BBB rating for our power-plant prospects
B, as in bunkum, botched, bullocks, boloney, bullcrap.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Great Falls Tribune today revealed that BBB is the investment-grade rating for Southern Montana, our city’s largest liability. Now some newspapers would choose to disclose this important bit of info in a news article — you know, because after Tim Gregori and Coleen Balzarini’s persistent refusal to disclose the investment rating, this is, in fact, big big news. Instead, The Trib has chosen their not-quite-funny, not-quite-serious Saturday column The Edge.
Whatever. The fact is out there now and, as The Trib says, BBB is “one of the lowest investment-grade ratings above junk-bond status.”
I talked to a college friend, a former American investment-bank employee who now (as it happens) does the money stuff for power-plant development. What, I inquired, does a BBB rating mean, in practical terms?
“First, probably no one will loan money to you. Second, if you are loaned money, you will be paying interest through the nose. There is a next-to-zero likelihood a project like this can work in this financial climate unless there’s a willing and masochistic sugar daddy out there to support it.”
There isn’t a sugar daddy out there for this boondoggle; and if there is, it is us, the taxpayers. This just affirms what Yellowstone Valley and Greg Jergeson have already said, that “a flawed business plan has always been the Achilles Heel of this project.”
When are you all going to realize that Professor Tim “Harold Hill” Gregori never intended to build a real power plant? The business of building a plant has provided a very comfortable living for the Music Man, compliments of the suckers right here in River City.
But alas, Coleen “Marian Paroo” Balzarini still believes in Tim.
Balzarini probably still believes in the Tooth Fairy too! She and Gregori are making our city and its staff, in our newly renamed “SME CENTER”, all look like fools!
Last spring the Tribune, in a major article, reported the Gregori spin that SME had obtained a very favorable bond rating. They did not bother to investigate that claim at the time and now, over four months later,find out that the rating is nearly junk bond status. Is the Tribune drinking to much of Tim Gregori’s magic “coal snake oil”?
Oh well, at least they FINALLY got the job partly done, but have almost hidden the results in this obscure article. They must feel a bit embarrassed…..
Come on folks do you really think the Tribune is going to bite off the hand that is feeding it, doesn’t the Tribune get its power from ECP?
The Trib is not a customer of ECP. That said, I do agree that the real story — Southern/SME & ECP as a looming fiscal disaster — is not emerging in the pages of The Tribune. I’ve had many discussions with people about why the Trib isn’t particularly hard-hitting on the issue, but time and again I come up short. I think most observers agree that the Gazette and the Missoulian are both more willing to criticize events and persons in their own backyard than the Trib. Don’t know why that is, however.
Again, I urge you to consider that the Tribune is relentlessly pro-business. Your continued amazement must be marked up to idealism. Even while slipping real news into The [H]Edge, the item concludes with this unattributed opinion, “Obtaining the rating may help Southern Montana gain financing . . . . ” What?? Your interviews, and simple Web searches, show that this development is not a financial feather in the cap. The paper did a deliberate “spin,” first hiding the news, then distorting it.
Then, again, The Tribune/Gannett may have hidden the news out of envy.
Editor & Publisher reported 8/21/09 that, “While another major credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, earlier this year downgraded Gannett to a “junk” credit rating, Moody’s rating of Ba1 keeps it above the speculative grade, which begins at B.”
The power plant business genuinely may appear lucrative from where the Tribune stands.
It sounds like a bunch of sour grapes in here. The Tribune beat this blog on a story and now everyone is trying to say the story wasn’t printed — even though the paper printed in one of its most popular features. Just be a grown-up and admit you were beat. Even A-Rod occasionally whiffs.
Anon 5:55
The Tribune had its chance to do the CORRECT investigation and a factual story four months ago and fell on its face with Gregori spin. Face the facts…..
Anon 5:55:
Um, yeah, the Trib did beat this blog on a story. But since when does this blog have several dozen employees, a multimillion-dollar budget, a nice office building by the river, etc. etc. It is the job of the Tribune, which it has failed to do persistently, to put this project under the spotlight.
The fact is that there’s been at least two Rich Ecke pieces where Gregori is cited as saying SME has “an investment-grade rating” but refusing to disclose it. Mr Ecke himself apparently did not bother to do any digging beyond this, and then one Saturday (the least-read day of most newspapers) this shocking news is disclosed as a 50-word item in “The Edge”. Incredible.
This is just not the way a newspaper should be reporting the news. Nonetheless, kudos to them for digging it up, and publishing it *somewhere*. Otherwise, we might not know that SME has an investment-rating worse than some African governments.
Unfortunately, it’s what the Tribune does not report, for whatever reason: bias, lack of professionalism, laziness, etc., that determines many, if not all, local election outcomes.
The big question is….Where the hell is Doyon?? Seems he was hired to simply fill a position. Is he afraid to make a decision? We could save a bundle in our city by keeping the City Manager postion vacant. Coleen is simply taking the ball and running with it because Lawtons’ successor doesn’t want to get involved with anything involving a decision. And we gave this guy a contract. Boo Hiss!!
If City Commissioners voted 4-1 to jump off a cliff, it’d be the City Manager’s job to implement that policy. I’m willing to be “soft” on Doyon simply because he appears merely to be following the will of the commission. Also, he is the one who pushed for the consultants’ report, which pissed off Tim Gregori mightily. So he can’t be all bad.
As chief operating officer of the city, Doyon is responsible for enforcement of standing city ordinances, so far he has failed. He gets no pass from me.
I understand the frustration, but… really… what did anyone expect from the rag that calls itself a newspaper? I’ve lived here for over 10 years, and the rag is mediocrity at it’s finest. It’ll never change because it has all the answers. Here’s hoping it meets the same fate of the Rocky Mountain News.
Travis, you’ve got the talent – and balls – to publish a weekly that could
perhaps, with civics in mind, real news and focused on the key issues with hardball questions. I think it could include both sides of the issues perhaps.
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