CEDX

Pension Reform for the Political Class - LIMBA meeting 19 February 2010

2010-02-19T12:02:19-05:00

Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick spoke to our LIMBA meeting today and here is the recap that I wrote:

LIMBA Meeting 19 February 2010 – The Hon. Michael Fitzpatrick, NYS Assembly

Pension Reform for the Political Class

Mr. Fitzpatrick arrived this morning to speak to us about what is wrong with New York State, and how to fix it. In a refreshing perspective, he described to us how the pension system for the Political Class works. In opening, he said if you want to change politics, you need to change the defined benefits plan pension system. (DBP). The path of least resistance is the road most often taken in Albany. DBPs are the place to focus on. Term limits are not the answer, because as we have seen, politicians move to find jobs within the patronage system as they are term limited out. This keeps them in the pension system and it operates at all levels of NYS government, from the state down to the town and village levels. Term limits don’t remove people from politics. Mr. Fitzpatrick handed out reprints of several articles that appeared in the Wall Street Journal ( Henninger, Merrick )and New York Post regarding political spending and benefits. He also called DBPs “Fiscal Carbon Monoxide”. Very few members of the public understand how the system works, and we need to get people to focus on the issue. Moving the Political Class to Defined Contribution Plans like 401K’s would clean up the system and eliminate the practice of “pension spiking”, where an official in the system moves to a high paying job for the last three years of their career to boost their pension.

Mr. Fitzpatrick is happy to be known as one of the most conservative assembly members and is sponsoring a pension reform bill. Right now, there is no incentive to be fiscally responsible in government. The unions and the government don’t really negotiate with one another for the common benefit, instead there is much public posturing and threats to oust the incumbent. The reform bill is designated A.06932. The bill would cap present pensions and introduce a Defined Contribution Plan for retirement. Changing the rules of the game is what is needed, and this bill will be a start on the road. Term limits don’t change the game rules, they simply force the players to find new spots. He gave the illustration of an elected official moving to a patronage job to boost that last three years of salary, which determines the pension payout.

Allowing pension contributions to be amortized over time, simply makes them more expensive and puts it on the governmental credit card. Government is operating on an antiquated business model and the time of reckoning is arriving quickly. Quoting Herb Stein, “Anything that can’t go on, won’t”. His bill is not addressing the vast majority of public employees yet, it is addressing the Political Class. He is expecting a fight over the State Constitutionality of the bill around the diminishment of benefits, and described a debate that he had with a staffer in the Comptroller’s office around this. His assertion is that if you don’t carve out the Political Class from DBPs, you will not change the culture of Albany. The Political Class will not do anything against their self-interest unless it is forced to.

The Assemblyman wound up his passionate pitch by emphasizing that pension reform is the place to start. As an ex-banker he understands the pension system, and how it works. The Political Class’s benefits are far outstripping the benefits available to the general public, and it is sowing the seeds of revolution. To have a healthy public sector, you need a healthy private sector, and the path that the government is on is the wrong direction. A Defined Contribution Plan stops the gaming of the pension system. Starting with the Political Class, create new tiers of pension systems, eventually moving the entire state employee system to Defined Contribution Plans. He closed with a plea to ask candidates for office their stand on the following question: “Should taxpayers continue to fund Defined Benefit Plans for Politicians?” and listen very carefully to their answers.

The Q&A portion of the program was excellent, as usual.

A question from Jovanna Little about Section 211 waivers prompted an explanation. A section 211 waiver is something that allows a pension collector to draw a salary from a new job, essentially double-dipping. This is often illustrated by the case of a police officer retiring from the force in their mid-forties and starting another career in the public sector while drawing their police pension. The Assemblyman related that the screams about these waivers will get louder as the fiscal walls keep closing in, and that State Senator Jeff Klein is leading the effort to close this loophole.

Once again, a revealing look at a subject that not many of us know about, but affects us all greatly. LIMBA offers you the chance to interact with knowledgeable people in positions of power for a very reasonable price. The heaviest price is getting an early start on a Friday morning, but it is well worth the effort.

