By MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ
Managing Editor
editor@sbnewspaper.com
Mayor Joe H. Hernandez
EDC Executive Director Salomon Torres
San Benito Mayor Joe H. Hernandez issued a statement Wednesday distancing himself and the City Commission from the power plant controversy, which was recently ignited after questions were raised regarding the authenticity of the developers proposing the facility’s construction in town.
“There appears to be some confusion about the power plant issue and how it surfaced,” Hernandez said in his statement. “The project itself, was proposed by the Economic Development Corporation, and was reported to the media by the same entity. The City Commission had very little knowledge of the project, outside of what was presented in the newspaper articles.”
Hernandez is one of three members of the commission who has expressed concern since the San Benito News released the findings of its investigation into Telemark Development Group Inc., the company that, prior to Monday, Sept. 16, proposed the construction of a $225 million natural-gas fueled power plant at the city’s old airport property.
The News traced the physical address listed on Telemark and its parent companies’ PowerCom International and Franklin Global Resources “Contact Us” webpages, which is 850 South Boulder Hwy., #120, Henderson, Nev., to a UPS store PO Box. Further probing with the assistance of Henderson Press Editor Buford Davis discovered that the companies in question have no active business licenses within the City of Henderson. A photo on PowerCom’s “Contact Us” webpage was also discovered to be doctored; specifically, said company’s logo was synthetically placed on a picture of a building traced back to 2373 Renaissance Dr., Las Vegas, Nev. Research found that neither Telemark nor PowerCom International and Franklin Global Resources have ever owned, rented or leased the Las Vegas-based property.
Peter Del Mastro, who is identified on the entities’ websites as the President, Chief Executive Officer or Chairman of the Board for the companies in question, responded to these discrepancies Friday, Sept. 13 by stating that his offices were in the process of relocating to Carson City, Nev. and denied making “representation” that his companies owed the building in Las Vegas.
Del Mastro, who since July has spoken with the media regarding Telemark’s proposal to build a power plant in San Benito that would generate 171 megawatts of energy, was also critical of the City of San Benito and its officials—namely City Manager Manuel Lara and City Attorney Ricardo Morado—going so far as to term the city’s business dealings as “backwards” and expressed frustration with “the scrutiny.”
On Monday, Del Mastro submitted a letter via email to EDC Executive Director Salomon Torres officially pulling the power plant project from consideration in San Benito. The letter, which was addressed to the mayor and emailed to Lara on Tuesday, Sept. 17, reads as follows:
“This letter is being sent to you as formal notice to the City of San Benito by PowerCom International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Telemark Development Group, of it’s (sic) intention to rescind the Letter of Intent and Memorandum of Understanding entered into with the City of San Benito on July 19, 2013 effective immediately. This decision was made pursuant to a unanimous vote of the Board of Directors of Telemark Development Group Inc. at it’s (sic) meeting of September 13, 2013. On behalf of the Officers and Directors of our Company I want to personally thank you and your staff for your gracious hospitality and the opportunity to work with the City of San Benito.”
Hernandez addressed the MOU in his statement, saying, “I do recall entering into a ‘non-binding letter of intent’ with the company to allow the EDC to discuss the airport property. However, the Commission has had no further communication with the company president until we received his letter of intent to terminate their plans in San Benito this past Tuesday.”
Still, Hernandez was adamant about the city’s lack of involvement in the talks with Del Mastro about a power plant proposal that—while considered conceptual by Torres—reached as far as the city’s public library hosting an EB-5 conference where foreign investors were encouraged by Telemark and PowerCom representatives to invest their dollars into the facility’s construction in San Benito. The proposal also included the construction of a logistics center promoting trade and commerce with Mexico as well as a 3,000-seat event center to be donated to the city—all within the confines of the old airport property off FM 510
“Discussions about the proposed project were relegated to Economic Development Board closed-door sessions, with no progress reports issued to us as City Commissioners,” Hernandez continued in his statement. “The project never reached us on a formal or informal level. I do not know why the director chose to release this information, without presenting it to the Commission, and while it still carried an assigned code, rather than project name.”
