This week, the Huntington Town Board will decide whether to accept LIPA’s settlement offer. This petition is an effort to implore the board members to stand with the majority of the Huntington community and reject the offer.

Let’s review the facts surrounding this settlement for a moment:

1. LIPA issued an ultimatum during the dead of summer, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the midst of an economic collapse. If our Town Board accepts this settlement, under these terms, then we are signaling to LIPA that its acceptable to treat us like this.

2. The urgency of this settlement has been predicated on a lie: that should we not settle and lose in court, each and every taxpayer will owe immediately in a one-time back tax payment an amount no less than $10,000 to $25,000 next year. This was exposed as a lie last week and, this week, Supervisor Lupinacci was forced to walk back the lie. As described in the August 27, 2020 edition of the Northport Observer:

“Although they are on opposite sides of the settlement, Mr. Lupinacci and Mr. Marcantonio concur that it is the obligation of the county to initially pay the back taxes. ‘The Suffolk County Tax Act governs all refund liability, not the town, so in a worst-case scenario the county would have some very difficult decisions to make. It is their responsibility to pay any judgment first . . .’ Mr. Lupinacci said.”  

3. Without the immediate threat of back taxes being levied against the people of Huntington in the form of a one-time payment next year, the justification for settling under these horrific and rushed conditions is lost. Could we settle one day? Sure, but the risk of fighting on and receiving an adverse judgment in court is clearly not as stark as it would be if residents were faced with an immediate back tax payment.

4. This settlement is not a good deal. The settlement is providing the Town a series of PILOT payments, which as you know are less favorable to Huntington than a mere reduction in the assessed value of the plant. Under a PILOT payment structure, Huntington’s annual tax increases affect everyone but LIPA. Under an assessed value reduction structure, LIPA will pay more over time at a lower assessed value.

5. The entire process has been tainted with deceit, highlighted by the fact that the town hired Mercury Public Affairs, a PR firm that is currently under contract to lobby for PSEG and has worked with National Grid in the past. Not only do they lobby for PSEG, but they have targeted legislation such as Senator Jim Gaughran’s bill to eliminate the back taxes. They work to directly benefit LIPA, and now the town is using them to sell this deal to unknowing residents.

6. We don’t know all the details. All we have is a term sheet. But a term sheet from a government agency that has continually and blatantly lied to us. Whether it’s the original promise made in 1997 or more recently the fake deadlines imposed on us, all LIPA does is lie. So given that fact, why would we believe them now? How many times are we going to trust them just to have it blow up in our face? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

LIPA has been attempting to extort us for over a decade. We have held strong up until this point, and thankfully we did because we are in a better position than we were just a couple of years ago. Now is not the time to give up. Not when thousands of Huntington residents are struggling during a global pandemic and massive economic uncertainty. This settlement will hurt our schools, shutter small businesses and drive out lifelong residents.

We are asking the Huntington Town Board to fight for us when so many of our leaders have abandoned us, like former Senator John Flanagan and former Assemblyman Andrew Raia who quit in the middle of their terms. We are asking for board members, like Councilwoman Joan Cergol, to stand by their campaign promise to fight this LIPA tax heist.

Last year, in a courageous show of strength and understanding for the needs of her constituents, Councilwoman Cergol went so far as to expressly denounce her opponent, Andre Sorrentino, for his willingness to settle. In her October 30, 2019 letter to the residents of Northport and East Northport, which was published in the Northport Observer, she wrote that it was “deeply alarming that Mr. Sorrentino is so anxious to surrender to LIPA before he even begins,” and rightly criticized him for being “perfectly content with the idea of crippling, if not crushing, the Northport-East Northport School District.” She didn’t mince words. She wrote with clarity and conviction, describing her opponent’s support for settlement with LIPA as akin to “waving the white flag of surrender to LIPA as the Town remains in post-trial proceedings after making a sound and well-documented argument rejecting LIPA’s faulty appraisal of the Northport Power Plant.” She described her opponent’s claim that the LIPA case “should have been settled years ago” as “careless rhetoric” that “undermines the school district, the Town, our legal case, and the taxpayers” and was “music to the ears of LIPA CEO Tom Falcone and his LIPA Board.” She was right.

Last week, the Editor of the Observer newspaper, David Ambro, wrote that Councilwoman Joan Cergol will be the deciding vote for the September 3 Town Board decision on the LIPA settlement offer. According to the article, Councilwoman Cergol said that she still has not made up her mind on which way to vote. We hope that Councilwoman Cergol, along with the rest of the board, does not let us down.