"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse," Irish statesman, Edmund Burke, said.

Power and abuse are becoming all too real for a small Long Island village and the energy plant that fuels it.

"They’re just hammering this community, and they’re being unfair," Port Jefferson Deputy Mayor and Elected Trustee, Laurence Lapointe, said. "And they’re trying to paint us as greedy. We’re not greedy, we just don’t want to be thrown out of our houses."

Utility company National Grid petitioned the New York Public Service Commission Feb 28 to eliminate the cap on the amount of power it can generate at certain plants. If the petition is approved, it would eliminate the need for the Port Jefferson plant and send taxes soaring.

Currently limited to less than 80 megawatts, the petition would allow the utility company's facilities to generate and deliver up to their full 94 megawatt capacity into the Long Island Power Authority’s electric system.

"A change that is good for the company put catastrophic for Port Jefferson residents," Lapointe said.

"If they get their way in court, the taxes on the average house in this village would double in one year," he said. "Try telling that to a senior citizen on a fixed income. They’re going to be forced out of their houses because LIPA will not come to the table and negotiate in a fair and rational matter."

LIPA also wouldn’t come to the phone. Multiple attempts were made to speak to the utility companies who never responded.

Port Jefferson has also struggled with LIPA's lack of communication.

"If they’d come to the table 8 or 10 years ago, the taxes would already be significantly lower than they are now," Lapointe said. "But it’s because they’ve never negotiated with us in good faith, we’ve never been able to get taxes to a rational basis, and what they want is all the change at once."

The New York Public Service Commission held two public hearings at Port Jefferson Village Hall on March 22nd. Members of the public came forward to express their concerns regarding LIPA’s petition.

"This is highly inappropriate at the least," Port Jefferson Trustee, Bruce Miller, said. "LIPA has done a terrible job of protecting the ratepayers of Long Island. Do not permit this increase. We're increasing the amount of electricity capable of being generated on Long Island. We, the trustees of Port Jefferson, see this as a thinly-veiled attempt to bring the grid up to a substantial level where it can maintain its requirement for 107 percent and then take our power plants offline and plow them into the ground."

Anyone who was unable to attend the hearings but still wishes to comment on this case can email, call or mail in their comments until March 28th.