The mayor added, “The City owns the old airport land which the director (Torres) said was the intended site for the power plant. We have had no discussions with the EDC Director or Board about giving, selling or conveying the land to the EDC or to any developer. Due to the lack of communication between the EDC and city staff, the City Manager and Attorney on their own initiative began probing the background of the company to explore its authenticity and credibility, and began to locate information similar in some aspects, to that which was printed in the local newspaper. Typically, this would be the job of the economic development director and staff.”
Tension between the city and EDC continued to mount Tuesday at the regular commission meeting when Hernandez instructed Torres to “take responsibility” and submit a statement to the News addressing the matter.
Torres did just that on Wednesday, Sept. 18. “The San Benito Economic Development Corporation is disappointed that the proposed 171-megawatt power plant is no longer planned for San Benito by Telemark Development Group,” Torres said in his statement. “In March, the EDC received developers Peter Del Mastro, Larry Muno, and local representative Ben Neece and gave them a tour of two sites of interest, the San Benito city-owned airport property and the former La Palma Power Plant owned by a private company. The developers were pleased with the airport property and how it fit their specifications for the construction of a natural gas-fired powered plant.
“To identify local investors, the group returned in July and conducted an information workshop in San Benito for potential investors from Mexico and featured attorney Matthew Schulz, who specializes in processing EB5 investor visa petitions for projects in the United States.”
According to Torres, Telemark planned to “next present project details to potential investors, the City of San Benito, and the San Benito EDC for their review.”
“Ultimately,” Torres continued in his statement, “the developers planned to make an offer to the City of San Benito this fall for the purchase of the property. The development group did not plan to ask the City or EDC for any financial assistance or financial participation in the project. The concerns that have been raised recently about the legitimacy of the investors give Telemark the opportunity to respond about its corporate structure and existence. We encourage Telemark to do so and hope that the proposed new power plant becomes a reality somewhere in Cameron County.
As previously reported, Del Mastro has said that Telemark planned to fund the construction of a San Benito power plant by encouraging foreign investors to take advantage of the Employment Based: Fifth Preference (EB-5) federal program, which awards conditional permanent residency in exchange for a $500,000 to $1 million investment in a targeted employment area.
Editor’s Note: The statements issued by San Benito Mayor Joe H. Hernandez and EDC Executive Director Salomon Torres can be viewed by clicking on their names within. Also, the letter PowerCom International addressed to the mayor informing of the intentions to pull the power plant project can be viewed by clicking here.
19 comments
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Pete Del Mastro is a crook! He’s been involved in previous projects that acquired millions in revenue and produced absolutely nothing. He had the same sham corporation in NV and walked away with millions of other people’s money.
Do not ever engage in a project with Peter Del Mastro.
Ronnie, how interesting! Please do tell us the sordid details!
Martha McClain reports to THE ONE AND ONLY MR.MANUEL LARA. Can hardly wait for ELECTION DAY. HEADS are gonna Roll. Time to clean house the city is running TOP HEAVY.
Martha McClain does have a direct line report to Mr. Manuel Lara but she was already at this salary before Mr. Lara was hired by the city.
If only the SBPD could be cleaned up, too.
Always denying your mistakes. Mr editor can you find out how much longer those welcome to san benito brick walls that were built over ayear ago will be completed with the message all there is is a wall at where bus 77 and Stegner st split when you coming from Brownsville also when coming from rio hondo on Sam Houston if I’m correct they had a price tag of 40,000
Is the glass half empty or half full?
So who is up for re-election in May? My vote is not for these people. What an embarrassment to the whole community!
The mayor, Tony Gonzales and Rene Villafranco. This is an important election. Three new people running and elected together as a block, will have majority control and can set a new course for this city. HUGE election both for city commission and school board. New majorities can be formed on both that can reshape this city and begin a return to relevancy, decency and normalcy.
RSB, How many more years do we have of JD Penny and Joe D. Gonzalez? Those two are bad news for San Benito. After Tony Gonzales, Villafranco, and the Barber are out, those two need to go.
Those two would be up in 2015. Unless people want to do a recall election on them, then it could be sooner. Maybe could time the recall so that all five seats come up for election in the 2014 general election.
