Feasibility Study
Much has been made by me and others about the "feasibility study" referenced in the City of Great Falls City Commission minutes of November 4, 2003. I received the following today from Peggy Bourne, City Clerk (it was on the City's letterhead, but unsigned):
March 20, 2007
The November 4, 2003 agenda report to the City Commission regarding a Capital Contribution to SME G&T in the amount of $23,376.12 was characterized as payment for the City’s pro rata share of an ongoing study to determine the economic feasibility of a ‘clean coal’ technology electric generation resource in Montana. “Economic feasibility” is used here in a generic sense and does not refer to a single pecific feasibility study, although the timing of the payment coincided with fuel studies underway at the time. This is the source of the confusion over this issue. Had we anticipated that this phraseology would be interpreted as a single study more careful wording could have been chosen.
In actuality, this was the first of five Capital Contribution payments made by the City to SME which now total $514,997.03, and are reflected as Investment in Joint Venture in the City’s financial reports. The cash proceeds from the capital calls have been used to fund various studies regarding feasibility and development of possible
generating facility types, various fuel types, and various locations, as well as expenses related to initial setup of office operations of SME G&T. Most of the studies funded by these contributions are publicly available on various websites involving US financing and the Environmental Impact Statement. The total amount of capital contributions was approved to bring the City up to par with the other SME members using a load ratio share formula in which the City originally committed to a 1/6 (17.584%) investment in SME G&T. The City is not in possession of all the studies done under these payments but most of them are part of the public record in their entirety or have their results incorporated into the findings of others.
1 comment:
MUCKRAKER:
A muckraker is an American term for one who investigates and exposes issues of corruption that violate widely held values, such as political corruption, corporate crime, child labor, conditions in slums and prisons, unsanitary conditions in food processing plants, fraudulent claims by manufacturers of patent medicines, labor racketeering, and similar topics.
The term muckraker is most usually associated in America with a group of American investigative reporters, novelists and critics in the Progressive Era from the 1890s to the 1920s. It also applies to post 1960 journalists who follow in the tradition of those from that period. The term itself comes from Theodore Roosevelt. He named it after John Bunyan's book, Pilgrams Progress, in which a character spends all time raking up filth.
Muckrakers have most often sought, in the past, to serve the public interest by uncovering crime, corruption, waste, fraud and abuse in both the public and private sectors. In the early 1900s, muckrakers shed light on such issues by writing books and articles for popular magazines and newspapers.
...guess we'll need to amend this entry to include bloggers!
From Wikipedia (emphasis mine).
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