State Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, called to talk about last week’s notebook item on his recent stand against the New York Power Authority.
While I suggested the senator has been more vocal about authority issues since Democrats took control of the governor’s office and state Senate, Maziarz argued that he’s been calling for reforms at the power agency for years.
Politics aside, Maziarz wanted it to be known that he jumped into this latest round of sparring with the authority because he didn’t think it was right for the agency to request a rate hike and hand out bonuses while at the same time allowing New York state to borrow more than $500 million in surplus funds.
All of it, he said, would have added up to increases in costs for Western New York residents and businesses.
“It is obvious to me and millions of upstate residents that NYPA cannot raise rates for electric customers and, at the same time, pay out generous bonuses to its employees,” he said. “I don’t know what took NYPA so long to come to this realization, but I’m glad they finally did.”..