If you want to make money off of taxpayers you need to get the most pliable ciphers into decision-making positions so you can consult to them for your benefit. One way:
(1) Donate to candidates likely to be elected who can be easily manipulated (or at least won’t ask questions)
(2) Sell them on a scheme that supposedly will benefit taxpayers but, regardless of whether it does or not, will be lucrative for you
(3) Let the chips fall where they may but make sure you get your money up front
(4) When the crash comes – deflect, deny, or distract as appropriate
As an example:
(1) Individual lawyers for DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick & Cole, LLP donated $120,000 over three years to Union County freeholder candidates guaranteed election
(2) DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick & Cole, LLP came up with a scheme to put up solar panels throughout the county at no cost to the entity that signed up and even promising savings on energy costs
(3) The scheme was built on SREC values and yesterday imploded but money was made.
Though some of the details (mainly the DeCotiis campaign contributions) were still sketchy to me when Union County signed up, it seemed pretty obvious back then:
.
.
We are now at step (4) and the only outstanding questions are who DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick & Cole, LLP will wind up blaming (assuming they even have to answer for this debacle) and how long it will be before they feel confident enough to introduce that plan involving wheels and hamsters.
countywatchers 
Posted by Bruce Paterson on May 29, 2013 at 1:10 pm
just more proof that this crowd of self serving slugs are not a county govt with the residents interests in mind. Thank JB1 and countywatchers for being so prescient.
Posted by peon on May 29, 2013 at 1:43 pm
Would’nt wind turbines atop Runnels have produced significant more energy than solar (always windy up here)
Posted by steve on May 29, 2013 at 2:47 pm
Talk about wheels and hamsters what about these federal programs where a need is legislated then subsidized corps are created and the low level govt officers buy into with matching fund grants and the tax payer gets hit twice-the lawyers are just one rung on the hamster wheel-it is a win -win situation for all the blue beards involved-the congress and senate is where this has to be stopped from voters please look up and take notice this november
Posted by Daniel Shays on May 29, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Just do a google of “Green Jobs Fail” and read the countless articles on the green scams, including solar panels, and my favorite, Kean University Communist Chinese “partner”, building & operating Wind Farms that were supposed to provide jobs for US companies and workers in Texas, and instead provide jobs for Kean Universities communist Chinese “partners”. Green is truly “Red”.
Posted by NFS on May 29, 2013 at 3:15 pm
UCIA attorney Jonathan Williams promised all sorts of widely high estimates the solar panels would save on energy costs and never once, to my recollection, warned of any potential risks. Anyone with half a brain could recognize that it should have been considered too risky a venture for taxpayers money. Besides being a risky venture, the other mind-boggling aspect is the DeCotiis law firm was running around NJ getting their other various taxpayer-funded clients to enter into the same scheme, which, increased solar production which resulted in lower SREC prices. That’s not a conflict of interest? That’s not grounds for a malpractice case? If not, what is?
Posted by Peter Scull on May 29, 2013 at 11:36 pm
John: you warned them about this solar fiasco, you advised them where to cut $20 million off the budget a couple of years ago, you constantly point out the error of their ways yet THEY NEVER LISTEN OR REACT. NEVER.
We are lucky to have you & your knowledge and I, for one, appreciate the efforts of you and the other journalists associated with the County Watchers.
Thanks for your accurate, in-depth information you provide. If only they would pay attention when you speak instead of hiding behind their monitors.
Posted by G. Albritton on May 30, 2013 at 12:31 am
Now it is clear why De Filippo was forced to announce her resignation as UCIA Executive Director so abruptly on May 3. The UCIA letter of May 28 reveals that Tioga had informed the UCIA on or prior to April 30 that it was going bust, and the May 1 payment of $1.3 million by the local Tioga LLC shell operating company was missed. The timing cannot be coincidental. And to think she was able to pull off a magnificent failure like this with so many millions likely lost, working from home for only $14K a month…
But in fact this ridiculous plan was doomed even before the UCIA Bonds were issued. Go back and read what was posted on the internet on April 26, 2011 at http://markets.flettexchange.com/2011/04/26/new-jersey-srec-prices-drop/ :
“New Jersey SREC Prices Drop — by Michael Flett”
“New Jersey Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) prices are declining. With the robust pace of installations there will most likely be an oversupply of SRECs in the New Jersey market in Energy Year 2012. This includes production from June 2011 to May 2012. Prices for this period are approximately trading around $550 per SREC, which is 15% lower than the current trading price of $655 for Energy Year 2011 SRECs. If the rate of solar installations continues at this rate, prices can be expected to drop into the $400s and even into the $300s for the Energy Year 2012 SRECs.”
This analysis was published on a website that at the time EVERYONE in New Jersey involved in the industry, including each of the attorneys, consulting engineers and business participants in the UCIA Bonds offering, would or should have read in the minimum exercise of diligence in late April 2011. The $15 million principal amount in UCIA Renewable Energy Bonds guaranteed by the County were sold ONE WEEK LATER based upon unrealistic SREC price assumptions that should have been shattered and pulverized by this and other then-breaking news regarding the collapse of the SREC market in the state. Those rosy assumptions had been presented by the UCIA evaluation team, led by the De Cotiis law firm, Birdsall and an affiliate of the bond undewriter, to the Union County Freeholders in December 2010 just before the County guarantee was approved by Ordinance 715-2010 on December 22, 2010. But despite the dramatic and obvious turn in the SREC market, these assumptions were apparently NEVER revised or updated before the guarantee was hurriedly put into place finally in early May 2011. The May 4, 2011 Official Statement for the Bonds then sold says NOTHING about the well-publicized downturn in SREC prices, and was therefore fraudulent and misleading.
