Editorial

Shelter Island Reporter editorials: Vigilance

REPORTER FILE PHOTO Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. blasted PSEG today for its proposed rate hikes.
REPORTER FILE PHOTO
Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. blasted PSEG today for its proposed rate hikes.

While town officials continue to hail a good relationship with PSEG and express optimism about finding an acceptable solution to providing reliable backup power to the Island, neighbors to our north and south are not so happy.

There continues to be a blizzard of complaints from them about how they’ve been treated by the utility company that took over the Long Island Power Authority responsibilities a year ago.

Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. has let loose both barrels on the New Jersey-based company for enhancing its profits while failing to adequately respond to needs of its Eastern Long Island customers .

Mr. Thiele is not an alarmist. Rather, his pointed criticisms of PSEG have been sharp, steady and on target.

First came his barrage of complaints about PSEG failing to respond to concerns of residents in East Hampton and Southampton. Then financials from the power company revealed rate hikes far out of line with market prices of natural gas and debt unrelated to the closing of the Shoreham nuclear plant, but rather $799 million in new borrowing.

This week came warning of yet another hike — this one for delivery charges that Mr. Thiele projected would see company revenues increase by $72 million per year, while between 2016 and 2018 customers would absorb another 2 percent charge on their bills each year.

Mr. Thiele has appealed to his legislative colleagues to regulate the monopolistic utility company and put a stop to practices he said result in rate hikes, a lack of renewable energy initiatives and zero responses to customer complaints.

Shelter Island officials continue to ignore the signs all around them and sing the praises of PSEG just as they did with LIPA — the company that brought the errant Bortech to town to botch the last attempt at providing reliable backup power.

It’s often true that you catch more flies with honey, but sweet-talking PSEG may not be the wisest move to ensure the company takes the best route to providing vital backup power.

Skugg sounds off
Another leader weighed in loud and clear about an issue he couldn’t keep quiet about. Shelter Island School Superintendent Leonard Skuggevik went after Governor Andrew Cuomo and his proposals to increase the percentage on teachers’ evaluation scores to how students perform on standardized tests.

Mr. Skuggevik, a former history teacher, called out the governor for a ham-fisted method of evaluating teachers, looking mainly at scores and not using any nuance to discover how a teacher’s work in the classroom is progressing.

In trying to remove incompetent educators, the governor is proposing a baby-and-bathwater solution, and we salute Mr. Skuggevick for calling for more individual — and local — evaluations.