CARNEY AND DELAWIND’S APPLICATION FOR TAXPAYER FUNDS WITHDRAWN (AGAIN)
Dec 22nd, 2009 by David Anderson
-PLAYERS SITE DIFFERING REASONS FOR FALL OUT-
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 22, 2009
DOVER – According to a News Journal article published online today, DelaWind LLC, executive vice president and Democratic U.S. Congress candidate John Carney’s application for state money has officially been withdrawn, although why doesn’t remain clear.
Amer Industrial Technologies, which owns a large machine shop along the Delaware River, dropped out of the project last week.
Carney cited, “The uncertainty of when the turbines would be built affected the ability to attract financing”, Carney said.
Dennis O’Brien, CEO of Transformative Technologies, which developed the idea attributed the breakup to “management differences on the timing, priorities and structure of the business in light of the challenging economic environment.”
Ahmad Amer, president of Amer Industrial Technologies, said, “It became a political issue, so I don’t want it to hurt anybody’s feelings and so I decided nobody needed that,”. He said there were other disagreements, too. “I don’t like financing, and they do. And they needed money. I don’t need money,”
The application was initially questioned by State Senator Joe Booth. Then Ron Poliquin filed a FOIA request seeking documents related to the application. After initial denials by Secretary Alan Levin, Poliquin finally received the documents which raised further questions as to whether Carney was given preferential treatment because of his political stature.
“This would not be the first time that the application has been withdrawn only to reappear later”, said Poliquin, as Levin initially denied Poliquin’s FOIA requests stating the principals of DelaWind withdrew their request for funding.
For more information please contact Ron Poliquin at ron@ronpoliquin.com.
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Yea for the Delaware GOP!
We stopped Democrats from working out a deal where steel produced in Claymont would be sent down to East Wilmington to be made into wind turbine bases.
“I don’t like financing, and they do. And they needed money. I don’t need money,” Amer said. Translation – I was willing when taxpayers were assuming the risk and I could make money based on them assuming the risk. None of the players had skin in the game. The taxpayers of Delaware were saved from a major boondoggle. If this is such a financial bonanza, why doesn’t think123 put some money in the pot?
think123, always rooting for the failure of the GOP. What happened here, and it wasn’t ‘the GOP,’ just a group of 3-4 concerned citizens who saw a rotten deal and worked to expose it.
“We stopped Democrats from working out a deal where steel produced in Claymont would be sent down to East Wilmington to be made into wind turbine bases.”
No, “we” didn’t. They are still free to do it, just without the taxpayer money. And if taxpayer money was the only way it could get done, then it probably wasn’t a strong enough plan to begin with. They had no contracts to sell the product and no contracts to make the product, yet we were going to give them $350,000 before the sweetheart deal got exposed in those emails.
Dave, you’re probably right about the sweetheart deals. I don’t know the details. I’m a fan of steel making and the hard edged town of Claymont. Sending steel made in Claymont to make stuff in Wilmington sounded like a great idea to me. More important than dinging Carney. If taxpayer money could help get something going, why not?
And Dave, gimme a break, I swear everything I say is aimed at reforming the GOP not hurting. We’re already hurting.
Anbupro, I’m not interested in boondoggle. Just seems like soon as the Carney name came up all hell broke out.
We subsidized $100 million taxpayer dollars for white collar AstraZeneca and it worked. That’s why every state has an economic development office. Go up to that steel plant, watch those workers. Most of the heavy steel production / fabrication jobs for wind turbines are overseas now. Delaware has a perfect location, infrastructure for this. This is not political. It’s more like economic survival.
Then by all means, let them continue with the project. I’ll say it again: if they need tax money to get off the ground, then it’s probably not a sufficient plan.
As far as A/Z goes, we knew what we were getting in that case, so it is a 100% different story. I wasn’t real thrilled with that deal, either, since they used money that was otherwise going to purchase roadside easements in Sussex County to accommodate growth. Those easements are now going to cost more than the state gained from A/Z. So given the proper perspective, that may not have been the best move either.