City Charter regarding Recall. Section 7.09 http://cityofsanbenito.com/pdfs/charterdoc.pdf
Thank you RSB. A recall would be ideal, however, the people of this city either don’t care enough to take action, are too afraid to take action, or are with the dirty bunch. Looks like we’ll just have to sit back and wait for Election Day.
“The city of San Benito was dormant for a little while,” Mayor Joe Hernandez told the crowd. “We hope that from here will come a lot of good things.” ~ Mayor Joe Hernandez, speaking to the foreign investors at the EB-5 conference held at the SB Public Library on July 17, 2013. Source:
http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/local_news/article_77ab3790-f009-11e2-a47b-001a4bcf6878.html
“It’s not a done deal. Nothing is definite yet,” Hernandez said. “I don’t know how long it could be before this could come to fruition.” ~ Mayor Joe Hernandez in July, 2013, speaking about the SBYSS’s plans for 2014. Source:
http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/local_news/article_1de71640-f5a7-11e2-91cb-0019bb30f31a.html
Under the leadership of Mayor Joe Hernandez and the City Fathers we have enjoyed direct and frank dialogue and look forward to that continued relationship in the future.” ~ Peter Del Mastro, Telemark, in an open letter “To the Residents of San Benito and Cameron County, Texas,” published in the SB NEws 8/27/13. Read in its entirety…
https://www.sbnewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Telemark-Letter-To-the-Residents-San-Benito-Cameron-County.pdf
Mayor Hernandez, are you and the “City Fathers” still denying any knowledge of, or involvement with, Telemark’s power plant? The only person stupid enough to believe what you say is you! I suppose the next thing you’ll want us to believe is that you didn’t threaten to kill a man and burn his house while taking photos of his house.
Joe Hernandez, you are the weakest link!
It appears that the official statement issued by San Benito Mayor Joe H. Hernandez was written by city employee Martha McClain. The word in the street is that Martha McClain is paid an annual salary of $50,000 plus and has no employees reporting to her and who knows who she reports to. I wonder if she gets a cell phone allowance like the mayor and some members of the rest of the city commission as was reported before. Nice gig if you can get it.
I find it very hard to believe that our elected officials didn’t know the full story about this project. Isn’t this their responsibility as elected officials to lead the City and be ‘in the know’.
Had this project been successful they would have been falling all over each other to take credit for it!
Consider these facts…
1) Although not listed on the San Benito EDC web page, the Mayor is an ex officio member of the San Benito Economic Development Corporation and regularly attends their meetings. Even if the Mayor missed a meeting he would have still received the EDC board packets in advance of a meeting.
2) San Benito City Commissioner J. D. Penny is a member of the San Benito EDC, attends their meetings, and receives all information pertaining to the EDC.
3) As elected officials, any of them can get their questions answered or get any EDC information at any time.
4) As elected officials, it is their sworn duty to stay well informed on City affairs, especially in the case of real estate transactions involving the City.
5) Since several media outlets throughout the Valley carried stories on the proposed power plant, and the Telemark Company made at least 2 public presentations on their project, it doesn’t appear that the intentions of this company was a State secret.
Thanks again Michael for your investigation and follow up! Thanks to the San Benito News owners for sticking with the story to get the truth out!
On ex officio, Wikipedia says:
An ex officio member is a member of a body (a board, committee, council, etc.) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. A common misconception is that the participatory rights of ex officio members are limited by their status. This is incorrect, although their rights may be indeed limited by the by-laws of a particular body. Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised (10th ed.), clarifies that the term denotes only how one becomes a member of a group, not what one’s rights are. It is a method of sitting on a committee, not a class of membership (466-67).[1] Frequently, ex officio members will abstain from voting, but unless by-laws constrain their rights, they are afforded the same rights as other members, including debate, making formal motions, and voting.
Go for it Mikey,no prerequites,or nathing required for the job,you maybe over qualified,with the Pizza Hut experiences,,no lease vato,you make the money,by how much you can steal,right sal Y joe.,vamos!
Thank you Mr Editor for the great reporting. We need people like you running our city and school district.
What do you expect from a power hungry uneducated barber?
These two clowns need to be replaced, none of them want the blame.If your the director you should know what your proposing. As for the mayor, he’s just a lost cause