Sunday, June 15, 2008

F&S Oil: biodiesel plant gets messier with more facts

Reported by the WRAs David Krechevsky:

The court-appointed receiver for failed F&S Oil Inc. agreed Wednesday to increase monthly payments to the landlord of its Cheshire biofuel facility in return for delaying eviction proceedings for 60 days. However, the attorney representing the landlord, Cheshire Investment Corp., told the judge that F&S Oil's biofuel facility violates the lease for the Sandbank Road site — without acknowledging that the principals in the corporation helped develop the facility....

While the agreement temporarily settles some financial issues, it leaves the main dispute over the lease unresolved, which could affect the receiver's ability to auction off assets from the biofuel facility that are potentially worth millions of dollars.

Questions about ownership of the biofuel facility's assets, however, could hold up a third auction. For example, Cheshire Investment Corp. received approval from the Cheshire Planning and Zoning Commission to install outdoor storage tanks, a standby generator and a cooling tower at the Sandbank Road biofuel facility on March 10 — three days after F&S Oil and its subsidiaries shut down....

Brendan Flynn, an assistant attorney general representing Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's office, told the judge that allowing Cheshire Investment to go ahead with eviction proceedings could create havoc.


This whole mess only seems to get more confusing as more details come to light.

Tim White

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

somewhat OT, but my wife said Ansonia did not have early school dismissal this week since their schools all had air conditioning.

What was that I said about a system-wide HVAC audit and replacement strategy? Or are we just going to fix one boiler at a time?

Why are we behind Ansonia?

Anonymous said...

Our P&Z approved this? Who was the lawyer for the applicant? What a mess.

Anonymous said...

What a mess.

It appears that the mess was created by the Bowmans and now they will probably profit big time at the expense of F&S creditors and all the F&S customers who got screwed.

I think Edward Bowman had said that he felt sorry for all the people that lost money, but it doesn't look like his investment company, Cheshire Investment Corp cares about anyone other than Edward and James Bowman.

In regard to P&Z, it raises real questions about how certain people get special treatment. It doesn't seem to make any sense for P&Z to approve a Bowman request for the storage tanks, cooling towers and generator plant 3 days after F&S goes bust. Maybe, P&Z's Chairman, Mr. Strollo, can explain why all this made sense.

One thing many people are forgetting is that the State of Connecticut, us, granted a few hundred thousand dollars to develop the Biodiesel plant and Edward Bowman seemed to be key player. Now it looks like the taxpayers will also get screwed.

Hurray to Carlton Helming for trying to get to the facts and all his efforts to help return money to F&S customers. Why can't he get the Bowmans to give depositions? It all smells real bad and I think the Attorney General should launch detailed investigation.

Also, hurray to Tim for having this Blog available.