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10/30/2019 12:00 AMQuestions about the town’s handling of disclosures on potential conflicts of interest have arisen after public revelations concerning the relationship between the chair Madison’s Energy & Efficiency Committee (EEC) and a company that contracts with the town on various solar arrays.
EEC Chair Woodie Weiss, who has been involved in the town’s various efficiency upgrade and solar and renewable energy projects since the EEC was formed in 2011, in March 2016 became a co-founder and -owner of Star Power Energy, which initially signed an agreement with the town to finance solar projects in October 2016. The 2016 contract does not disclose Weiss’s relationship to the finance company, though a contract for a 2019 proposal does.
The Source learned of the relationship in late September when a representative from a competing energy firm contacted the paper about a now-withdrawn solar carport project that was before the Board of Selectmen. The Source has since gathered information to discover the process the town followed in determining if a conflict existed and the decisions made about sharing that information with the public.
Breaking the News
According to multiple town officials, Weiss immediately disclosed his relationship with Star Power Energy before the company signed any contract with the town. Weiss told The Source he went first to Selectman Al Goldberg (D), and then First Selectman Tom Banisch (R), wanting to be very careful of the potential conflict, as he was directly involved in energy projects as EEC chair that his company might finance and make money off of.
Weiss said renewable energy has been his passion project for many years, and he got involved in Star Power Energy explicitly to provide solar power to non-profits and municipalities like Madison that might not otherwise be able to afford it.
Banisch said he immediately brought the issue to town attorney Floyd Dugas, who advised there was no state or municipal law that Weiss would be violating through his relationship with Star Power Energy.
The EEC is an advisory committee, meaning it has no decision-making power and cannot solicit or award contracts. Town officials said Weiss was not involved in the town’s bid selection process when his company was bidding.
Dugas told The Source that Connecticut has no statewide ethics requirements in cases like these. State statutes do, however, empower individual towns to pass these ethics ordinances, which generally allow for relationships like Weiss’s as long as those voting or making decisions are made aware of the relationship, according to Dugas.
Madison does not have such an ordinance, Dugas said, and therefore there is no requirement for disclosure, and no violation of any law.
In August 2016, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) was asked to approve a contract for seven solar projects on town properties. Selectmen Bruce Wilson (R), Goldberg, and former selectmen Bob Hale (R) and Joan Walker (D), along with Banisch, voted to approve the contract. When reached by The Source, none of the selectmen, apart from Banisch, remembered being aware of Weiss’s relationship with Star Power Energy when they voted.
Walker (who now chairs the Democratic Town Committee), provided documents to The Source laying out details of the solar contract, which she said were reviewed by the BOS at the August 2016 meeting. None of those documents make any mention of Weiss’s relationship with the company.
Banisch said though he thought he had mentioned the issue in passing to members of the BOS, he didn’t feel the need to publicly or officially discuss it, having already consulted Dugas.
“There wasn’t a conscious decision made about the issue,” Banisch said. “I just felt like we were doing the right thing, going along, covering our bases, doing it the right way.”
Though Banisch said he had spoken to Dugas on the phone immediately after learning of Weiss’s involvement with Star Power Energy, he did not have any legal opinion in writing until late September 2016, shortly before the contract was signed.
The town consulted Dugas a number of times on these ethical questions, according to both Banisch and Weiss—recently as well as when the issue first came up. Though Banisch showed examples and read selections from some of these emails, he declined to provide copies to The Source, citing attorney-client privilege.
Wilson said it was possible that he had been told and had forgotten, but said he felt that was unlikely, as such a relationship would have been “a pretty big deal for us” on the BOS.
Goldberg said he did not remember Weiss reaching out to him about Star Power Energy and the potential conflict back in 2016, though he admitted it was possible. He said he was certain that the subject was never broached at a BOS meeting, however, and called for the formation of an ethics commission to address issues such as these, criticizing the process that allowed BOS members to consider and vote on the contract without being made aware of this kind of information.
Goldberg, who is the BOS liaison to the EEC, said he was not sure if Weiss’s relationship was disclosed at those meetings. Weiss told The Source that he spoke openly many times about his relationship with Star Power Energy at those meetings, something that EEC Vice Chair Tracy Juengst confirmed.
The 2016 contract itself also did not disclose Weiss’s relationship in financing the projects, according to both Weiss and Banisch. Earlier this year, when the town solicited proposals for a solar carport project in the Daniel Hand High School and Polson Middle School parking lots, Weiss said the town ensured that disclosure was added.
Weiss’s name does in fact appear on the contract for that project, which was put on hold earlier this month after procedural and transparency objections by Selectman Scott Murphy (D) and concerns about public input and disruption of school operations raised by several selectmen, as well as Facilities Director Bill McMinn.
