For Power Authority, decision reserved
NIAGARA FALLS—A judge said he will take some time to make up his mind after 45 minutes of legal argument Wednesday in the New York Power Authority’s effort to win dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Niagara County.
“I’m going to reserve decision. There’s a lot to digest,” State Supreme Court Justice Ralph A. Boniello III said after the session.
The county took the Power Authority to court in May, demanding that the $544 million the authority sent to the general state treasury to help try to balance the state budget should be returned.
The county’s suit also demanded that the authority should use the money to pay rebates to Niagara County electric customers, who, the suit asserts, have been overcharged.
Arthur T. Cambouris, deputy general counsel for the Power Authority, argued that the state budget bill passed by the Legislature this year legalized the $544 million payment, which the authority calls a voluntary donation and its critics call a sweep.
The authority placed it on its books as a loan, although State Sen. George D. Maziarz, R-Newfane, one of the authority’s harshest critics, predicted earlier this year that it will never be repaid.
Charles E. Graney of the Webster Szanyi law firm, hired by the county, said the budget bills don’t legitimize the payment, because the laws that created and govern the Power Authority don’t authorize it to make such payments.
Cambouris said they aren’t barred, either. “Those revenues can be used for any lawful purpose,” he said.
Graney called the payments “a tax” and argued that the Power Authority acted against its own interest in making them.
Assistant Attorney General George M. Zimmermann argued that the county has no standing to file a lawsuit because it wasn’t harmed by the Power Authority’s actions.
Graney pounced on that. “The Power Authority was going to raise rates in 2009 until there was a huge uproar. Now they say they’re going to raise rates next year,” the county’s lawyer asserted. “To say the ratepayers aren’t going to be harmed by the transfer of $500 million to the state is not an intellectually honest argument.”
Zimmermann asked Boniello to move the lawsuit quickly if he’s not going to throw it out.
“They are trying to take half a billion dollars out of the state’s budget,” Zimmermann pointed out. He surmised that if the county continues to push for rebates, it will have to go back through several years of Power Authority actions in a major research project.
Nelson Perel, Graney’s law partner, said the authority dragged its feet in filing a dismissal motion, not doing so until September, and should have acted sooner if it was worried about a delay.
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