Sussex County solar fiasco

I am writing on the three county solar projects with two companies that should have been vetted better, but that has been the problem for every project coming before this one-bid board, which ends in problems.

Freeholder and Candidate for Assembly Gail Phoebus has been right on the money in recent weeks.

First, before going into the boondoggle of this project, let me address letter writers, who complain government solar projects do not work. They do work, and New York state has 140 funded projects with Sun Edison, handling a great project in Saratoga, New York. And for the Luddites that complain about government projects, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), though not solar, has been working for years.

The problem from the beginning in the current project is that much of the current three-county project was handled by Improvement Authorities in Morris, and Somerset, but is that always the deal for Sussex County Officials, as there is never a time not to give status to Morris. Sussex often acts as an appendage of Morris County.

Look, we are one of 21 counties, therefore, decisions and governance must occur in our own county. As I write this resignations have now occurred in Morris County, and there are strident calls in Sussex for two public officials, but the buck stops with the board, and those members of the board .

This $88 million project became a joke not because it was government, but because government in three counties did not do a thorough job in the vetting process of those two companies, and did not look, first, at their own needs, the balance sheet, and again the competence of the companies, and a complete lack of transparency. Sussex government and most importantly, taxpayers will now borrow millions to solve problems that its freeholder board created. Solar works, but not with other counties handling the local job.

Power Partners MasTec and SunGeneral are needed to be investigated by the U.S. Attorney General, and the firings, as Andover Township noted, should require the recall of careless Freeholders in three counties, who cannot read or just do not care, and look at officials for competency. As for skeptics of solar power, do you read? The United States only devotes 13 percent of its energy needs to renewal energy. Others do much more!

Bill Weightman
Hardyston