LIMBA Meeting - Overview of Caithness Power Station

2010-01-23T13:58:08-05:00

Ross Ain and Harry Davitian of Caithness Energy came to LIMBA and gave us a virtual tour of the newest cleanest powerplant on Long Island.

We started the meeting with a remembrance of Rick Portes, from Pro Image Group, who started the videotaping of LIMBA meetings, and we are appreciative of his partner Bart Pellegrino continuing this effort.

Ross Ain opened the talk with a description of what the plant does and the technology it uses, a combined cycle plant. He described the gas turbine primary generation process, and then the recovery process from the exhaust gas. The heat recovery process generates steam to power another turbine and generator set. Taking the 1100 degree exhaust gas and cooling it to about 350 degrees makes the steam to turn the second turbine. The capacity of the plant is 350 Megawatts, about 10% of Long Island’s total average demand, and covers about 5% of peak summer load.

Caithness also has an important difference in cooling the steam to recycle it that differs from the older plants. Once through cooling is used in Northport, in and out to the Long Island Sound, killing fish and producing thermal pollution. Evaporative cooling is used at the Holtsville plant, which consumes a large amount of ground water. Caithness uses 95% less water than an evaporative cooling power plant uses. The method is similar to a home airconditioner’s refrigerant cooling system and consumes about 35 gallons per minute.

The primary fuel is Natural Gas, but is allowed to burn a liquid fuel up to 30 days a month.

By far, Caithness is the cleanest plant on Long Island, measured in Carbon Monoxide and Nitrous Oxides by virtue of its Natural Gas fuel and catalytic scrubbing of the exhaust. The exhaust stack is 175 feet high, much lower than other plants. It doesn’t have to be so high because of the lower emissions.

Caithness has a 20 Year power purchase contract with LIPA. 45 Megawatts of their output is sold on the spot market through the NYISO. Caithness is also twice as efficient as LIPA’s most efficient plant, producing double the electricity for the same amount of energy consumed.

The buffer zone for the plant is about ¾ mile from any private homes. Built on a greenfield site, constructed by Siemens, the permanent operations staff is 16, split among three shifts. Commercial generation started on the 1^st of August 2009. The plant was built on schedule, on budget with a project cost of about $500MM

Harry took over talking about the economics of the plant and the LIPA/National Grid contract. In 2013 the contract expires. Going through LIPA’s on island generating mix, 2/3 of their capacity is from the existing plants that are an average of 45 years old. Most of those are coal plants converted to use oil and are much less efficient than the newer plants. National Grid’s older plants are expensive to run, and produce more emissions than newer plants.

The current contract is based on Cost-Plus pricing, which is advantageous to National Grid. Newer power purchase agreements put the onus on the power producer to maintain efficiencies and their cost structure.

Once again the session wrapped up with a lively question and answer session.

Two key questions from the audience stood out from the rest:

Q: What are the prospects for Caithness 2?

A:You need a long term contract, and LIPA’s decision about the next power contract will greatly influence that.

Q:Will more of these plants lead to rate reductions?

A: LIPA needs the base load power, and they save on fuel costs. LIPA should be obligated to pass those savings to ratepayers.

You can see the video of the speakers' talk at Pro Image Group's Website, and we look forward to having many more interesting speakers that our audience can interact with this year. See the upcoming roster at www.limba.net

Innovative Wi-Fi client from Telefonica "ClubADSL"

2010-01-01T13:00:54-05:00

This post is a bit tardy, but an interesting way for ISPs to start thinking in the New Year, especially with the opening firefights breaking out in the war between content providers and their distributors.

