San Juan mayor calls to void contract awarded to tiny Montana company

[babylonsister]

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/357068-san-juan-mayor-calls-to-void-contract-awarded-to-tiny-montana

San Juan mayor calls to ‘void’ contract awarded to tiny Montana company
By Devin Henry - 10/25/17 10:07 AM EDT


The mayor of Puerto Rico’s largest city is calling for a contract to fix the island’s hurricane-ravaged electrical grid to be “voided” after it was awarded to a small Montana firm.

Whitefish Energy last week signed a $300 million contract to help overhaul the island's grid following Hurricane Maria. The company is only two years old and had just two employees when Puerto Rico’s utility, PREPA, signed the contract. It is based in the Montana home town of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz told Yahoo News in an interview published Wednesday that the contract is “alarming."

“The contract should be voided right away and a proper process which is clear, transparent, legal, moral and ethical should take place,” she continued.

“It seems like what the Puerto Rican people are going to be paying for, or the American people are going to be paying for, is an intermediary that doesn’t know what is at stake here and that really has to subcontract everything. … What we need is somebody that can get the job done and that has the expertise to get the job done.”

Whitefish and the Puerto Rican government have defended the contract. A Whitefish spokesman told Reuters on Tuesday that the firm was able to get up and running in Puerto Rico “while the U.S. government was still assessing what to do” there following Maria.

In a statement, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said the contract went to Whitefish because it didn’t need money up front, something the island’s struggling utility couldn’t provide.

“Of all those who met the requirements and aggressive schedules to bring brigades, one was asking for a substantial amount of money — which PREPA had no liquidity for — and another did not require it,” he said. “That other one is Whitefish.”

[C_U_L8R]

1. What's with their Governor??

That's the lamest excuse for a rigged bid that I ever heard.

[Scoopster]

3. It has to do with PR's current financial situation.

They were having severe budgetary issues before the storm hit, to the point where the Congress voted not to bail out the territorial government. It got so bad that the island's govt itself wasn't able to secure financing anymore.

I'm guessing the Administration was clued into this matter, and they asked around to see which crony knew a guy. Zinke did (who is barely experienced, only had two employees, and has employed Zinke's brother), so he got someone from the company to offer no-collateral up front for the project.

[stopbush]

9. Translation

1. How much money do you need upfront when there are only two employees?

2. Doesn’t matter. The upfront money will come as illegal payoffs to the two employees who are already connected to the RW slush fund machine

3. This is the age of tRump. Any subcontractors hired will be lucky to see 30¢ on the dollar for what they thought they would be making. The other 70¢ will end up in tRump’s pocket somehow

4. In the end, the electrical grid will still be in a shambles, because the $300-million was not awarded with the idea of the work actually being done. It was awarded as a political payoff.

[Perseus]

26. Excellent summary

Well done.

[Perseus]

25. That is not what my Puerto Rico born friends tell me

The Governor, and most of the politicians in Puerto Rico are incredibly corrupt, and if that is the case, many of them must be getting a cut, or some favours to allow this to happen.

[Scoopster]

38. Okay, then add that into the mix.

You've got corrupt people operating in PR teaming up with corrupt people in DC. What changes as a result of this is that PR's leaders were complicit with the Administration in letting this crisis languish, and involved in a conspiracy to bypass the bidding process for government contracts & profit excessively off a natural disaster & its victims.

[Pauldg47]

36. I think he's pretty sharpe.......

...must be getting idea from that tiger of a San Juan mayor.

Just like he said....two people will have to sub out to every body. Sounds like a potential skimming an d scammimh situation.

Who in the hell would trust that. Nobody knows them. TRump has got to be involved.

[octoberlib]

2. Owner is a Trump supporter

The private-equity firm that finances Whitefish, HBC Investments, was founded by Joe Colonnetta, who serves as its general partner.
Federal Elections Commission data compiled by The Daily Beast shows Colonnetta contributed $20,000 to the Trump Victory PAC during the general election, $2,700 to Trump’s primary election campaign (then the maximum amount permitted), $2,700 to Trump’s general election campaign (also the maximum), and a total of $30,700 to the Republican National Committee in 2016 alone.


