LIPA's New CFO to Address Nassau Village Leaders Tuesday

Village leaders from Massapequa Park and the Nassau County have the chance to get up close and personal this week with a new top executive of the Long Island Power Authority.

At a meeting of the Nassau County Village Officer's Association Tuesday, Michael Taunton, LIPA's Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Finance, will address the Nassau County Village Officers Association in Williston Park.

Following heavy criticism from residents and elected officials regarding LIPA'shandling of power outages caused by Superstorm Sandy, Michael Hervey, the companies chief operating officer, resigned in December.

Approved as CFO on Jan. 26 by the board of trustees, Taunton will speak about the LIPA transition at a monthly NCVOA meeting which starts at 7 p.m. at LaMarmite in Williston Park. 

One Frequent critic of LIPA has been Massapequa Park Mayor James Altadonna a past NCVOA president who says he plans to attend Tuesday's meeting and would like to see the utility seriously address how they handle storms.

"LIPA really needs to come up with a comprehensive remediation and micro-approach in handling severe storms," the mayor said. "And until that comes about we're going to continue to flounder."

Prior to joining LIPA, Taunton was vice president and treasurer for Arrow Electronics, a multi-billion dollar distributor of electronic components and enterprise computing solution.

Taunton replaces Herb Hogue, who served as LIPA CFO from 2009-11 before resigning to pursue other opportunities.

Founded in 1929, the NCVOA serves as an advocate for municipal governments and residents on local, state and national levels representing Nassau's 64 incorporated villages and their 435,000 residents.