Spanish Telco Telefonica has introduced a proof of concept project for a Wi-Fi enabled laptop to bond together multiple adjacent wireless networks backhauled by their ADSL lines and aggregate the bandwidth. Clever, and an interesting way to be a very smart dumb pipe. The PC client software and its backend glue make the service provider stickier by delivering a superior customer experience.

http://www.tid.es/en/current-events/news/clubadsl-makes-it-possible-to-share-adsl-with-neighbours-to-increase-capacity

Times Square Wi-Fi

2009-12-16T11:23:11-05:00

I attended Speedwire's holiday party last night, at O'Lunney's off Times Square, and on my way to Penn Station passed through Times Square. I decided to give the free Yahoo sponsored network a quick whirl and found it to be a good experience. Easy to connect to through a sea of SSIDs, the only nit I had with it was the non-mobile friendly initial T&C page. I've got three screen shots for you below, T&C, welcome, and redirect. Kudos to Marshall Brown's Wiredtowns for getting the deployment business and executing well.

Another essential component to marketing outdoor networks is making their presence known to non-geeks and occasional visitors. Outdoor advertising such as these lightpole banners shot by Scott Beale drive awareness and usage.

Super Design and Poor Design

2009-12-12T11:48:16-05:00

I saw Oren Michel's tweet about this brilliant designer in the UK, revolutionizing something as mundane as a power plug,
and then looked out my window and saw the results of poor design .

I love Christmas lights all year round, and when LED models came out, my guilt over their energy consumption evaporated. I loaded up on these GE branded lights from Costco and enjoyed them all summer in the backyard. With the first hard freeze of the season, approximately 2/3'rds of the plastic diffusers from the lights popped off last night, having filled with water over time. Boo, hiss, bad GE, bad Costco. tsk, tsk, tsk. Now I have to go pro and check out these guys. You get what you pay for in this world.

Time to get involved in local Town Politics

2009-10-24T18:29:03-04:00

I've often been tempted to get involved and active in local politics. One of the things that has always made me wonder is why there are no assigned areas that town council folks are responsible for. When the opportunity to push for council districts in Huntington arose, I signed on, especially because it was easy to do with Facebook. The organizers are social network savvy. I've also thought that Huntington itself was a pretty progressive town, and I am generally happy with the way that the town is run, but I think that some things aren't great, and they might get better through increasing accountability with districting.

The petitions were organized, signatures collected, and I fully expected the issue to be put to a vote. I didn't really expect that the Town Board would object, but I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. I believe it is time to change the status quo and introduce districting. I've quoted Mark X. Cronin's letter about what is happening with the petitions now that they've been submitted. Please read the below, and if you're in Huntington, and you care about fair representation, support the push for districts. Join our group on Facebook.

Same Old Politics Try to Deny the People the Right to Vote

Late this afternoon, Michael Kearns of Northport filed objections to the petition with the sole intent to deny the citizens of Huntington to right to vote on this issue. We do not know Mr. Kearns except to know that he is acting as a front for the Town Board. How do we know that the Town Board is behind this insider political ploy?

• To file an objection, a person would need to see a copy of the petitions. While anyone could request a copy from the Town Clerk, Mr. Kearns has not requested a copy of the petitions, so he must have had another source for a copy of the petitions. The only people with copies of the petitions are the Town Board members and the Town Attorney (the Town Attorney’s office has four copies of the petitions). The Town Board must have provided the information to file the General Objections.

• The general objections must be followed by specific objections; preparing specific objections would require having a copy of the petitions. Mr. Kearns did not request a copy of the petitions. Again, the only people with copies of the petition are the Town Board members and the Town Attorney so they must provide the information to Mr. Kearns.

We believe these facts demonstrate that the Town Board is now trying to stop a vote on the issue. We had asked the Town Board to put the issue of Council Districts on the ballot. Had they done so, the issue could have been on the ballot this November. They refused to do so. Now the Town Board is working to block the rights of the voters to have this issue placed on the ballot through the petition process.

We want to know:

• Why is the Town Board hiding behind Mr. Kearns?

• Who is working with Mr. Kearns to block the right of the people to decide?

• Who provided the petitions to Mr. Kearns so he could file an objection?

