Greenport business owners plan to attend Monday night’s Greenport village board meeting to speak their minds about what they believe is a lack of “integrity and honesty” on the part of village government.
Rena Casey-Wilhelm, a local shop owner said, based on “gross conflicts of interest, blatant violations regarding the village’s code of ethics,” it’s time for more individuals to step up and get involved in village government. Casey-Wilhelm said she plans to attend Monday’s meeting of the Greenport Village board, which will take place at 6 p.m. at the Third Street Firehouse, to let her voice be heard.
The controversy began, Casey-Wilhelm said, over a recent electric rate hike that had many residents and business owners incensed.
“I want real answers to the electric rate debacle,” Marc LaMaina, a Greenport business owner, said Monday.
At a recent meeting, Greenport Village Mayor David Nyce spoke to the public to explain what had transpired after the village agreed to purchase transmission congestion charges from the New York Power Authority at a fixed rate. Those funds, he said, had to be paid in advance.
Nyce then explained what he said had happened next, including a conflict involving the village’s past utilities director Jack Naylor, who had, he said, informed him of a required test at the power plant that had never been performed.
The mayor said NYPA told him that penalties, to the tune of $108,000, would be levied due to the missed test.
At the meeting, Nyce said the village would have to shoulder some of the blame for the missed test, but said such a situation would never happen again.
During past months, Greeport residents have cried out over soaring electric bills that Swiskey said, at one point had spiked 80 percent.
Another snafu developed, Nyce said, due to the fact that the money the village was taking from TCC charges should have been amortized over 24 months and instead, a 12-month formula was used.
In additon, October was also the last month for which the village faced wheeling charges from Con Edison, the mayor said. Both factors led to the steep bill hike, he said.
The problem has since been found and identified, with a plan for the future in place, the mayor said.
Resident Bill Swiskey told the mayor at the time, and at subsequent meetings, that blame should be placed solely on the village board; he has since asked why the ratepayers should be forced to bear the $108,000 burden.
LaMaina expressed his discontent with the simmering situation in the village. “If my fridge broke, I would hire someone to fix it. I would test it after they fixed it. If it wasn’t working they would fix it again. I wouldn’t fill it with product, turn it on and leave. And then when all my product goes rotten I wouldn’t take the food cost out of my employees paychecks. And wouldn’t imagine taking it out of their paycheck and not telling them beforehand.”
Casey-Wilhelm agreed. “When the controversy of a $108,000 penalty imposed onto village residents and business owners began to boil without a truthful explanation from the village administration, I could no longer remain silent,” she said. “For me, it is about getting back to basics. Honesty and integrity is a nice place to start.”
Nyce did not immediately respond to a request for a for comment.