Joe Colonnetta is not the only Republican connection to the controversial Whitefish contract. On Monday, The Washington Post reported that Whitefish Chief Executive Officer Andy Techmanski is friends with Trump administration Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Moreover, Whitefish is located in Zinke’s hometown of Whitefish, Monatana.

Luis Vega-Ramos, member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, told The Daily Beast, “Whitefish’s most important expertise or assets seems to have been… having the U.S. secretary of the interior, Ryan Zinke, as their former congressman and current ally and having the wisdom to retain the services of key people close to the governor [of Puerto Rico].”

Zinke isn’t the only member of the Trump administration with a connection to the Whitefish contract. In addition to the Colonnettas’ contributions to Trump’s presidential campaign, Kimberly Colonnetta’s Facebook page contains a photo of her with Ben Carson, Trump’s secretary of housing and urban development. Another photo appears to show Kimberly Colonnetta with Trump Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Both photos were posted the week of Trump’s inauguration.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dollar300m-puerto-rico-recovery-contract-awarded-to-tiny-utility-company-linked-to-major-trump-donor?via=twitter_page


Sounds like they paid off key people around the Governor. The Governor said he chose them because they weren't asking for any money up front.

[Initech]

5. And Whitefish, Montana is the home of one Richard Spencer.

Yes the same Richard Spencer who is considered to be the godfather of the "alt right". I wonder if Zinke is part of their twisted agenda?

[octoberlib]

6. It has more white supremacists than any other town in America. My guess is yes.

[Scoopster]

16. Oh really?

So Spencer & Zinke knew each other growing up then? The plot thickens...

[JDC]

19. A two person company

From the article:

Whitefish Energy Holdings, which had a reported staff of only two full-time employees when Hurricane Maria touched down, appears ill-equipped to handle the daunting task of restoring electricity to Puerto Rico’s more than 3 million residents

[Lee-Lee]

4. Will voiding and rebidding get the power on to residents faster or slower?

That's kind of the biggest piece of this puzzle.

As mentioned earlier the massive amount of debt the territories power company has, and it's inability to borrow much money, probably kept a lot of companies from bidding and they make it impossible for them to run the process in-house directly contracting with companies.

[FSogol]

7. Yes, it could be faster. Why not take bids from JOC Contractors already doing work on Federal/

military contracts and compare prices. You think a company with 2 employees can quickly ramp up and spend $300 million without just outscoring the work to more qualified people and taking a profit?

Why defend corrupt practices?

[Lee-Lee]

8. According to he article they did take bids

Where are you getting that they didn't?

“Of all those who met the requirements and aggressive schedules to bring brigades, one was asking for a substantial amount of money — which PREPA had no liquidity for — and another did not require it,” he said. “That other one is Whitefish.”

That says they did take bids and accepted that one because they liked the terms better.

Do you have other information that they didn't take bids that contradicts this?

[SunSeeker]

21. How could a company with only 2 employees and NO experience building systems be allowed to bid?

This stinks. Bad.

[FSogol]

23. Friends of Trumpy's cronies equals qualified. n/t

[MrsCoffee]

39. Of course it stinks.

I just can't believe some of the shit that gets defended around here.

There is no way this company should have been awarded anything let alone such a massive undertaking in Puerto Rico.

[Jacoby365]

28. According to the governor...

which may or may not be true.

[Not Ruth]

10. Faster or slower should not matter, better matters

I want to see the job done right by someone like Elon. Not some crony who will probably go bust halfway through the job.

[Lee-Lee]

11. Elon Musk has zero grid experience

Teals and Solar City have never done any of this kind of work.

And did he even bid on this?

If not, why not?

If he did, how did his bid compare?

[SunSeeker]

22. Tesla did not bid. But it donated solar panels that are now powering a Puerto Rican hospital.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/24/16536972/tesla-puerto-rico-hurricane-relief-solar-power-storage

[jmowreader]

15. The almighty Elon has bigger problems of his own

Remember: Tesla was supposed to make 1500 Model 3 cars in the last quarter and made less than a fifth of that...and he'll lose money on every one he sells. If they gave Elon Musk the job of replacing the entire Puerto Rican electric grid, his company would go up in smoke very soon after he started.

