It’s lights out for the chief operating officer of Long Island Power Authority (LIPA).
Tuesday night the utility announced that its COO Mike Hervey had resigned and will step down at the end of the year.
“Mike has provided 12 years of valuable service to LIPA, including taking on the responsibility to perform the functions of CEO of the organization over the past two years. Mike has played a leadership role in connection with the planned structural changes at LIPA going forward which will result in better service and accountability to LIPA’s customers in the years ahead.” said LIPA’s chairman, Howard E. Steinberg.
Earlier in the day, a lawsuit against the company was filed claiming breach of contract, gross negligence and fraud for the utility’s response to Sandy-related outages.
Also on Tuesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order forming a commission to investigate and study the New York state’s power companies and their preparedness, reaction and management of storms over the past two years.
As a result of Sandy, over a million of LIPA’s Long Island and Queens customers lost power. Though it has restored electricity for 99 percent of those “who can safely except power,” as of Wednesday morning, around 40,000 are more still are in the dark, over half of which are in the Rockaway Peninsula.
