Association for a Better Long Island (ABLI) Urges Long Island Ratepayers to Confront Candidates over “Dracula Power Plants”

The Association for a Better Long Island (ABLI) is urging Long Island voters being courted by politicians in the last days of Election 2016, to confront candidates regarding the continued illegal over-assessment of power plants that, if corrected, would decrease the average consumer’s energy bills by 15%.

“These over-assessed plants are Long Island’s version of Dracula,” stated ABLI Executive Director Desmond Ryan. “They are sucking the lifeblood out of our economy, extracting over half a billion dollars every year from the ratepayer to pay for PILOTs (payment in lieu of taxes) to school districts that host these aging plants.”

Ryan explained, “Power plants in Northport, Port Jefferson, Far Rockaway and Island Park are industrial relics, but their real estate taxes, passed on to all of us, deceptively state they are worth multi-billions in fair market value. It’s a sham when the only thing being generated by those facilities is political power designed to prevent them from being closed and dismantled.”

He noted that these illegal assessments, coupled with the Shoreham nuclear plant debt, raise our rates 37% before anyone even flips a switch for power. That 37% is distributed to a handful of school districts that are now dependent on the over-assessments.

Ryan is urging voters to confront every state lawmaker running for office this Fall and ask them what their position is on addressing this enormous financial burden borne by every ratepayer.

“This is about simple math, fairness, and the extraordinary financial burden borne by everyone outside those communities that are home to these defunct plants. For example, the Port Jefferson facility alone is so over-assessed and underused that ratepayers from Montauk to Floral Park are now subsidizing the Port Jefferson school district to the tune of $27 million every year. That sucking sound is your money being drained from your disposable income.”

Ryan is insisting, “Our elected officials need to be compelled by voters to confront the harsh math evident in every LIPA bill. All Long Island ratepayers are literally paying for a handful of school districts’ dependency on the power plants’ illegal over-assessments of fair market value. Lawyers seeking to block a fair resolution of this crisis only stall the end game while homeowners suffer and businesses debate looking for cheaper areas to relocate their corporations.”

The ABLI executive director says the only way forward is to force elected officials to “take the pledge to kill Dracula. These plants need to stop sucking out the economic blood of our region. The political will required to do so will be found by voters who understand the threat and take matters into their own hands in the voting booth.”