LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME


[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]

Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

Get weekly updates
RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Stripe

Donate via Paypal

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Assembly looks to clarify Compact’s role 

Credit:  By Patrick Cassidy | Cape Cod Times | January 18, 2013 | www.capecodonline.com ~~

BARNSTABLE – The county’s legislative board is again pushing for more transparency at the Cape Light Compact.

The dozen Assembly of Delegates members attending the panel’s regular meeting Wednesday voted unanimously to ask county Treasurer Mark Zielinski to provide a series of financial documents from the Compact.

“In today’s day and age as we know, most of this information is readily available,” said Sandwich’s delegate James Killion, who made a motion to request the documents on behalf of James Rogers, a constituent and vocal critic of the Compact and the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative.

Rogers and others – primarily opponents of wind energy projects around the Cape – have argued that the two regional energy agencies have failed to respond to repeated requests for public records.

They also contend that the Compact has inappropriately shifted money to the cooperative, which was formed by the county and towns in 2007 to pursue renewable energy projects on the Cape and Martha’s Vineyard.

The Compact was formed in 1997 to buy power in bulk for municipalities and other customers on the Cape and Martha’s Vineyard as well as to run energy-efficiency programs for the region.

The documents requested include accounting reports for the Compact’s power supply reserve fund, operating fund, energy efficiency reserve fund and energy fund.

“I don’t think the request the public is making on these documents is unrealistic,” Killion said.

Although the Compact and cooperative are governed by separate boards of directors, the two agencies share personnel with the county, including Maggie Downey, who is the Compact’s administrator, the cooperative’s clerk and the county’s assistant administrator. Zielinski is the county administrator, county treasurer and the cooperative’s treasurer.

Zielinski did not return an email and telephone message left at his office Thursday seeking comment for this story.

The request for documents should be made to Zielinski in his role as county treasurer because of the assembly’s clear oversight of that office, Falmouth delegate Julia Taylor said during Wednesday’s meeting.

“I have a worry that these are not in fact county agencies and therefore we aren’t in charge of them,” she said about the cooperative and Compact. “This is the problem with the whole thing.”

The role of the county in overseeing the Compact has been part of an ongoing debate that includes the work of a special committee convened by the assembly that blasted the Compact and cooperative in a report released last year for a lack of transparency.

The county’s executive arm – the three-member board of county commissioners – votes on contracts and other financial actions for the Compact and the county clearly has oversight of those actions, said Harwich delegate Leo Cakounes who was a member of the special committee.

Cakounes listed off about $10 million in contracts in the Compact’s name that county commissioners voted on over just the past three weeks.

“I stand here as a member of the legislative body of the county and tell you that if our executive body is signing documents for that kind of money we are well within our rights to ask for an accounting of it,” he said.

Orleans delegate Christopher Kanaga amended Killion’s motion to ask that the documents be provided within seven days.

The 12 members of the assembly present at the meeting voted unanimously to approve the request, which will be made through the assembly’s speaker, Ronald Bergstrom of Chatham.

Source:  By Patrick Cassidy | Cape Cod Times | January 18, 2013 | www.capecodonline.com

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Contributions
   Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)
Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI M TG TS G Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook Wind Watch on Linked In

Wind Watch on Mastodon Wind Watch on Truth Social

Wind Watch on Gab Wind Watch on Bluesky