Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
State Senator Paul bettencoord fresh off of his Senate Committee
hearing with the Center Point CEO Jason Wells, joins us
this morning. We played a clip of you yesterday morning,
Senator Benoncourt. It's the first time I've ever heard you bleeped.
I'd ask you what you I'd ask you what you said,
but I'd have to bleep you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oops.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Well, I don't think it was anything more than double
dumb ass. But that's what their decision was, Jimmy, to
take their power tracker down in the middle of hurricane season.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
See, most businesses when they migrate.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
To the cloud, you know, think about it in the
off season. But what Center Point did was, you know,
after the dret Show, they decided that they could bring
down the power tracker and it was going to take
months to put up any type of packet software package
for us to even know what was happening. So we
(00:56):
have two million users, which means like four to five
million people. They can't figure out when power's coming back,
and they have no accurate information, and it was a
preposterously stupid decision.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Well, it seems to me like the whole thing has
just been a mess from the get go. I mean,
he was the chief financial officer. He just was appointed
CEO in January. We've had some pretty wild weather in
February and March. Here, I understand all that, but this
is a financial guy. And I started looking at the board.
Why doesn't the board get any of that? They're the
(01:29):
ones who appointed him CEO. All these calls for him
to resign. Why don't we start finding out where some
of this fault lies beyond that the board?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Who is there?
Speaker 4 (01:39):
We can go into these people, and what about the government,
the PUC And there's a lot of shared blame that
we just always say center point, center point.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No share.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Look, they've had three executive chairs of the board, they've
had three CEOs.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Mister Wells is the third.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
They've had the three individual head of the Electrica division
all within three years.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So there's enormous turnover here.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
And also, none of these people are really Houstonians or
Texas residents that have been through hurricanes. Now here's the
big comparison that really got me mad when I started
reading about all this. Florida Power and Light has hardened
their entire Atlantic coastline and the Panhandle in the last
five years to hurricanes, they have used new composite pole
(02:28):
technology that can withstand one hundred and fifty mile an
hour winds. They are spending money cutting back trees for
vegetation management, and that all of this has been done
in five years. And everybody that is running center Point,
and I'm not talking about the linemen, have been sitting
on their backsides not doing anything. So it was quite
(02:49):
frankly time for a blowtorch to be used to try
to get this very insular public utility to start doing
their job. And we could talk about the generators real fast.
They bought eight hundred million dollars of generators. Now most
of this, like the line Share ninety percent are big
(03:09):
fifteen of thirty two megawatt huge, really very illmobile systems
and they have not been used once since they were bought.
But Center Point has made a profit recovery of at
least thirty million dollars on it, and the ratepayers are
paying for it. So everything that you see done from
(03:33):
an executive management decision, whether you want to say it's
the CEO, the board that we have heard nothing from,
has been really bad decisions.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Well, when you make the chief bean counter your CEO,
that's what's going to happen in your slave to the
bottom line. But let me let me ask you again
to share brought this up the Public Utility Commission. Aren't
these the people who should know what's going on at
center pointing to hold them accountable before we get to
this point?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Oh yeah, I said, By the way, before we even
talked to Chairman Wills, we had the head of the PUC,
and I hit them immediately because they're the ones that
actually approved the generator expense and that's the and that's
the outfit that Governor Patrick is now asking them to
provoke that approval. So we don't have the public, the
(04:22):
rate payers, the taxpayers effectively paying back paying this eight
hundred million dollars. See it's not just eight hundred million, Jimmy.
They went out and leased it, so it's like one
point two billion. And then when you look at the
contract they had picked out some small company, they kind.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
They rigged the bid.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
In my opinion, if I was an inspector general, I'd
be investigating that bid for fraud because they decided to
balance it so they didn't have to claim that they
were buying from somebody fifty percent over priced stuff. They
knocked it down to twenty five percent because they said, oh,
the big generators will move three times a year in
the and in the five watch five. So they put
(05:01):
all that into the bid, and the CEO said, well,
it's only twenty five percent more expensive than the nearest competitors.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Got it.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Okay, I'm sorry. I wish we could talk to you longer.
I really would like to have you come back. And
I want to get into Urkot too. You know, we
haven't even addressed Airkott in all of this.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
No, with all of this, we've got to have the
utility keep the lights on.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
That's the BOTTO line. Thank you, sir, State Senator Paul
Bettencourt
State Senator Paul bettencoord fresh off of his Senate Committee
hearing with the Center Point CEO Jason Wells, joins us
this morning. We played a clip of you yesterday morning,
Senator Benoncourt. It's the first time I've ever heard you bleeped.
