By JEFF MORRIS //
Supporters and opponents of the town’s membership in the Westchester Power program remained at loggerheads at the July 22 Lewisboro Town Board meeting. By evening’s end, it was clear that the board was on track to allow the town’s contract with Westchester Power to expire.
With the “drop-dead date” for a decision on whether to approve a contract renewal with the community choice aggregation power program looming on Sept. 7, the board again blocked a presentation by Sustainable Westchester that was intended to answer questions about the program. The existing contract expires on Nov. 30.
The board had voted on July 8 in favor of a resolution put forth by council member Rich Sklarin to place a 90-day moratorium on any presentation about Westchester Power. With that moratorium not ending until October, it essentially precluded any possibility of discussion or a decision prior to the deadline.
Council member Mary Shah had proposed making it a 60-day moratorium, but that resolution was never seconded or voted on. In any event, even that shorter time period would have brought the moratorium past the deadline date.
The board next meets on Aug. 12, and then not again until Sept. 9. Shah has already indicated she will be away and miss the August meeting. With council member Dan Welsh, the director of Westchester Power, having to recuse himself, that would leave Supervisor Tony Gonçalves as the only vote in favor of signing a memorandum of agreement for a new contract, making it unlikely a vote will even be placed on the meeting agenda. Council member Andrea Rendo has already stated her opposition, and, in fact, proposed a resolution against any Westchester Power contract. Sklarin also made clear he is opposed.
The Westchester Power presentation can be viewed online on the town website.At the July 22 meeting, Gonçalves made the point that board members had earlier complained the information was not available with sufficient time ahead of any discussion. He said the document had now been online for two weeks, and that additional information had been added about the approval timeline and a comparison of price per kilowatt hour between the NYSEG supply and Westchester Power.
However, Shah repeated her comment that what she needed was a neutral explanation of the contract’s pros and cons, not a presentation by either side. Rendo said she had already heard the arguments for the program many times and was not going to change her mind.
Even with the PowerPoint available, many of its slides were clearly in need of narration and further explanation. Gonçalves told The Recorder he originally scheduled the presentation for a board work session so that there could be an opportunity for discussion, questions and answers. Sklarin’s resolution, and the board’s rejection of giving Sustainable Westchester director Noam Bramson an opportunity to speak, removed that possibility.
It was clear at the July 22 meeting that many of those who spoke both for and against the program during public forum were talking past one another without addressing the specifics of each other’s positions.
Supporters of the contract, as well as much of the presentation document, talked about the effects of climate change and the need to be proactive in finding cleaner sources of energy, with the program touted as having prevented 310,860 metric tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere in 2023. But there was little in the way of a detailed explanation of how the program achieved those results. That was done by having large numbers of customers automatically enrolled for renewable energy sources each time the program’s 44 member municipalities signed a new contract. The result was more customers were enrolled, and there were higher levels of carbon removal, than if customers had chosen to sign up individually.
Indeed, the program’s environmental benefits had become lessened somewhat under the last contract when no acceptable bids were made that met contract guidelines for 100% renewable energy, resulting in a 50-50 renewable/non-renewable supply. The program’s other main advantages — the ability to stabilize costs with a set price over the length of the contract, and to use the clout of buying for multiple municipalities to negotiate a lower price — had also been mitigated somewhat over the past year as NYSEG supply costs dropped for much of that time. The contract price currently about 4 cents more per kW than NYSEG. That price differential has been a key component of ongoing criticism, though NYSEG prices spiked far above the contract price for much of 2022-23.
Critics took several different approaches. The chief criticism has been that Westchester Power contract rates per kW have either not been appreciably lower than, or were higher than the default NYSEG supply over much of the last six years, causing Lewisboro residents in the program to pay more than they otherwise would. Another argument was that the program’s opt-out basis left most residents unaware they were even participating, or knowing that they could opt out at any time and revert to the NYSEG supply or find another alternative on their own. A third line of criticism alleged that, as Westchester Power’s director, Welsh had a conflict of interest and was enriching himself at residents’ expense—a charge that critics also leveled at Bramson and members of Sustainable Westchester’s board of directors.
It should be noted that the opt-out formula for Westchester Power was written into the original state Public Service Commission authorization of community choice aggregation programs in 2016. The provision stated, “Opt-in aggregation has proved valuable to certain larger customer groups, but opt-out aggregation appears necessary for CCA programs to achieve the scale that will enable ESCOs (energy supply companies) to create meaningful benefits for mass market customers.” The PSC went on to say, “In order to leverage the negotiating power to draw offers from ESCOs that will benefit residents, municipalities must have a reasonable level of certainty that a critical mass of customers will be available for their programs, which is best provided through a well-designed opt-out CCA program.”
As it now stands, with no prospect of a contract renewal being approved, the 1,601 Lewisboro households who are currently enrolled in the Westchester Power program, out of 4,383 total households, will revert to the standard NYSEG supply after Nov. 30. At that point they can stay with NYSEG or choose another supplier on their own, just as they are free to do right now.