• Was an attorney working for the Town or doing business with the Town involved in preparing these objections?

We support Town Council Districts because they lead to better representation, more accountability and more openness in government. In their action to block the petitions, the Town Board is proving our point. They are denying the voters the opportunity to decide on representation. They are denying accountability by working through Mr. Kearns instead of filing the petition in their own name. And they are opposing openness in Town government. Shame on them!

Ernie reports on a local Healthcare Town Hall

2009-10-12T23:35:31-04:00

LIMBA's Chairman, Ernie Fazio, recently attended one of the local Healthcare meetings, and wrote this report. I enjoy Ernie's take on things, and I particularly like his description of the roving mob's techniques and their past precedents. Turnabout is fair play on these things, seriously. Take it away Ernie...

Recently congressman Steve Israel convened a town hall meeting on healthcare reform. I had seen these meetings on television and was not surprised to see a large group of opponents wielding signs.

Prior to entering the hall I engaged several of them in conversation, and found a man who was really interested in civil discourse, the others were clearly there to create trouble. Once inside the theater the security officers did not allow the signs except for the back row. The slogans and yelling from the audience was orchestrated. The opponents were not all grouped together, but they often signaled to each other to stand up and yell as various things were said.

Mr. Israel, to his credit, had thought this meeting out. The rules for asking questions were
Only constituent’s questions would be answered and those questions had to be submitted in writing on a form with the questioners name and address. This was done to prevent the "floating mob" that go from one meeting to the next to totally disrupt the proceedings.

I was seated in the third row so that most of the people in the hall were behind me. Therefore I could not see them unless I turned toward the back of the auditorium. This turned out to be an advantage to me. Here is what I sensed.

Whenever the congressman or one of the other speakers (there were three others beside Steve Israel) spoke verbal hoots and hollering began to obscure the answer to a question, they would jump out of their seats and motion to members of their contingent that they needed more noise. This boisterous yelling out, and standing up can be very disconcerting to a speaker unless he has seen this “scary movie” before. The congressman appeared totally at ease and unimpressed with this phony display. In fact he was smiling most of the time and resisted any impromptu responses to what was being yelled out to him.

On the other hand when the congressman or one of the other speakers made an important point, the supporters would applaud. The applause was very rich and, robust, and indicated that most of the people in the hall were with the congressman.

Here is what else I observed; only one of the protesters had posed a question, indicating that most of them were not in Mr. Israel's district.

This negative and disruptive contingent was only about 25% of the audience, but they were able to look more formidable than they actually were.
It was apparent that this was a floating mob, and none of this was spontaneous. Instead this was a well-orchestrated attempt to subvert any dialogue between the people and the congressman. It didn't work!

When I was 22 years old I was hospitalized for 14 days. During that time I read a couple of books on the rise of the Nazis. The "Brown Shirts" would go to the political gathering places and disrupt the meetings by the use of the same tactics we have been witnessing at these so called town hall meetings. Most of the intelligentsia of Germany considered these Brown Shirts buffoons, but they systematically built political power based on fear caused by the lies they spawned.

It is always dangerous to make these historical comparisons, and these people are not the Brown Shirts, but the tactics are amazingly similar.

This editorial is not about healthcare reform, or whether you are for it or against it. It is about process. There are many legitimate questions that must be asked and answered before we make this dramatic change, but these disruptive people are not going to get us there.

Democracy makes this kind of mischief possible, so it is incumbent on all of us to be wary and watchful. There is a terrible price to be paid if we are not.

