Cynthia Kouril

I have been in telephone contact with friend who lives on the same street in Cambridge where the suspect lived. She just texted me that they are being evacuated. This is consistent with reporting on CNN that reporters have twice been pushed back multiple blocks from the house where he lived.

It sure looks like LIPA is under the impression that National Grid, like a spurned lover who won’t take no for an answer, may try to undo the competitive process that resulted in PSEG getting the contract and may try to simply buy its way back into the Long Island market by buying up PSEG. Of course that poison pill will also apply if anyone else tries to buy PSEG LI. It is pretty clear that what LIPA contracted for and what LIPA wants is the superior customer satisfaction that PSEG’s management practices have produced in other markets.

Currently there are three investigations going on into the future of Long Island Power Authority (LIPA). The first is the Moreland Commission investigation, which caused quite a bit of controversy when it recommended selling all of LIPA’s assets, the electrical transmission, and in how public bond debt would be paid for, or how a privately held utility could afford cost of capital if it had to borrow at 10.7% instead of the 5% that LIPA’s bonds currently enjoyed. Crain.s New York Business and Bloomberg Newsweek predicted that this would lead to a 20% hike in costs to customers.

New York State just struggled to close $1Billion budget gap. Where in hell is it going to get another $4-5 billion to bail out LIPA?

The history of how LIPA got to where it is today.

In a 10+ year construction project that was originally estimated at $75 million, but ultimately cost $2 billion, LILCO (Long Island Lighting Company) built the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant. It was completed in 1984. In 1983, the Legislature in Suffolk County, where the plant was located, voted not to allow the plant to come online because there was no safe way to evacuate Long Islanders in the event of a meltdown or other serious event. Other municipal entities throughout Long Island followed suit.

People in New York and New Jersey are huddled in the cold and dark and apparently the US Congress cannot manage to vote for Superstorm Sandy relief before they go on their vacations.

Just as security was trying to throw us out, Morgan Freeman came out to say hello to Durning, so we got to stay, and then all the rest of the cast trickled out. By that point we were all pretty crocked and Durning tried to pass us off as his nieces.

Really nice, down to earth, fun guy, and a really great night.

The 50 state settlement notwithstanding, the Department of Justice and every attorney general in the country have a brand new, slam dunk, open and shut case against every single bank that is still allowing a foreclosure case to go forward based on DOCX/LPS false evidence.

Yesterday, Lorraine Brown, the founder of DocX/LPS was scheduled to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud at 1 PM EST. I found out about it around 2 PM from the wonderful Lynn Syzmoniac who has nagged an noodle the US Attorney’s Office about this case 4-evah (she really is the unsung hero of this development, but Lanny Bruer managed to leave her out of his self congratulatory press release).

Yesterday I dashed off a post about the guilty plea taken by Lorraine Brown, the founder of DocX/LPS in which she admits that it was the custom and practice of her company to employee people to forge the signatures of others and to falsely notarize those signatures creating assignments, allonges and affidavits that were both forgeries and perjuries. In short, fraud.