I'd ask you what you I'd ask you what you said,
but I'd have to bleep you.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oops.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Well, I don't think it was anything more than double
dumb ass. But that's what their decision was, Jimmy, to
take their power tracker down in the middle of hurricane season.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
See, most businesses when they migrate.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
To the cloud, you know, think about it in the
off season. But what Center Point did was, you know,
after the dret Show, they decided that they could bring
down the power tracker and it was going to take
months to put up any type of packet software package
for us to even know what was happening. So we
(00:56):
have two million users, which means like four to five
million people. They can't figure out when power's coming back,
and they have no accurate information, and it was a
preposterously stupid decision.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Well, it seems to me like the whole thing has
just been a mess from the get go. I mean,
he was the chief financial officer. He just was appointed
CEO in January. We've had some pretty wild weather in
February and March. Here, I understand all that, but this
is a financial guy. And I started looking at the board.
Why doesn't the board get any of that? They're the
(01:29):
ones who appointed him CEO. All these calls for him
to resign. Why don't we start finding out where some
of this fault lies beyond that the board?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Who is there?
Speaker 4 (01:39):
We can go into these people, and what about the government,
the PUC And there's a lot of shared blame that
we just always say center point, center point.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No share.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Look, they've had three executive chairs of the board, they've
had three CEOs.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Mister Wells is the third.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
They've had the three individual head of the Electrica division
all within three years.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So there's enormous turnover here.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
And also, none of these people are really Houstonians or
Texas residents that have been through hurricanes. Now here's the
big comparison that really got me mad when I started
reading about all this. Florida Power and Light has hardened
their entire Atlantic coastline and the Panhandle in the last
five years to hurricanes, they have used new composite pole
(02:28):
technology that can withstand one hundred and fifty mile an
hour winds. They are spending money cutting back trees for
vegetation management, and that all of this has been done
in five years. And everybody that is running center Point,
and I'm not talking about the linemen, have been sitting
on their backsides not doing anything. So it was quite
(02:49):
frankly time for a blowtorch to be used to try
to get this very insular public utility to start doing
their job. And we could talk about the generators real fast.
They bought eight hundred million dollars of generators. Now most
of this, like the line Share ninety percent are big
(03:09):
fifteen of thirty two megawatt huge, really very illmobile systems
and they have not been used once since they were bought.
But Center Point has made a profit recovery of at
least thirty million dollars on it, and the ratepayers are
paying for it. So everything that you see done from
(03:33):
an executive management decision, whether you want to say it's
the CEO, the board that we have heard nothing from,
has been really bad decisions.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Well, when you make the chief bean counter your CEO,
that's what's going to happen in your slave to the
bottom line. But let me let me ask you again
to share brought this up the Public Utility Commission. Aren't
these the people who should know what's going on at
center pointing to hold them accountable before we get to
this point?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Oh yeah, I said, By the way, before we even
talked to Chairman Wills, we had the head of the PUC,
and I hit them immediately because they're the ones that
actually approved the generator expense and that's the and that's
the outfit that Governor Patrick is now asking them to
provoke that approval. So we don't have the public, the
(04:22):
rate payers, the taxpayers effectively paying back paying this eight
hundred million dollars. See it's not just eight hundred million, Jimmy.
They went out and leased it, so it's like one
point two billion. And then when you look at the
contract they had picked out some small company, they kind.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
They rigged the bid.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
In my opinion, if I was an inspector general, I'd
be investigating that bid for fraud because they decided to
balance it so they didn't have to claim that they
were buying from somebody fifty percent over priced stuff. They
knocked it down to twenty five percent because they said, oh,
the big generators will move three times a year in
the and in the five watch five. So they put
(05:01):
all that into the bid, and the CEO said, well,
it's only twenty five percent more expensive than the nearest competitors.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Got it.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
Okay, I'm sorry. I wish we could talk to you longer.
I really would like to have you come back. And
I want to get into Urkot too. You know, we
haven't even addressed Airkott in all of this.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
No, with all of this, we've got to have the
utility keep the lights on.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
That's the BOTTO line. Thank you, sir, State Senator Paul
Bettencourt
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