Right—so
what’s happening on the island? All going well in the Isle of Enchantment?
Doesn’t
seem so. Though there is good news: the children of San Juan, in an imaginative
plan, will
have a place to play soccer!
Critics
sniff at the proposal, of course, saying that the idea of renting out a couple
of acres in a park to a developer, who will install three soccer fields and two
beach volleyball courts, as well as provide a “deli juice bar” that also has
beer—craft beer, that is—and wine is going to benefit only those people (hint,
we don’t know them) who can pay 80 bucks an hour. In short, all of the kids in
the projects are going to be left playing kick-the-ball in the parking lot.
There’s
also a little question about the rent, which according to El Nuevo Día, would be only 2,500 bucks a month. But
wait, cried the mayoress
of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, the developer has promised to give the
first weekend of the month, as well as one weekday night, free! This she deems
“services in kind,” and so the real sum is a respectable 8,690 bucks a month.
Great deal, right?
Predictably,
the argument leaves some cold; here’s
one critic:
González
Costa señaló que en 25 años la empresa “habrá pagado apenas un millón de
dólares y lo que va a generar Ecofútbol en un año es cinco veces lo que
generará el Municipio en 25 años”.
(González
Costa pointed out that in 25 years the business would have paid scarcely a
million dollars, and Ecofútbol would have generated five times in one year what
the Municipality earned in 25 years.”)
“Ecofútbol,”
you say? What’s so “eco” about soccer?
The plot,
as it seems to in the tropics, thickens….
Ecofútbol
sprang into existence in—no surprise here—July of last year, and was awarded
the contract without a public auction. Why? Well, according to the paper, the
matter was in “the public interest.” And the developer behind the project? A
father / son team of guys named Víctor González Serrallés and Víctor González
Barahona.
The first
impression was good; here’s
what Wharton School’s alumni magazine had to say about the father, Víctor
González Barahona:
Gonzalez’
business ventures are grouped into three companies. Puerto Rico Land and Fruit
Co. produces and sells organically grown coffee, manages ecological restoration
projects and is involved in setting up a mitigation bank. The concept behind a
mitigation bank, says Gonzalez, is to establish an inventory of restored and
created wetlands which are then sold as credits to developers whom regulatory
agencies allow to impact environmentally sensitive areas.
“No one
else in Puerto Rico is doing this, although it is becoming more common in the
U.S.,” he adds. “These mitigation banks are seen as a way of resolving the main
conflict between the business and environmental communities by offering
companies a way to both make money and protect our environment.”
But
González is no stranger to controversy. There was the brilliant scheme to put a
wind farm in Culebra, a plan that riled the residents, since the turbines…well,
consider this source:
This
project involves the construction of five wind turbines 390 feet high, four
residences, an office structure, a maintenance shop, an electrical substation,
and a water storage tank of 10,000 gallons, among other facilities, which are
all visible from Flamenco Beach.
Flamenco
Beach, by the way, routinely makes the ten-best-beaches-in-the-world list in
travel magazines. Here, take a look….
Happily,
the residents prevailed—not without a good deal of struggle—and González
withdrew the project. But now, he’s back at it, because guess what? According
to the print edition of El Nuevo Día of 24 April 2014, the son, Víctor González Serrallés is
going to operate Ecofútbol, but papa is going to have “a part” by using solar
and wind power to generate electricity.
Wonderful
scheme, right?
There is,
as always, a problem. We might have the sun, but do we have the wind? Because
González put up twenty-five or so wind mills in a fertile valley of Puerto
Rico, with the expectation of generating enough energy to sell back to the
power company, and now…
…well, I’ve
looked, and I can’t tell you. The last thing I remember is that the whole thing
was shut down, and the contracts were being “renegotiated.” Oh, and that the
whole affair was such an environmental mess that González Barahona had to cede
623 cuerdas (one
cuerda is roughly an acre) of land to the Department of Natural Resources. What
did he do? He gave up only 427 cuerdas, and then turned around and asked
for a million dollar tax credit from the treasury department. Why? He claimed
the land was a “donation,” when in fact it was part of a settlement…..
So the news
about the wind project is scarce. What I
can tell you is that the company website
is, well, unimpressive, and curiously incomplete. I have just spent—what’s time
to a blogger?—ten minutes going through the site, and guess what? The
Guayanilla project doesn’t
appear there. What does? Photos of solar panels on private residences.
Guys?
According to the print version of El Nuevo Día, Windmar was awarded six contracts worth
524.6 million dollars, and your company is showing me solar panels on rooftops?
Somebody out there, tell me if there isn’t something just a bit screwy about
this….
“Windmar
has acquired extensive experience with the local government permitting process
and has received several PPOA’s for wind and solar projects from the Puerto
Rico Electric Power Authority (“PREPA”).”
That’s from
the home page of the company website.
And it
seems it’s not just “extensive experience with the local government permitting
process” that Windmar has acquired. They also seem to know how to bamboozle the
municipality of San Juan….
An alternative for the municipality….
