New Paltz residents and property owners have choices when it comes to electricity, but since last summer those choices have been limited due to a vendor working mightily to get out of a contract. There’s any number of energy service companies with which to sign a contract, and allowing the people at Central Hudson to pick whatever energy providers are offering the best price on a given day is still the default. Community members were supposed to be locked in for three years to get renewable energy produced in this state for under seven cents a kilowatt hour, but the leaders of vendor Columbia Utilities made the business decision to back out of that deal at any cost. First, they filed a notice with the public service commission that they wanted to break the contract; that elicited a lawsuit from all the communities in the Hudson Valley Community Power consortium, which is organized through program administrator Joule Assets, and an injunction was secured. Thereafter, someone at Columbia Utilities defaulted on fees paid to the system operator, thus reneging on the deal through a loophole. The lawsuit brought by governments about breaking the contract won’t get any individual ratepayer any money. It’s not clear if a class action suit will ever be brought on behalf of those thousands of ratepayers, who this month are faced with a Central Hudson spot rate of more than double what they were paying last spring.
While this default has cost ratepayers an unknown amount in terms of dollars and carbon, it will not be forever. At the January 11 village board meeting, Jeff Domanski from Hudson Valley Energy spoke about restarting the complex process of securing a reliable source of renewable energy for anyone who doesn’t have a contract with another vendor already in place. That process is already underway; Domanski’s appearance is the second of three information sessions that are required, with the third scheduled for 11 a.m. on January 21.
Domanski said that the Columbia Utilities price was part of a “vetted package” with a “very competitive rate,” and that New Paltz residents collectively saved about $300,000 before it all fell apart and participants were notified that they were going to be put back on default Central Hudson power. Not only is that usually more expensive, it also could have been generated in any manner, including everything from harnessing waterfalls to burning coal. Domanski said that the failure of the Central Hudson billing system, the pandemic, and the war in Ukraine have all been cited as reasons for pulling out of the deal. Domanski said that the real reason was “probably greed.”
One bright spot in this dark debacle is that participants in community choice were not hit with additional charges as a consequence of this contract being ended early. That can happen to individuals who sign their own contracts, Domanski said, but this deal was not brokered with the individual ratepayers.
Domanski believes that this spring will be a good time to reenter the energy market. The next steps include issuing a new request for proposals from prospective suppliers, sending an explanatory letter to everyone in New Paltz, and updating the energy supply agreement with “numerous more consumer protection elements.” Trustee William Wheeler Murray invited Domanski to expand on what those new “consumer protection elements” might be, and Domanski mentioned how consumers don’t have to get locked into a contract with the supplier, and how this saves individuals time researching a vendor. Domanski’s response didn’t include any new clauses that might prevent a future supplier from backing out of the deal in the way the Columbia Utilities agreement was broken.
There could be a new supplier in place by the summer.
Tax relief for risking life and limb
Volunteer firefighters and rescue squad members who live in the Village of New Paltz will be able to apply for a property tax exemption, under a new law passed at the January 11 village board meeting.
The language of the law establishes the basic eligibility criteria: “The applicant has been certified by the authority having jurisdiction for the New Paltz Fire Department or the New Paltz Rescue Squad as an enrolled member of said Department or Rescue Squad having served a minimum of two consecutive years of service.” The application will have to be made annually.
This law provides for a 10% exemption of assessed value used for calculating village property tax for volunteers who have served at least two years, and use the property as primary residence. Serving 20 years continuously is enough to make that exemption good for life, and a widow of such a volunteer may retain that exemption. If a volunteer is killed in the line of duty after serving five years, the widow may be eligible to hold onto the tax break. As with most laws, there are exceptions. In the case of widowed spouses, the volunteer would had to have applied for the exemption before dying, among others.
William Wheeler Murray, who is both a volunteer firefighter and trustee, said that this idea has “been talked about for decades.” Mayor Tim Rogers said that the law will be passed on to members of the town council and school board, in the hopes that similar measures might be enacted in those taxing districts.
— Terence P Ward
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