This post follows a recent story (from 7.17.12) about a waste digester proposed for Whitewater, Wisconsin (see, Waste-to-energy project coming to Whitewater“).
For an earlier post along these lines, see Questions for the Press about a Proposal with Green Energy Holdings.
1. Does anyone think, as the 7.17.12 story states, that the City of Whitewater has entered into a deal with Green Energy Holdings, Inc. of Clermont, Florida?
Here’s the second paragraph of the story:
“….Green Energy Holdings, Inc., a Clermont, Fla., company, recently completed a nine month-long process culminating in an agreement to build the facility on a 15-acre site adjacent to the city’s wastewater treatment plant on Highway U. Former Whitewater City Manager Kevin Brunner said the facility will add $10 million to the city’s tax roll and provide as many as 70 new jobs.”
This proposal isn’t with a Florida coal processing company.
A check of Florida’s corporate records ( http://sunbiz.org/search.html) reveals that there is no Florida corporation named Green Energy Holdings, Inc., but there is a Green Energy Holdings, LLC located in Clermont, Florida ( Search Result).
That Clermont, Florida company is, however, one that processes coal, and has no connection to bio-waste digesters.
Their website describes their business and location:
Business —
“Green Energy Holdings sponsors subsidiaries that acquire coal tailings in pits, typically on abandoned coal mine sites. The companies either buy or acquire long-term leases on the land that the coal tailings sit on.”
Location —
“Green Energy Holdings, LLC
2215 Cluster Oak Drive
Suite 3
Clermont, FL 34711
(352) 404-4259”
2. Isn’t this a deal with a Wisconsin corporation, registered in Wisconsin on 4.3.12? Isn’t that corporation connected to Northern Concrete Construction?
See, from my earlier post entitled, Preliminary & General Questions about a Proposal with Green Energy Holdings, Questions 2 and 11.
Green Energy Holdings, Inc. is a Wisconsin company, likely a subsidiary of Northern Concrete Construction, and either a sister or successor to N.E.W. Organic Digestion, LLC.
This deal has no connection to a Florida company.
3. Isn’t it true that I have asked far more questions than simply about jobs and clawbacks? I’ve a category about the project, with dozens of questions about official conduct at meetings, environmental concerns, and the basic diligence of local officials. This is more, I’d say, than a dollar-and-cents issue.
4. Why has this project, about which no one among the public in Whitewater has seen an independent financial estimate, been accepted at face value by the local press?
5. When the story mentions that Green Energy Holdings conducted a nine-month evaluation, does that mean that neither the city nor any independent firm conducted an independent evaluation of this reportedly multi-million-dollar deal?
6. Since the story wrongly identifies an out-of-state company as the entity behind the project, why would anyone have confidence in any assertions the story makes about months of evaluation by a company wholly unconnected with this project? Why have any confidence in the story’s uncritical acceptance of the big-dollar promises officials have touted?
7. How can Green Energy Holdings (the actual one in this deal) have conducted a nine-month self-study when it hasn’t been a Wisconsin corporation for even five months? Who did this study? Where is it?
8. At any time during the interview with Interim City Manager Cameron Clapper for this story, was Clapper asked to confirm the identity and location of the company? If not, why not?
If Clapper were asked this question, then did he confirm the wrong entity as the other party to this deal? If Clapper knew the right (in-state) entity as the party to this deal, has he made any effort to request a correction to a fundamental and basic element of story?
9. When Interim City Manager Clapper answered that it was his ‘understanding’ that there was an on-track deal, did anyone ask the basis of that understanding — that is, how sound that understanding was?