[jmowreader]

13. Probably faster

Actual power companies have disaster-relief contingency plans and mutual aid arrangements in place. They have materials at the ready, and the telephone numbers of companies that make more. They have experience in this work. They also know how much money it would cost them to go into PR and fix the grid. If FEMA were to void the contract right now and tell the utilities, "we are going to open bids on Saturday morning, get 'em in now," they'd have several to choose from. They tell the winning bidder to get an initial team together and report to the nearest Air Force base on Monday morning. They do, the team gets loaded onto C-17 transports and flown to San Juan. By Tuesday they could be surveying the country to see what and how much needs to be done, and by Friday they could be setting telephone poles.

Zinke Enrichment LLC (so called because that's what they're for) will need weeks just to let the contracts for this project. Since they haven't done anything bigger than a $1 million job before, they're almost certain to fail.

[Lee-Lee]

14. So why didn't those companies bid this time?

Or why were they not picked if they met the needs better?

[jmowreader]

17. My guess is they were seen as not being willing to pay Zinke enough

I am getting very suspicious here...supposedly Whitefish Energy (which is two guys, a probable receptionist with a sexy voice, and one telephone) was founded a year ago. Did Trump start rigging the election that long ago?

[FSogol]

24. You are assuming it was an open, advertised bid. Was it? n/t

[ghostsinthemachine]

12. Remember the White Supremacists from

Whitefish MT? Connection?

[MontanaMama]

18. Anthing that is connected to Zinke

is dirty. I guarantee it.

[DFW]

29. This certainly stinks with an odor detectable from miles away. n/t

[SunSeeker]

20. K & R

[BadgerMom]

27. Again, I'm with her.

[erronis]

30. This is such a fascinating thread. There may be legitimacy and there may be thievery.

My guess is to the latter given the smells of the corporatists and their governmental enablers.

And, of course, the question really is: Why isn't the US Government coming directly to the aid of one of their territories? If this administration treats Puerto Rico this way, why wouldn't Florida or a "blue" state be next?

[Lee-Lee]

31. This is happening exactly like disaster recovery always does

Granted, it is a it unique since the utility system there is all government owned, but it is always up to the untilities to manage their recovery and the Federal Government just provides disaster funding.

[DK504]

32. Wow, just wow.

"In a statement, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said the contract went to Whitefish because it didn’t need money up front, something the island’s struggling utility couldn’t provide."

Sounds like he's been bought and paid for. Rebuilds like this don't ask for money up front and the GOVERNMENT of the USA PAYS for this. How the hell does this keep happening so fast? 200 damn days and he and his filthy cronies are ripping up our country.

[onethatcares]

33. can you spell

"Disaster Capitalism"?

Naomi Klein, you were way ahead with Shock Doctrine., way ahead.

Nothing will be built but plenty of money will go into certain peoples pockets.

[BigmanPigman]

34. OK, let me get this straight (I am confused a bit).

I saw this on MSNBC and the two previous employees at the company is now increased to 300. Puerto Rico is getting the needed help. The physical equipment and man power is not coming from a FEMA organization but front a tiny, obscure company which happens to be in a GOP cabinet member's own state. Now I get confused. The fucking moron has belittled, chastised, and humiliated the Puerto Rican government of being corrupt and in poor financial shape, therefore that makes them less worthy of disaster relief unlike FL and TX. So what does our own government do? They hire an almost mom and pop company to do this enormous job for an enormous contract which seems like a strange business practice but this isn't questionable since the business is in a key GOP cabinet members state making it legit. So it is OK for the US Federal government to be blatantly corrupt but it isn't OK for Puerto Rico's government to be corrupt. Is this the very definition of hypocrisy (aka the GOP)?

[malaise]

35. That is corruption on steroids

A staff of two

[YOHABLO]

37. If Puerto Ricans have U.S. citizenship, then why in the hell are they not allowed to vote

in Presidential Elections? Is this why they are so "expendable" when something like a hurricane smacks the life out of them? Because they are not represented?