Getting rid of these cronies is the right thing. But yet more delays for a desperate group of Americans.
That fishy deal stunk. Seems like a good idea end the contract, though Whitefish is still $8M heavier in the wallet.
Hopefully they will get another company in there soon.
So days before Maria struck and after Irma had struck Whitefish just happened to fly down to PR to sign a contract worth $300M before they knew the extent of the damage Maria would bring? I understand that other companies were interested but wanted a down payment upfront, which to me sounds reasonable. So who really is paying for this, FEMA =tax payer money or who?
A small bit in an interview I read some where quoted a woman saying she and her neighborhood/town had been without power since Irma.
Maybe they’re a $8 million heavier in the wallet, but likely not – assuming this is the total amount they’ve been paid, not their net profit, it’s quite possible that they end up losing money on the deal. In other words, they may have had to put in significant start-up costs, which they now may not recover.
Not to mention whatever bribes they may have paid, which now aren’t going to pay off. 
Such a pity! I’m quite sure some very dedicated Republicans worked long and hard on such a fine example of the graft and corruption which is their natural inclination.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico (remember them, 3.4 million AMERICANS?) still needs Water, Power, and darned near everything else needed to restore life, stability, and Hope.
Now that this Monstrosity is Dead, can we get back to helping the people that need it, please?
None of this would be happening if we were talking about Houston, or Miami, rather than San Juan.
Looks like the head of PREPA is complicit in the shadiness of the deal, too. Lot of tap dancing.
How are some people in New Orleans doing now?
I’m thinking many in Houston and parts of FL are never going to get back what they had.
My impression is that the Whitefish partners saw an opportunity to apply their acknowledged expertise in remote-area utilities restoration (over 20 years) and logistics, traveled directly to PR to meet with PREPA on-site, offered immediate emergency mobilization without prepayment, and the utility agency decided the desperate situation warranted short-circuiting the usual months-long competitive process. The competition either was not ready to hit the ground running, demanded prepayment of moneys PREPA does not have or gave them the bureaucratic runaround. And Whitefish was performing, having mobilized subcontractor forces and already completed repairs in difficult circumstances. But now that prejudicial assumption of corruption has been slathered all over the deal by outside interests and the uninformed, PREPA is being forced to back out of the contract. Whitefish and its subcontractors will have to fight to be made whole for their good-faith expenses. Let’s see how long it takes for the power to be fixed now while FEMA, the territorial government and the big infrastructure contractors take forever to discuss scope, go through niceties of competitive procurement or formal suspension and mobilize in slow motion as their respective bureaucracies malfunction to drag out the process of recovery. In the end, the work that Whitefish would have done competently for $300 million will cost $1.2 billion to be done incompetently. And who will get that money? The big boys of infrastructure development, as usual. Republican donors to the man. Yes, The Man - precious few women in that secret fraternity. Mark my words, y’all. I’m willing to be proven wrong on this, but so far, there’s absolutely no proof or evidence of corruption beyond guilt by association.
Not surprising. I saw this coming because it is such an egregious example of grifting over reach. They could have given them a much smaller contract and no one would have noticed. But noooooo. They had to do something ridiculous and draw all kinds of scrutiny. They can’t even do this kind of corruption right.
What competition? One other company? What about the bad-mouthing of Puerto Ricans and the subsequent attempt at CYA?
BTW, from wiki:
Whitefish Energy was founded in 2015 by Andy Techmanski.[who?]
In 2016, a 51% stake in the company was sold to Comtrafo S.A.
2015? Are you effing kidding me?
Whitefish’s adequacy was another reason why the contract was labeled as unusual. Before being awarded PREPA’s contract, Whitefish’s largest contract was a $1.3 million electrical upgrade in Arizona.[2] In addition, Whitefish, as a holding company, only had two employees when the hurricane struck. Moreover, their primary investor, HBC Investments, was founded by Joe Colonnetta, a “prominent donor” of incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.[13] Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski and United States Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke also know each other, as both hail from Whitefish, Montana.[2] Techmanski also admitted that he had been in touch with Zinke in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria to try to free up more resources since getting crews and equipment to Puerto Rico had been difficult.[14] In addition, one of Zinke’s son also worked at one of Techmanski’s construction sites in the past.[2]
After the contract was awarded, Whitefish sent 300 workers—mostly subcontractors—to Puerto Rico to rebuild 100 miles of transmission lines. The company then said that it expected to have over 1,000 workers involved with the contract.[2][15][16][17]
Sounds totally like a legit grift.
All of that may be true, but the contract contained falsehoods and a couple of aberrations as pointed out by the mayor of San Juan. The fine print said that no government agency could oversee the work, that the company was not responsible for any time or cost overruns, and that FEMA had approved the contract. PREPA signed off on all of this.
FEMA denies having anything to do with the contract, and no contractor may exempt itself from oversight or liability for breaking the terms.
