Opinion

A HACK IS BACK

GOV. Paterson is poised to hire Richie Kessel to run the New York Power Authority – with likely disastrous consequences for Upstate.

NYPA mainly handles Upstate’s power needs – and Kessel is a big reason Long Island power is so pricey.

Newly elected Gov. Eliot Spitzer forced him out as Long Island Power Authority chairman and CEO just last year.

Kessel whined and lobbied both sides the aisle to keep the post, but Spitzer held firm. After all, Kessel was the Pataki administration’s favorite Democratic lackey.

A political ne’er-do-well, Kessel has worked for state government virtually his whole life. The Pataki team doubtless saw him as so desperate to be seen as a Long Island player that he’d always do as he was told to keep his LIPA job.

Under Kessel’s leadership, LIPA rate hikes made Long Island even less competitive compared to the rest of the nation and were a major factor in the near-final exodus of Long Island manufacturing jobs.

Kessel wasted millions of dollars on a boondoggle wind farm off Jones Beach – a project that hired one of his political patrons, Al D’Amato. Meanwhile, LIPA ignored opportunities to pay down the crushing $6 billion debt from the Shoreham nuclear plant.

Of course, back when he was Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo’s man on the LIPA board, Kessel was instrumental in the decision to shut down the Shoreman plant after those billions had gone into its construction – but before it could open.

The state comptroller’s office reported that, on Kessel’s watch, LIPA ignored laws requiring bids for contracts over $5,000, and used customer money to pay a Republican lobbying organization $45,000 to conduct political polling.

He retained both Republican Kieran Mahoney and Democrat Patricia Lynch to represent the state authority in Albany at taxpayer expense.

Kessel was also the subject of a state Inspector General investigation that focused on his possible violation of state law for holding both the chair and CEO positions at LIPA in violation of the Public Authority Accountability Act. The outcome of that investigation, begun under Spitzer, has never been disclosed.

Upstate businesses and consumers should be terrified of a Kessel appointment. It’s not simply that he utterly lacks business sense and experience – Richard Kessel is obsessively interested in having his picture in the paper, and completely uninterested in lowering rates.

If he goes ahead with this appointment, Paterson will be sending a clear message to Upstate: Drop dead.

George J. Marlin, a LIPA customer, is the author of “Squandered Opportunities: New York’s Pataki Years.”