Politics & Government
Town, Village Officials Implore Public to Help Fight LIPA Plant Assessment Challenge
Officials want state to nullify LIPA's assessment challenges in pending legislation.
In the shadow of the Northport Power Plant Tuesday, Town of Huntington, Northport, and Asharoken officials implored the public to help stop LIPA's tax assessment challenge in its tracks.
“With less than two weeks left in the current legislative session," Supervisor Frank Petrone said, "it is important that Town residents act now to tell their representatives in Albany that they must stop, once and for all, the prospect of the devastating tax increases LIPA seeks.”
Officials are calling for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to include language to stop all of LIPA's assessment challenges in pending legislation to restructure LIPA. Petrone asked residents to help in the following ways:
- Call the Governor’s Hotline at 855-693-8690. Tell Governor Cuomo that the Town of Huntington has kept its commitment to freeze the assessment on the Northport Power Station and now LIPA must also live up to its pledge not to file assessment challenges if there is no change in assessment. T
- Sign the online petition on the Town’s website. Go out to the website – huntingtonny.gov -- and look for the Stop LIPA Tax Hike button on the rotating ribbon at the bottom of the page. Click on that and look for the widget on the right side of the Stop LIPA Tax Hike page. Or go directly to http://www.huntingtonny.gov/content/13753/23144/default.aspx
- Email the Governor and the State Legislative Delegation. The Stop LIPA TAX Hike page on the Town’s website includes the text of a suggested letter that residents can paste into their email as well as the email addresses for the Governor and our local legislators
"If we lose the certiori, we're talking in the realm of $270 million that would have to be paid back to LIPA. Going forward we're talking about somewhere in the area of a 15 percent tax increase for every Huntington resident and a 60 percent tax increase for residents of the Northport-East Northport School Distict," Petrone said.
"We're willing to keep the assessment at this level and to not reassess it further. They've been a decent neighbor and certainly we need power here. We have a well-functioning plant here and it can be repowered. We're asking for that as a solution to their tax dilemma."
Northport-East Northport Board of Education President Stephen Waldenburg added, "I know what this community was promised back then when it was sited here: That LILCO would be a good neighbor and support its community, and for that the community would welcome it into its midst. As i've said before, these challenges are slap in the face to that promise made many years ago and I welcome the efforts of Frank Petrone and the Town of Huntington and ask all the community to take action as indicated."
LIPA has maintained that savings from a reassessment would be passed onto LIPA customers. They said earlier this month they plan to appeal a recent state supreme court decision that upheld the town's right to sue against the assessment challenge.
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