These are the reasons it was cancelled by the governor. FEMA is currently in PR with the Army Corps of Engineers and they have contracts with several large engineering firms and several thousand workers already on the ground. It did take too long, but at least work has started.
[quote=“chelsea530, post:12, topic:64358, full:true”]
What competition? One other company? What about the bad-mouthing of Puerto Ricans and the subsequent attempt at CYA? [/quote]
My point exactly - Whitefish was on-site, ready to work. The others were nowhere to be seen. PR needs power recovery work to be happening yesterday, not nine months from now.
The point is not the longevity of the business structure they set up for doing this kind of work, but rather the experience of the two owners / employees. Nothing I have seen calls their expertise into question. They’ve been involved in rural / remote area utility recovery for many years as individuals. If longevity were an indicator of agility and competence, Sears would be Amazon.
First off, Whitefish is a small town. The fact that Techmanski knows Zinke, and Zinke’s kid worked as a flagger one summer is hardly surprising. Does that mean that a hypothetical Clinton administration couldn’t hire a startup company owned by an ex-roommate of Chelsea’s? This is not proof of corruption or cronyism…it is guilt by association, and even that is at secondhand - Zinke is the guy with the Trump schmutz on him.
Second, while Whitefish as a company may not have landed larger contracts in its short history as a business entity, that is no indicator that the two owners don’t have experience participating in larger projects with different companies, perhaps as contractors themselves.
Exactly as I said - they mobilized resources, started repairs immediately and are performing the multitude of logistical tasks it takes to expand operations in the PR disaster area. From what I can tell, not very many others are performing to that standard.
Is there some reason why logistical project management using subcontracted trades and suppliers is not worthy unless you are a gigantic corporation with a multitude of subsidiaries, VP’s, trade employees and equipment? Whitefish appears to be a good example of contemporary information-based lean business, using subcontracting and just-in-time methods to get the job done instead of being hobbled by large capital investments. Part of that is indeed networking and knowledge of Who’s Who - should they just ignore that and start their inquiries by looking in the public notice want ads of the Whitefish Weekly Gazette?
I think you should scroll up to clemmer’s post, because yours sounds like something out of Trump Apologists, Inc.
I’d like to see the actual contract language. Construction contracts do not include third-party government supervision. The contract is between PREPA and Whitefish - the territorial government and federal agencies are not parties to the contract, nor should they be. But they’ve got a red ass about how PREPA actually got someone out into the sticks making repairs without them.
Responsibility for time and cost overruns. Talk about discovered conditions! They’re basically parachuting into a disaster zone, and unexpected complications and additional costs are to be expected. There’s nothing in that language that says PREPA is responsible for unsubstantiated additional costs. That’s what change orders are all about. PREPA can choose to have the work stopped within the original scope, or the contract amount / time modified to compensate the contractor for additional work. Entirely normal. What, the contractor should eat all additional costs due to unknown discovered conditions? Not in the real world of construction!
Yes, it took too long. Whitefish and PREPA got down to business while the others were slow to respond. And what do they get for that - recrimination and punishment.
cub, Whitefish appreciates your efforts. I find you full of nonsense.
I won’t bother to address all of it, because I did that a couple days ago. Instead, I will just say this: PREPA and Whitefish signed a contract stating that FEMA would be funding the work beginning Oct. 25, even though FEMA had not approved ( or even seen, apparently) the contract. The contract put PREPA on the hook to pay for any work completed even if FEMA didn’t provide funds. PREPA is in bankruptcy, which probably means that it can’t commit to such a large contract without approval from lenders or a judge.
The contract and the facts surrounding are screwy and wrong in many, many ways. If PREPA had a leg to stand on, it wouldn’t be ending the contract at the cost of delaying the work by 10-12 weeks. I don’t believe the 10-12 weeks whine for a second, but a legit company defending a legit contract would ride this out and be a hero to the people of PR. PREPA’s director shit his pants and surrendered.
See my response to clemmers.
There is no apology or excuse for Trump in what I’m writing in defense of the Whitefish contract. The situation has nothing to do with Trump other than guilt by association, which the resistance is far too quick to apply too freely, IMHO, because Trump is so corrupt, such an asshole and everything he touches dies.
Which I mutter to myself multiple times daily, like some kind of twisted obsessive mantra or spell that will make him vanish.
I also think it’s telling that FEMA and Corp of Engineers are touting the usual suspects of big corporate construction and international development. Where have we seen this before? Just every third-world development scheme that delivers the wrong end of the lollipop to the ordinary people while enriching the local kleptocrats and global plutocrats.
I’m sorry, but your defense is full of holes. Perhaps you want the quickest response, but there’s a very large possibility that this company would have been a disastrous failure for Puerto Rico. Again, clemmers:
These are the reasons it was cancelled by the governor. FEMA is currently in PR with the Army Corps of Engineers and they have contracts with several large engineering firms and several thousand workers already on the ground. It did take too long, but at least work has started.
This sounds like a much more hopeful outcome than would be provided by the two-bit, inexperienced company from Montana.
Bribes, of course, are not refundable.