Ian in the News

Prices for everything from groceries to gas are on the rise across the country. Paychecks are flat. Towns, cities, and school districts are making drastic cuts, increasing taxes and fees, or both.

Out-of-control utility costs are a key reason behind this breakdown of basic affordability for working and middle-class people in the last decade.

Utility costs for most CNY school districts are up 30% to 40% from just last year. The same is true for cities like Auburn, Syracuse and Buffalo, to name a few. That fact (coupled with increased health care costs) is why so many school districts and municipalities are cutting staff while increasing local taxes. Teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public employees face the threat of layoffs and stagnant wages. We all suffer when the services and people we rely on are stretched too thin.

So who benefits from out-of-control utility costs? In the case of NYSEG, it is Avangrid — their Spanish-owned parent company. Profits are at record levels and looking even better as demand rises with chip factories and data centers.

NYSEG, Avangrid, and the other utility monopolies want to keep prices high, so they donate to politicians who lock the rigged rules in place. One such politician is Assemblyman John Lemondes, who has taken at least 11 donations in just the last five years from utility lobbyists.

He doesn't have a plan to tackle utility costs because he is on the side of the utility lobbyists.

I’m running for Assembly to make real change for Central New Yorkers and to keep money in my neighbors pockets:

Here is my simple plan:

• Cap utility rate increases to 2% or the rate of inflation (whichever is less).

• Ban data centers for five years and require energy-guzzling data centers to pay for all grid updates in advance and at no cost to residential consumers.

• Ban utilities from lobbying and donating to political campaigns; require politicians like Lemondes to return these donations.

• Ban foreign ownership of all public utilities.

• Invest in true energy independence, including nuclear expansion in Oswego County, generous incentives for residential solar and wind, and expansion of municipally-owned geothermal and hydroelectric power.

I’ll never take a cent from the utility industry or any other corporate lobby, because I’ll work for you. We deserve better than sellout politicians like John Lemondes.