A Lackawanna County businessman who helped arrange $360,000 in kickbacks to convicted former county Commissioner Robert C. Cordaro was charged Monday, along with his business partner, with swindling more than $800,000 from a Lehigh Valley township that believed their company could reduce its streetlighting bills in a pole buyback plan.
During his office's investigation of Municipal Energy Managers Inc., which started in late spring/early summer, Mr. Morganelli said he became aware of about a half-dozen other municipalities that were "concerned with MEM," including one involving law enforcement officials in Cumberland County. Mr. Morganelli said he spoke to the state attorney general's office about MEM and was told it was "not on the horizon yet."
Mr. McLaine and Mr. Kearns are scheduled to be arraigned today on charges of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and criminal conspiracy, both third-degree felonies, and misapplication of entrusted property, a second-degree felony.
Mr. McLaine, along with several other key witnesses for the prosecution at the trial of Mr. Cordaro and fellow former Lackawanna County Commissioner A.J. Munchak, was granted immunity by prosecutors in exchange for his testimony against Mr. Cordaro. Mr. Munchak received a seven-year sentence.
Mr. McLaine and Mr. Kearns were principals of MEM, a Lackawanna County company that advertised itself to municipalities as the solution to cutting their energy bills. The proposed deal involved privatizing the town's street lighting system, essentially buying the street lights from PPL, in a move that would result in lower electric rates and other cost savings.
None of that, however, proved to be true for Bethlehem Township, Mr. Morganelli said. Virtually no work was done on the project, the completion date was missed and the $832,460 the township paid to MEM was comingled in a corporate account that was later drained in large checks that were later described as "bonuses" paid to Mr. Kearns and Mr. McLaine, the district attorney said.
Even more disconcerting to the township, Mr. Morganelli said, was the discovery that MEM had vastly inflated the cost of the project and, as a result, the township had taken on about four times the debt the project should have cost. According to the grand jury, the township learned in 2009 that PPL had a "ballpark estimate" for the project at about $270,000.
The township actually borrowed $1 million for the project and paid $832,460 up front to MEM. The MEM contract, signed by the township in July 2007, called for the work to be completed in 18 months. According to the grand jury report, MEM did not send a letter to PPL notifying the utility of the agreement it had with the township, one of the first steps in the process, until August 2009, more than two years after the agreement had been signed. After receiving the letter PPL asked MEM for a $22,525 deposit so PPL could perform engineering survey work, a request that was ignored, according to the grand jury report.
In tracing the flow of the company's money, the grand jury said MEM did not make any payments to PPL on behalf of the township and that all the public money from the township was mixed into MEM's general account and channeled into the hands of Mr. McLaine - who got a check for $499,945 on Oct. 1, 2007 and another check for $109,059 on the same date - and Mr. Kearns, who got a check for $366,600 on the same day, the grand jury said.
Recycling, composting, rainwater harvesting – these are not just buzzwords for Hays CISD. In fact, Rod Walls, the district's director of new construction and sustainability, says it's the norm for how school campuses are now built in Hays CISD.
Walls, along with Director of Facilities R.C. Herrin, is making Hays CISD campuses more environmentally friendly. Green building design, digital heating and air-conditioning, rainwater collection systems, single-stream recycling and sensor lighting are just some of the tactics they use.
"We look at everything to see where we can minimize the environmental impact," Walls said. He said the "green" initiatives also support the district's five-year strategic plan.
Such greening initiatives are expensive, Walls said, especially at the outset. Carpenter Hill Elementary, which opened in 2010, had a price tag of $13.8 million.
Is it worth it, especially for a school district carrying more than $500 million in debt?
"Spending more up front saves millions down the road," he said. "The cost savings and reduced impact on the environment keep going long after the construction is complete."
Take water: An inch of rainfall on a school's roof generates 27,600 gallons of water. At schools like Pfluger Elementary School, the gauges show the tanks are full.
Many Hays CISD schools also collect food and other items for composting. Carpenter Hill piloted the program in 2010. "The students got on board quickly, as did the facilities and maintenance staff," Walls said.
However, Walls said the district now has to purchase more expensive compostable bags made of polylactic acid for the lunchrooms. Those 33-gallon bags cost 32 cents each compared to regular garbage bags that cost 24 cents. Each school uses about seven compostable bags a day.
Still, Walls said the district reduced landfill waste by 70 percent because of its recycling and composting efforts.
Herrin said he has not seen any downside to the district's green efforts.
"Since 2003, when Hays CISD started its long-term greening initiatives, energy consumption is down 44 percent," Herrin said.
Replacing existing outdoor lights saves on electric bills, according to Herrin.
"One 26-watt LED light can replace a 150-watt regular bulb and last three times as long," he said. That also frees up his staff to concentrate on other work since they don't have to replace bulbs as often.
"We use the savings from greening to reinvest in retrofitting other campuses," he said.
The district also incentivizes staff through competitions like the Vampire March.
"The schools that use the least electricity can win a cash prize for their school," Herrin said.
After the 2011 holiday break, five schools split a $3,500 payout.
Hays CISD uses other sustainable practices such as double-sided copying and eco-safe cleaning products. Administrative staff also gave up printers in their offices.
Dan Flavin's fluorescent light installations embody the cool and cold look of 1960s minimalism, but none of his signature works will be on view in this solo exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York.
Instead, in this first retrospective of his drawings, the artist as a skilled draughtsman will be revealed.
The Morgan has borrowed more than 100 works, including abstract expressionist watercolours from the 1950s, landscape sketches of his hometown in upstate New York, technical drawings of his installations, often made in collaboration with others, as well as pastels of boats created in his later years.
