Just so the lawyer thinks he is a tuff guy..... Oooooooo I am so scared.....
i hope this lawsuit is about one thing and one thing only: accountability. LIPA has taken no accountability whatsoever since sandy hit over two weeks ago. they've blamed everyone but themselves for their poor handling of the situation. they have crews from out of state who are not being allowed to fix lines because LIPA employees won't let them. they have misled people over and over on what the issues seem to be and when they expect power to be restored. i mean for christs sake, they don't even let you speak to someone if you call!!!! you get an automated message that they're busy working to restore power so nobody can answer your call. this is not the sign of a well run, well operated organization. these are the signs of an incompetent company and when an organization is incompetent, it's the people at the top who've got to go. get them out of bed with state legislature and fix the problems effecting your constituents.
To help pay? Raise bottles 5 cent to 10, expand plastics included, give $ to "State" "Treemen". We don't have underground wires, so why do we ignore the above ground ones??? We did it to ourselves, folks! The storms took down the biggest and weakest trees, for us, ALREADY BEEN CLEARED OR SOON TO BE, lets keep the momentum, VOTE "Treemen" to save our power! IT IS SOCIETIES PROBLEM, NOT ONLY THE UTILITIES. I know, never gonna happen, right
Wait, don't Dead trees get removed, QUICKLY, like Dead people do, along side of the LIPA wire! Please see my post at 11:17 pm on Wednesday, November 14, 2012 for my ideas on trees and their impact to us ALL.
I'll add, Albany has always had a "rock in its pant pocket" for it's 2 more evolved islands, because they exist in the shadow of... And their feelings are still HURT, dammit. ;-p
They shun Nicolai Tesla, whose idea was to pass our AC voltage wirelessly to us, through the air! He had a lab (now growing rust) right here on LI! Nicolai Tesla, is why we have AC to our homes, not DC [like batteries] (proposed by Edison) . Fact is, AC transmits further distances, easier. Theoretically, as long as your "power receiver" is OK, and your home wiring too, and the "TESLA tower" near you was up, you get power. Let the wind blow 'eh? See, the problem is appears to be greed, or even someone with poor foresight creating our current system problems and dilemma's This [TESLA tech, now decades old] would eliminate, most tree problems, eliminate charging you for bigger, seemingly useless, management, eliminate charging you for a larger technical staff, [probably], eliminate charging you for a huge, [vulnerable on several fronts], too complex, costly to maintain, transmission network, to bring the power to you, and I bet other, "we can make more $$ if we", ideas. IMO