Metro

Shhhelly backs Cuomo’s use of secret texts

Sheldon Silver

Sheldon Silver (Reuters)

(
)

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver backs Gov. Cuomo’s decision to keep his communications with top members of his staff confidential.

“In my opinion, this is a ridiculous criticism,’’ Silver said of recent media attacks (a Times editorial yesterday, for example) on Cuomo’s use of a text-messaging system that leaves no record behind.

“A public official has a right to talk to his staff without it being open to the public,’’ Silver told The Post. “I believe a governor and members of the Legislature have a right to correspond with someone in confidence, in a way that is not reportable or traceable.

“It’s perfectly appropriate. If they speak on the telephone, would you expect someone to record it and send it out on the Internet? No. So what’s the difference?” asked Silver.

Some aides to Cuomo use words like “idiotic” and “preposterous’’ to describe the criticism, which has come without any suggestion of illegal or improper conduct by the governor’s administration.

They say the criticism is rooted in the unhappiness of liberal outlets with the governor’s unwillingness to fight for a Democratic takeover of the state Senate or a minimum-wage hike, and his apparent openness to permitting controversial “hydrofracking’’ drilling for natural gas in the Southern Tier part of the state.

*

The lights will soon go out on the Long Island Power Authority, the state-owned electric company and patronage bastion that oversees power delivery to 1.1 million customers in Nassau and Suffolk counties and in the Rockaways in Queens.

Cuomo’s administration, after picking a major New Jersey utility to be Long Island’s power provider, has ordered the the LIPA name be abolished, and directed that the authority cut its 100-member staff by at least 25 percent. A new state-controlled entity will be formed to take over LIPA’s few remaining tasks.

LIPA was never supposed to be a power-providing company.

It was created 26 years ago by then-Gov. Mario Cuomo and the Legislature to oversee the issuance of state bonds to pay for shutting down the privately owned Long Island Light Co.’s allegedly dangerous — but brand-new — $4.6 billion Shoreham nuclear-power plant.

Then, the authority oversaw the state’s acquisition of LILCO itself and evolved into Long Island’s sole power provider.

“LIPA metastasized into something it was never supposed to be,’’ said a source.