Both Weiss and Banisch said that in hindsight, they would have done something similar on the original 2016 contract, and that their relative inexperience on these sorts of projects made it difficult to anticipate these sorts of issues.
The Contracts
When the town signed that agreement with Star Power Energy in 2016, Banisch said he selected Weiss’s company based on its significantly lower cost, in a blind selection process in which he chose a proposal without names or other identifying information attached to the proposals, in order to make sure that the process was fair.
Solar projects do not cost the town any money up front, only charging for the electricity provided through a contract called a Power Purchaser Agreement, or PPA.
The PPA is an arrangement through which a financier—in this case, Weiss’ company, Star Power Energy—pays all the up-front costs to have solar arrays added to a site, often contracting other companies for the design and construction. The financier continues to own all electricity generated by the solar panels and sells it to a buyer—in this case, the Town of Madison. The financier is also able to claim specialized clean-energy tax credits called ZRECs and federal income tax credits, which towns and non-profits are legally not able to take advantage of.
Weiss’s company has nearly always been able to provide a lower cost for solar, according to town officials and public documents. Weiss said this is because he runs his company to make a minimal profit, with the goal of increasing the adoption of solar energy.
A retired electrical engineer and business owner, Weiss said neither he nor Star Power Energy’s other co-owner, Ben Baker, pay themselves a salary, and without any other employees, offices, or overhead, they are able to sell solar electricity close to or sometimes at an even lower rate than the cost of energy from non-renewable sources, and lower than almost any other company. Specifically focusing on smaller projects that larger solar financing companies are unable or unwilling to do right now also gives them the ability to hone in effectively on the specifics of smaller solar projects like the ones Madison has built, according to Weiss.
This makes it possible for a town like Madison to start investing in solar power without sacrificing taxpayer dollars, Weiss said.
Weiss declined to share detailed documentation of his business model with The Source, saying some of it was proprietary.
McMinn told the BOS last month that the canceled carport project would have provided electricity at about plus or minus half a cent per kilowatt/hour compared to what the schools are paying for electricity, at the rate Weiss’s company was able to provide. Weiss’s company was also able to provide electricity 10 percent cheaper than the other bidder, and potentially could have saved the town money in the long run, McMinn said, if energy rates go up, as the contract guarantees a fixed rate over 20 years.
According to the 2016 contract Star Power Energy signed with Madison, the company will see $450,000 in profits over 20 years from its contract with the town, about $22,500 annually. Weiss provided The Source a slightly higher figure—closer to $500,000 over 20 years, or $25,000 annually. Those numbers include the ZREC revenues as well as electricity purchased by the town.
Madison added four more solar arrays to the PPA between November 2017 and September 2018, according to public documents, also removing one. These did not need to go out to bid because they were covered by the original contract, according to McMinn and Banisch. Banisch said Dugas was consulted at least once before the town moved forward with these projects.
Disclosure Added
This year, McMinn asked Weiss to help write a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the solar carports, according to McMinn and Banisch, after Dugas determined that the project was not covered under the original contract. Dugas twice reviewed that RFP to ensure there was nothing that favored Weiss’s company.
In an email viewed by The Source, Dugas told the town that he “did not discern” anything in the RFP that could give Weiss’s company an advantage in the bidding process, though he also said that due to “technical aspects” of the project, he could not say with complete certainty there wasn’t some “latent advantage” in the document.
Dugas confirmed to The Source that there had been nothing obviously biased or unfair in the RFP.
Representatives of U.S. Green—the other bidder who was not chosen for the carports project—complained to town officials about Weiss’s relationship with Star Power Energy, according to Banisch, which prompted the second review of the RFP by Dugas.
Dugas told The Source that there are no ethical or legal restrictions that would disqualify Weiss from writing an RFP. Employees of U.S. Green either declined to comment or did not respond to phone calls requesting comment from The Source.
McMinn and Banisch both said that Weiss’s significant expertise both in energy related matters as well as experience writing legal documents has been very useful in the production of least one other RFP—for LED streetlights installed in 2015. Weiss also volunteered to help Old Saybook convert to LED streetlights in 2017.
Officials who spoke to The Source were also effusive and universal in their praise of Weiss and his extensive volunteer work for the town, which has included hundreds of hours of research and advocacy, most of which has been on projects in which his company was not involved, they said. He has been credited with driving the energy efficiency overhaul that helped the embattled library project move ahead, for example.
“Weiss is a passionate, dedicated, and knowledgeable energy volunteer who has added expertise to the town energy program,” McMinn told The Source.