I think the reasons have already been covered - sadly but predictably.
Another win for the Swamp.
Oh yeah. Not defending that. I was just curious. Thought I might actually see a business. Then I thought about the personal mailbox angle.
Flip-flops are allowed in the voting booth.
The mayor of San Juan criticized the Whitefish contract, whoever the person is who runs their Twitter account threatened to pull out and leave them high and dry, as if nobody else can fill the void, if she doesn’t shut up.
They appear to have taken that tweet down.
They then said, “We share frustration with Mayor Cruz on the situation in Puerto Rico, but her comments are misplaced.”
They then apologized.
https://twitter.com/WhitefishEnergy
She hurt their feelings!
OK, so Reuters reported yesterday that the governor of PR, Ricardo Rossello, defended the company.
Today it’s being reported that the Governor is “calling for an audit,” but the actual announcement seems a lot more routine, implying no evidence of any issues. Furthermore, he confirms Whitefish’s claim of having 300 people on the ground.
Taken as a whole, it seems like other companies were considered, and Whitefish was chosen for a reason. Despite having 2 employees and a shitty website, they seem to have gotten boots on the ground quickly and are doing important work. Unless and until something comes out that indicates the contract was awarded illegally or they’re not performing agreed upon services at a fair price, this feels like a scandal in search of a crime.
There’s a Bricker joke in there, but I don’t want to make it.
…I don’t think anyone is claiming that Whitefish don’t have 300 boots on the ground.
But anyone can organize 300 boots on the ground. Give me a multi-million dollar budget and I would like to think I would do a half-way decent job of any job that requires project management. But there is absolutely nothing in Whitefish’s CV that points to them having the expertise and the experience to be able to handle a job of this scope. There are many companies in America who have had to work in similar crisis situations.
How could FPL not even get a call? I’m less concerned about the “legality” than I am in the clear absence of process that lead to these guys getting this contract. These guys shouldn’t have even made the short-list.
I don’t want to get roped into defending something I know little about, but there are a lot of challenges.
And
And
So it’s a difficult job made more difficult by the logistics, PREPA might not have felt they could afford FPL and/or that FPL wasn’t in a position to get crews to an island with a ravaged infrastructure, the Army CoE took over which negated the need for FPL, and there was a contracting process that was supposedly followed according to this army general.
Again, something may come out and change my mind, and lord knows the federal response to this disaster could have been a lot better, but the people in PR actually dealing with Whitefish don’t seem to have any complaints. Except the San Juan mayor, who’s increasingly seeming like a political hack.
…wow.
I just read that properly and this link answers all the questions.
For some bizarre reason I had thought that the Federal Government would have been issuing the tenders and paying the bill. But the contract was issued by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. And the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is broke. So they went with the tender that didn’t require* money up front*. The company that didn’t need a deposit. I suspect the Zinke connection really is a big coincidence. The PREPA had two options: one that required cash up front and one that didn’t. It is no surprise they went for the “no money down” option.
That makes sense. They went with the tender they had the cashflow to be able to accommodate. But the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority should not have been put in that situation. I don’t actually fault Whitefish for going for the tender. But I suspect that (due to their lack of experience) they have probably underquoted. And they are “front-footing” the expenses. So it will become a competition of who runs out of money first: the financiers of Whitefish or the PREPA. What a clusterfuck.
Going for the cheapest bid very rarely works out ever. Going for the cheapest bid typically results in poor workmanship and shoddy results and more expense because you have to do a “do-over.”
I’m sure that the people from Whitefish are very polite.
Oh fuck off.
It’s quite possible that Whitefish was a valid choice, fairly made, and will do a good job. This administration has done nothing to warrant the benefit of the doubt, though, and it’s prudent to assume that *every *deal they make is shady until proven otherwise.
I agree, this is where the criticisms should lie.
Ehhh, as far as I know Mayor Cruz didn’t say anything about this contract that’s apparently been operating for over 3 weeks until the story made national news here, and then she calls for the contract to be voided based on… what? Not investigated, not audited, but voided. What’s she got to do with this anyway? This is all above her pay grade.
To be fair, I think the media likes the “Trump vs. the Mayor” story a lot more than what they’re getting from the actual governor, but still, she seems perfectly content to be in the limelight sparring with Trump.
Sure, maybe we can get our own news channels where talking heads drone on for 22 hours a day just asking these sorts of questions…
I dunno man, I don’t think Trump’s badness should give liberals an excuse to adopt bad habits.
Does anyone have access to documentation that establishes when, exactly, Whitefish sprang into existence?
ETA: and CV’s of Whitefish’s principals?
2015, here’s the founder’s linked-in profile.
Steronz: A politician is a political hack!
Real world: Wow! Tell us more!
…you may or may not have been following the news, but Mayor Cruz has been a bit fucking busy over the last 3 weeks.
Because the almost inevitable consequences of engaging a low-bid contractor (or as we know in this case the contractor that said “we don’t need money up front” to get the contract) is that down the line the work is most likely to be problematic. Investigations and audit process take months. And by that stage if the workmanship is shoddy then it will be already too late. They didn’t win the tender because they were the most experienced or the best bid. They won because they could work on finance. They won because Puerto Rico literally doesn’t have the cash flow to do anything else. The Federal government should have stepped up. But they haven’t.
Trump is endorsing Ed Gillespie for Virginia Governor. Gillespie has called for Confederate monuments to remain standing: The Republican Campaign in Virginia Is All About Preserving “Our” Confederate Statues – Mother Jones
Trump just tweeted that Gillespie will stand up for “our great statues/heritage”. So Trump has just endorsed the Confederacy over the United States.
The media didn’t seem to give a shit about PR until it became a Trump story, and partly it became a Trump story because Mayor Cruz decided to publicly spar with him. I think that was smart; nobody’s going to look good battling it out with the mayor of a poor, embattled city. She was a sympathetic figure, and she brought much needed attention to the situation.
But whenever anyone rises to political prominence by taking on the president… motives are not always pure.
And what does this have to do with the mayor of San Juan? Why did she throw her 2 cents into the circus?
My question is, how did Halliburton not get the contract?
…please forgive me for not taking the word of a random person on the internet on what the motives are for a person that speaks out.
You bought her into the thread, not me. WTF does she have to do do with the Trump clusterfuck?
She threw her 2 cents in because her voice is heard above the others at the moment, because she loves her country, and she is speaking out. Why the fuck should she not speak out?