LIPA lawyers: Quanta request to block contract award to PSEG is 'meritless'

Lawyers for LIPA in court papers described as "untimely and meritless" a request by Quanta Services to block LIPA from awarding its grid management contract to PSEG, noting it has already happened.

Lawyers for LIPA and Quanta are due in state Supreme Court in Mineola Monday to make arguments before Justice Philippe Solages, even though LIPA’s board last week voted to award the contract to PSEG Long Island. Noting the vote, LIPA’s outside attorney Brendan McGuire argued the matter is now "moot."

The board vote, which was 7-0 with one abstention, took place one day after one of the authority’s most senior officials, Billy Raley, said he was fired by LIPA’s new chief executive Carrie Meek Gallagher for declining to sign off on new performance metrics for PSEG that are part of the new contract.

Raley, who had been LIPA’s senior vice president of transmission and distribution for nearly five years, told Newsday that he determined the new metrics were not sufficiently tough enough to increase performance for Long Island customers. PSEG, which has seen its performance worsen in recent years, can earn upward of $20 million more each year in bonus compensation for meeting the metrics.

Raley is one of at least two senior LIPA officials who have filed an ethics claim against LIPA, telling Newsday that while he worked on the grid management bidding review committee, he was told on several occasions to lower Quanta’s bidding score. Raley said he resisted the requests, and the review committee ultimately strongly recommended Quanta.

But LIPA’s board voted to reject Quanta and later canceled the bidding process altogether. It formed a committee that included three board members to negotiate an extension of PSEG’s contract, which the board approved last week.

Raley also confirmed to Newsday that he has provided information to the state Inspector General’s office as part of its ongoing investigation into the utility. He said he’s considering his options over his firing.

LIPA declined to comment on Raley’s charges, saying it doesn’t comment on personnel matters.

LIPA in its court papers filed Friday said Quanta had ample time in the months after the LIPA board rejected its bid to file a lawsuit and request an injunction, but did so after a four-month statute of limitations.

Quanta is expected to argue that the statute clock started ticking not in April but in May, when the board voted to cancel the bidding, according to a person familiar with the matter. Its lawsuit, filed earlier this month, challenges LIPA’s procurement process as unfair and "unlawful," noting ongoing probes and the fact that the LIPA review committee found that PSEG’s bid did not meet the minimum standard of the bidding process.

McGuire in his filing for LIPA argued Quanta would not suffer "irreparable harm" if PSEG’s contract is extended, while LIPA risks the lack of a service provider by Jan. 1 if the restraining order is granted.

" ... Time is of the essence," wrote McGuire, a former chief counsel to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. "Since the extension of the (PSEG contract) is not automatic and requires final approval from both the Attorney General and the state Comptroller, with merely three months left on (PSEG’s current contract), the risk of disruption is substantial."

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.