Ernie Fazio

LIMBA - Carol Ash, NYS Commissioner of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation

2009-09-25T13:41:08-04:00

Members and Friends,

We had the pleasure of hearing from the NYS Commissioner of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, Carol Ash. Pro Image Studios recorded the video of her talk and the Q&A, which can be found here: Ms. Ash is a long time champion of downstate parks and the environment. Her most recent past position was Executive Director of the Palisades Interstate Parks Commission, and her full biography can be found on the NYS Parks website. Commissioner Ash, a tireless advocate for the parks system and it’s constituency, gave us a rundown of what is happening with the state park system, that was both sobering and optimistic. The 28 parks and one state historic site ( Walt Whitman’s home ) on Long Island are some of the jewels in the system. Mentioning Ken Burns’ newest epic on the formation of the National Parks System, she let us know that the model for the NPS was the Adirondack State Park, created by then Governor Teddy Roosevelt, and that New York state has always been a pioneer in the development of parks and historic preservation.

One of the misconceptions that Ms. Ash came to dispel is that the expense of Parks is a drag on the economy, and that investment in them performs poorly. Citing a University of Massachusetts study, she posited that parks are linchpins of local economies, that produce a 5-1 return on dollars invested in park improvements. On Long Island, that translates to a $410MM boost to the local economy, supporting about 4000 private sector jobs. The Long Island region has the highest parks attendance of the state. 40% of park revenue is generated by tourists, the US Opens in 2002 and 2009 brought in over $10MM to Long Island’s economy, in spite of the dismally rainy conditions in ’09.

With that, she began her pitch for continued investments in park infrastructure to keep those tourists coming. Times are tough, money is tight, but upgrades need to be done. There is an estimated $650MM backlog of deferred work overdue in the parks to keep them in shape. This year, the legislature has allocated $200MM towards that. Later today, she will attend a ribbon cutting at Brentwood State Park, where part of that $200MM will go to create state of the art professional quality soccer, baseball , and lacrosse fields, in an economically disadvantaged community. Disappointingly, the NYS parks system is not eligible for Federal Stimulus Funds, but in a creative partnership with the Department of Labor, the Parks department was able to obtain $3.3MM to start a Civilian Conservation Corps in the Long Island and Niagara regions. The first phase was to put 90 kids through a training program where they did basic maintenance projects throughout the regional parks. The second phase will take the stars of that phase, and move them into a more skilled trade learning program, having them work on more sophisticated tasks.

Despite these tough times, the Parks department was able to hold the line on the $8.00 per car entry fee for the parks, and the $56.00 Empire Passport is still a good bargain. In this time of staycations, park usage is going up.

The Q&A portion of the program was lively, with some advocates from the Kings Park community and allies of the Trump at Jones Beach project in attendance. One of the great things about LIMBA is the ability for local folks to talk to people of influence and hear their opinions and concerns, and in turn be heard.

Ms. Ash couldn’t say much about the Trump project due to the ongoing litigation, and it was clear from the audience questions that they were much in favor of the project.

A question about which parks paid their ways, was met with the response that the Golf Courses and Campgrounds are the revenue stars, supporting the rest of the system.

The discussion around Kings Park was summarized by her stance of embracing the local advocates and taking a long look at the issues, and finding the real costs of remediating the site. The first phase of the study is done, the second is due to complete in about 18 months.

On the question of raising revenue, the department is trying to find sponsorships for the Empire State Games, working with the “I love NY” people to market the parks more, and looking at creating public-private partnerships similar to the California Parks Foundation, and the Central Park Conservancy.

Yet another productive Friday morning at LIMBA, where regular folks get to meet movers and shakers that directly affect our lives.

LIPA's LIMBA update on Smart Grids - Bruce Germano

2009-09-19T09:25:48-04:00

As always, I find LIMBA meetings an excellent place to meet people that have a great deal of influence over the Long Island region. The value that I have gotten from these over the years is incalculable, in both learning how things work, and meeting new friends. Some topics are political, some technical, and lots are both. An overview of Smart Grids was given by a long time member of LIPA and its predecessors, Bruce Germano, the man responsible for LIPA's retail operations.

Bruce opened his talk this morning by recounting his experiences with Smart Grid technology dating back to 2002. Back then, we were thinking Smart Grids, but there wasn’t a name for them. With time, new definitions emerged, of a power network that has intelligence built into it, with the ability to control pushed further out to the edge of the network. Currently, there are limitations in the power system that prevent that control being extended.