The majority are from the artist's estate. "Flavin drew all the time and rarely sold or gave away his drawings," says Isabelle Dervaux, the curator of drawings at the Morgan.
Handwritten notes on many of Flavin's drawings record when and where they were made. Dervaux says that the artist's "archivist mentality" was most evident in 1976 when Flavin sent drawings to Switzerland for an exhibition, redrawing each one by hand instead of documenting them through photographs.
For his "Icons" series, the artist's first sustained study of light from 1961 to 1963, Flavin explored the possibilities of colour combinations on the page with pencil or pastel before building the painted wooden squares with lamp attachments.
In time, he no longer made preparatory sketches, opting instead for technical diagrams that he called "final finished diagrams".
Flavin used these diagrams on graph paper as visual records of his light installations, as well as selling them.
They were always executed by other people, much like his light installations, which are composed of standardised lights and installed by electricians.
"Flavin took the position that even drawing, a medium often associated with the artist's hand, could be done by the hand of someone else," Dervaux says.
She says that precisely because Flavin's primary works were "hands-off", the artist drew outdoors for hours every day, like a "modern-day Hudson River School artist".
Flavin's interest in recording nature began when he trained as a meteorological technician while in the US air force.
Flavin also drew regularly after he moved from the city to the countryside in 1965 due to financial hardships.
He wrote in a letter to the art dealer Richard Bellamy: "One of my reasons for leaving New York City was to find an appropriate atmosphere of poverty where I could still have my identity as a man, as an artist and a citizen.
I found it in the village of Cold Spring." Also on show will be drawings from his own collection amassed over 40 years.
His diverse influences are represented by about 50 works that include Japanese brush-and-ink drawings from the 19th century, sketches by 20th-century painters such as Piet Mondrian, and those by his contemporaries, including Donald Judd and Robert Morris.
As controversial light efficiency standards go into effect this month, the Interior Department is turning on new light-emitting diodes on the National Mall thanks to companies that want to showcase their effectiveness.
Light bulb manufacturer Osram Sylvania donated 174 LEDs -- worth more than $100,000 -- to illuminate the Mall from 3rd Street to 15th Street. Interior and the Department of Energy estimate that the switch from high-intensity discharge and compact fluorescent lighting will cut the lights' energy usage as much as 65 percent.
"Achieving an economy built on American energy will require an all-of-the-above approach, one that includes safely and responsibly developing our domestic energy resources -- and making the most of what we have available through efficiencies," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement. "There is no more fitting place to build a model of energy efficiency than right here in America's front yard, the National Mall, with the installation of these LED lights."
It is just the latest example of government entities switching over to energy-efficient lighting -- one of the easiest changes to make as agencies strive to cut their energy use as part of President Obama's sustainability initiative. The Architect of the Capitol, for example, has partnered with private companies to replace tens of thousands of light bulbs in congressional buildings, among other things.
The upfront costs of replacing light bulbs all at once can be cost-prohibitive in a tight fiscal environment, leading many agencies to contract with private companies that pay the upfront costs in return for realized savings. But in this case, Osram Sylvania and other companies paid for the entire National Mall installation, donating about $250,000 of in-kind donations.
Osram Sylvania spokeswoman Colleen Applebaugh said the LED replacements would have paid for themselves in less than three years, thanks to less energy usage and longer lasting lives.
But by donating the LEDs, the company has ensured that visitors would see how far technology has come in recent years. Osram Sylvania last partnered with Interior 10 years ago to install LEDs at the Jefferson Monument, where they now illuminate long-shadowed text in the dome.
"It's a great way for us to showcase a really good, cutting-edge led technology that's sweeping the country for street lighting," Applebaugh said.
The company has donated retrofit kits that allowed the LEDs to be installed in the Mall's historic bronze street lamps. Pepco overhead line crews installed the bulbs for free. The National Park Service won't have to replace them until they reach 50,000 hours -- or, if on for 12 hours every day, more than 11 years. The old bulbs required replacing every few years -- and probably did not die all at once, meaning they required staggered replacement.
The switch comes as the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 goes into effect, requiring traditional incandescents to use about 28 percent less electricity. Manufacturers had to bring 100-watt bulbs into compliance as of Jan. 1, and 75-watt, 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs will have to meet the standards over the next couple of years.
GCiS China Strategic Research has published a report on the Chinese market for intelligent lighting systems. The study finds that China's growing hospitality, commercial building and residential home markets are the main driving force behind the 11%+ growth rates in this multibillion dollar market. Currently, the largest end user industry for intelligent lighting is the hospitality industry, followed by commercial office buildings and then residential homes.
Although this is the state of the market today, it is thought that in the near future, the residential market is likely to see higher and higher growth rates, catching up with the size of other markets.
However, low levels of product awareness combined with the initial costs associated with the design, installation and components of intelligent lighting systems are inhibiting further penetration of new markets.
The report focuses mainly on the market for the components which critically comprise of the intelligent aspects or features in modern lighting systems. Intelligent lighting includes controllers, miniature computers complete with microprocessors and memory, to control lighting conditions and allowing for programmable functions.
This Limited Publication Study (LPS) provides an in-depth understanding of the market for intelligent lighting system in Mainland China, which are divided into four product categories: Switch Modules, Light dimming Modules, Central Control Systems and Other products include LEDs.
The report is based on a study of the production, sales, distribution and application of hotel, business office, residential house, municipal engineering, government project, gyms/amusements industry factories. Included is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the market's size, trends, development, key participants and opportunities.
This study focuses on domestic sales of Intelligent Lighting Systems which are divided into four product categories: Switch Modules, Light dimming Modules, Central Control Systems and Other products include LEDs.