But it’s not like the Flett analysis above was the first warning that the Bond scheme was a fiasco, if not an outright fraud, in the making. The John Bury and the UCWA nailed it much earlier in eerily accurate entries published right here, for example, in August 2010 ( http://www.countywatchers.com/?p=2958 ) and December 2010 ( http://www.countywatchers.com/?p=3528 ), and in presentations to the deaf-to-reason Freeholders.
De Cotiis led the UCIA and the County as guarantor of the Bonds down the green garden path, even after it had become clear that that path was strewn with nettles and thorns, to make sure that they collected what was coming to them even if it meant that the County would likely pay, and pay dearly indeed.
Union County Freeholders, – you poor, ignorant fools, — the time has come to pay, and the County’s taxpayers will now pay for that fraud and your folly in falling for it.
Posted by jimmie james johnson on May 30, 2013 at 9:33 am
reading something on the UCIA website, I believe the intent was to sell these SREC’s at $350; with the UCIA having the option to buy them themselves at $200 and then resell them for a profit on the open market.
Does anyone know what they are actually selling for ?
Posted by NFS on May 30, 2013 at 10:57 am
$132.50
http://markets.flettexchange.com/new-jersey-srec/
Posted by John Bury on May 30, 2013 at 11:33 am
There are other issues here beyond the price right now.
How many of those SRECs are they really selling. Are they getting the megawatts they thought they would? Where is the price going to go? Would Tioga have filed for bankruptcy (which is what Assignment of Benefits to Creditors is without the court; Tioga gets to name the bankruptcy overlord) if they expected a rebound?
Posted by G. Albritton on May 30, 2013 at 1:14 pm
On Saturday, June 1, the “Energy Year” 2014 starts, and under the related legislation enacted in July 2012 the SACP will be reduced to only $339, and descending incrementally year by year thereafter (e.g $300 in 2019) until 2028 ($239.) The highest price for any SREC sold for 2014 production will effectively be capped at the SACP and likely be considerably less with the state being so overbuilt now with solar capacity churning out plenty of SRECs.
There has been no definitive disclosure to the public of the financial formula behind the UCIA project (that revelation may have to await the litigation likely to follow this crash.) But it seems that the promoters were looking at averaging a minimum of $350-360 per SREC to cover the operating and financing costs, at least in the first years. If so, the catastrophic decline in the market for SRECs in 2011, 2012 and through 2013 apparently choked the life out of the ill-advised venture from day one, and the change in the NJ laws in July 2012 assuring a lower SACP nailed down the coffin lid.
What I am wondering about now is whether the the Tioga ABC and its fallout for the UCIA and the County was the real reason behind the secretive May 16 Executive Session of the Freeholder Board. If so, that REASON should clearly have been disclosed under the OPMA and there was a violation since it was not. No negotiation, no privilege involved. Timely public awareness of this important issue and an opportunity to ask related questions were thereby illegally avoided. But why keep the public in the dark for only the few weeks or days before this story of millions of County dollars potentially lost inevitably broke? Not hard to guess with a hotly contested primary election coming up on June 4!
Posted by Bruce Paterson on May 30, 2013 at 1:45 pm
It would also be beneficial as info is the buildings that were involved in the solar program actually provide ongoing studies of their savings over the months/years. I had asked Garwood BOE a while ago and they said to ask again later, the study hadn’t been done yet. We should all contact of govt officials overseeing their buildings that have solar and find this info out.
Posted by John Bury on May 30, 2013 at 2:07 pm
For anyone interested here is a list of those projects with estimates of costs and savings.
http://www.countywatchers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/solar-panel-projects.xls
Not sure if all of them went through but if your city is on the list you may want to ask that. You may also ask who’s going to be cleaning those
solar panels now that Tioga is gone?
Posted by Javagold on May 30, 2013 at 4:43 pm
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-05-30/next-shoe-drop-shoddy-solar-panels-china
Posted by jimmie james johnson on May 31, 2013 at 9:34 am
this was all paid for with Bonded Money and allegedly its generating enough money to cover the interest on said bonds
doesn’t someone have to repay the bonds themselves ?
Posted by G. Albritton on May 31, 2013 at 2:17 pm
Each year in October, starting in 2012 and running through 2026, just over $1 million principal amount of the UCIA Bonds mature. The funds to make that annual payment (and to make the semi-annual payment of interest (now about $250,000) due each April and October) are to be received by the Bond’s Trustee in effective installments each month from the Tioga operating company through its lease payments, which are now about $132,000 every month. That’s a lot of discounted electricity and SRECs to generate — consistently. The May 28 UCIA letter acknowledges that not all of the May 1 installment was received.
Posted by NFS on May 31, 2013 at 9:01 pm
Attorney/Bullshitter extraordinaire Jonathan Williams fails to tells the “folks” a/k/a taxpayers that the $4 million guaranty is NOT secured and subject to the ABC Trustee. Just LIKE IN BANKRUPTCY.
Posted by Jeff on June 2, 2013 at 10:10 am
All involved should lose their license to practice law. But really the answer is torches and pitchforks.
Posted by Fossil-Fueled Front Group | Burypensions Blog on January 11, 2019 at 3:30 pm
[…] If you divest from something that leaves money to invest in something else. Couldn’t the whole climate change crowd be a front group for the solar panel industry? See how it played out in Union County. […]