According to Bruce, a smart grid is a communications network overlaid on to the power network, giving customers the ability to decide the best time to use power based on price signaling. A Smart Grid helps bring down peak load demand. It enables a customer and a utility to understand and control demand on a real-time basis. In 2002 this was just a dream, but advances in technology are making it possible. Utilities are looking for ways to provide customer choice and one of these ways is to introduce a Smart Grid.

To facilitate that LIPA, in concert with Stony Brook University and SUNY-Farmingdale, is seeking stimulus funding to implement a Smart Grid technology pilot project. There are a lot of technology gaps to be filled, but if a go, the project has the following three goals:

· Smart Grid Demonstration – Show that the technology to connect customer s to markets in real time is feasible, and allow them to control their demand according to price signals they receive.

· Green Job Creation – The deployment Smart Grid technology will require specialized skills and custom assembly of hardware and software to build the sensor networks required and the software backend to communicate the information gathered and control signals sent.

· Green Skill Training – To move beyond a pilot phase, the original lessons of the project have to be translated into repeatable steps. Developing the work force to implement Smart Grid technology on a wide scale will require educating a large number of subject matter experts that can grow the grid commercially.

The vehicle to achieve these goals is the building of a smart energy corridor along Route 110 from the Long Island Expressway, down to the southern border of Republic Airport. This area brings together a lot of partners and ties together many existing efforts. A diverse mix of customer types exists along the corridor, with commercial, industrial, residential, and municipal located there. SBU is looking into two areas, load modeling systems, and the communications security risks associated with remote control. SUNY-Farmingdale is bringing their exiting energy research labs, plus their investigations into sensor technology.

The technology gaps are being filled, but it is an evolutionary process and all the pieces are not in place yet. Many big players like IBM, GE and Hitron are aiming to compete in this space. Appliances are integrating communications and control into consumer devices, allowing the owner to program the timer for the cheapest time to use electricity. The opportunity to evolve electric meters to support this exists, but there are no standards for Smart Grids and their devices.

The Department of Energy published 15 characteristics of a Smart Grid, and the National Institute of Standards is developing those specifications for devices and systems to interoperate. Stability of the system is paramount, as we don’t want the repeat of another 2003 blackout, which was caused by a cascading system failure of the grid’s control structures.

Bruce wrapped up by letting us know that the stimulus application was filed about two weeks ago, along with thousands of other applications, and is waiting for the federal government to get through the review process.

Opening the floor to questions, Ernie opened the session by asking if Smart Grid technology will eliminate the need for new power plants, and would Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles help our situation. Bruce responded by reminding us of Long Island’s insatiable need for electricity, and noting that although PHEV’s may help smooth out demand peaks, they increase total demand on the grid because they are getting their stored energy from the grid rather than burning fuel.

John Howell asked if every building by default be able to participate in the smart grid. Bruce projected that the meter connecting the business would be smart and able to participate, but it would be up to the building owner to install the controls necessary to implement variable price consumption strategies.

Pat Halpin of the Suffolk County Water Authority asked if there will be incentives for customers to interrupt their power and use off peak power. A discussion of the various ways pricing regimes could be constructed followed, with the net result being, we’ll see when we get there.

The ensuing discussion concluded yet another well spent Friday morning at LIMBA, where you get to meet a diverse set of leaders from across Long Island industries and organizations, and learn something valuable in an hour as you start the last day of the work week.

A great attitude towards mobile computing

2009-09-12T20:20:22-04:00

This quote from Hans of NYC resistor sums up my feelings about wireless network security: "Instead of trying to create a safe network, instead we need to think of our computers and devices as an island in rough seas." Read the full post here.

Any network where you don't have physical control of the end to end connection should be treated as an untrusted network, and if you really care about security, you should use an encryption scheme to secure the communications that you care about before they leave the device that you're using.