Falmouth Solar Project A Legal Cash Cow

The Falmouth Selectboard in May of 2020, agreed on a proposal with the Falmouth Economic Development and Industrial Corporation, EDIC, to create a 2 million dollar loan fund.

The fund will make loans to local businesses through a line of credit on the land lease payments on the money received from the leased Solar fields.

A two million dollar loan at four percent would cost the town in the vicinity of $12,000.00 a month for twenty years.

The loan program invites future litigation over who gets the loan, how much, and who collects the money in bankruptcy.

The town plans to ask the Massachusetts state legislature for "special legislation" to use the future lease assets from the renewable energy Solar field to back the loan.

The Selectboard and EDIC agreed and voted another $5000.00 to hire a law firm to look into the "special legislation."

This brings the loan litigation costs discussion back to the laws on lending money to friends and relatives (aka Beacon Hill) as each state already has existing laws regarding lending money. Virtually all of these state and federal laws regulate those who lend money on a regular basis as part of a business, but very few have public to private loans.

Examples of litigation issues may include laws against usury (charging excessive interest), collections methods, and maximum loan amounts. The town would need an outside law firm 24/7 Deja Vue the wind turbines.

This isn't the first time the town has hired outside law firms for renewable energy projects.

The Falmouth Select Board asking through town meetings that meet twice a year asked for hundreds of thousands in litigation money for up to eleven lawsuits and appeals on the two town-owned wind turbines over an eight-year period. One example is the November 2016 town meeting approved under Article 18 another $260,000.00 more for wind turbine litigation preparation.

No one is going to point out how much the Town of Falmouth spend on wind turbine litigation in the past eight years it's been a cash cow for outside law firms.

Ultimately the town lost the expensive litigation cases in which case the turbines were shut down in 2015 and 2017 by the courts as they have no permits and are a nuisance. The turbines will never operate again in Falmouth.

Falmouth Town Meeting Members in November 2019 were told the wind turbine assets are worth between 5 and 10 million dollars and voted 2.5 million to lease the turbines and operate them out of town.

This begs the question of why not borrow on the future assets of the wind turbines?

The town owns two wind turbines Falmouth Wind l and ll both of which created massive litigation fees for both the town and life savings for those residents around the wind turbines.

Wind I ---was funded by a mix of general obligation bonds, grants, and one million in advanced payments on renewable energy credits, which are known as RECs. RECs are generated when carbon-neutral electricity is produced.

Wind II--- was funded entirely by a 5 million ARRA loan through the State’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) loan program. According to outside legal counsel, the town owes 3.5 million plus 2 percent interest on the loan brokered by MassDEP as the turbine is no longer energy efficient shut down by the courts.

Last year May 31, 2019, the Town of Falmouth said it is not rushing to remove its two wind turbines at the wastewater treatment plant on Blacksmith Shop Road given they are working with $5 to $10 million in taxpayer assets.

The town is still spending money on wind turbine litigation in 2020 how much more can they spend on Solar field loan programs?