Interesting Comments By the NY PSC It's Called Covering Your Political Butt!

Here are the NY PSC and BP's comments from an article in the Watertown Daily Times concerning the issue that John S. Harris the lawyer representing BP's Cape Vincent Wind Farm, is the husband of a high level NY PSC commissioner Maureen Harris. The PSC comments are precious! Seems when you get yourself cornered in a box you don't think very clearly.


BP: "Mr. Chandler echoed PSC’s statement that Commissioner Harris has “nothing to do” with the Article X review process" 

NYPSC:  “There is no conflict. The only commissioner that has anything to do with the process is the chairman of the PSC,” he said. “Mrs. Harris has nothing to do with the process.”

OOOOKKKKK...but Brown the highest PSC Commissioner or Chairman is Mrs. Harris's boss...right?
Unless Brown wasn't doing his job, he had to KNOW John Harris was her husband and he was representing BP and that he will be interacting...no wait.. IS already interacting with the NY PSC.  So you mean to tell me that the Chairman of the NY PSC can look at this and not evaluate that this could be a big potential problem...even if it is just perception.  Why in God's name if you wanted to keep your commission and it's commissioners credible, and even keep Cuomo's Art X process credible, why in heck would you allow this to go on?  What kind of responsible decision making does this represent?  And it is worse since Mrs. Harris worked in the NY Attorney General's Office.  She should KNOW what all this means, and may have even handled cases like this...who knows?

So where is the previous statement by the PSC to ensure public trust in the system disclosing this Harris relationship. NOW THAT would be a real Public Information Plan just like they are requiring of BP...how ironic!   In fact is there an ethics law that would require Mrs. Harris to declare her husband's relationship to BP?

The real problem here is that the PSC has suddenly got its tail caught in a nasty trap, and only now are they screaming about how legitimate all this looks.

So what is the bottom line here?  According to the PSC spokesperson, the Chairman of the PSC Gary  Brown r  is supposed to be on the Art X board that will decide the fate of Cape Vincent's law and our community's future. And this is the behavior we can expect from Brown and the PSC when they have such a critical  roll in all of this.  This is the level of judgment they are demonstrating to us.  Seriously????

YIKES that doesn't give me any confidence whatsoever in this Art X process. Of course I knew before hand that it probably worked this way. Come on people this is NY govt.!  Like much of what the govt  says...and keeps telling us to trust them and this  is all up and up and reasonable.  They are out of control already and Art. X is barely off the ground and already it is a disaster!  And this is what we gave our zoning law over to to be arbitrated by a bunch of commissioners that can't even figure out what the appearance of a conflict of interest looks like right under their noses, and the credibilty damage it would cause to Art X and their agency! What a joke!  Wait...wasn't the root cause of our problems in CV local conflicts of interest and wasn't that the entire point of our elections? And now at a much higher and more powerful level that same potential has been exposed and we are going to go right along with it in the system that apparently fosters it?

Now what do we do about this as NNY citizens when our communities are under direct threat of this run amuck system?  This is no different than when our local govt was running amuck with conflicts of interest.  We don't have a choice really.  Do we continue to go along with it...our do we expose it for what it is, and remove ourselves from it?

The Jefferson County Legislature was RIGHT ON when they passed a unanimous political resolution opposing Art. X.  Thank God somebody in this region gets the picture and at least has taken some action.   I applaud the vision of the County on this and I find it disturbing that we can't even get our local communities like CV and others to back it up.

How much more evidence do they need for God's sake!!!