Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vorgiez. A number of KFAB listeners have forwarded me
variations of the story. The one I have here is
from the flat Water Free Press, and the story here
has to do with Nebraska Public Power District. I want
to be clear before someone says I heard on the
AM radio that opp This is not OPPD. This is
(00:23):
n PPD, Nebraska Public Power District. They just recently purchased
a big parcel of land in rural Lancaster County and
they've got some big plans there. But the questions from
NPPD ratepayers as well as others who are taking a
look at this purchase, say, you know, it's interesting that
(00:45):
the land was purchased at five times the assessed value
of the land, and it was purchased from two NPPD
executives who have not been allowed to talk to the media,
and the purchase was made in execusative time during an
NPPD meeting. We welcome onto the program here to take
(01:06):
a closer look at some of the questions that those,
especially NPBD customers have here. Chief operating officer for the utility,
Mick Spencer, joins us here on news radio eleven ten
KFAB and Mick, thank you very much for taking the time.
Good morning, Good morning the assessment. Here in the Flatwater
(01:27):
Free Press, they talked to a law professor who served
as an ethics lawyer in the administration of George W.
Bush and he says it's the chief ethics officer for
NPPD is one of the people selling the land of
the company. That's a laugh, he says, I haven't seen
(01:47):
that before. Is there some funny business going on with
this land purchase?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Well, so funny business going on with the land purchase, Scott.
From the standpoint of the employee who sold the land
to MPPD, Dona Starzak and her husband Ron Starzek, they
filed a conflict of interest form with MTPD right at
the start of this process, and they were recused from
(02:19):
having any any kind of participation as MPPD employees with
the MPPD process. So they were strictly like any other
citizens with land available to sell, So they didn't play
any role in the negotiation on behalf of MPPD.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
We you said they filed a conflict of interests statement
with the utility. According to the story here from the
flat Water Free Press, they did not do so with
the State of Nebraska, either before or after the sale.
Despite a state statute that requires any employee of a
political Subdivision NPPD as one on to identify potential conflicts
(03:02):
if the salary and benefits succeed one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. Donna's title's Chief Audit and Ethics Officer is
well north of that. So that's what between that and
the story here that says the Stars X did not
respond to emailed requests for comment and MPPD leaders declined
to make them available for an interview. There are those
(03:25):
that say it looks like someone's trying to hide something here.
What do you say to those who feel like there
is something that has been potentially covered up with all
of this.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So, with respect to Nebraska Political Accountability and to Disclosure Commission,
our understanding of the statute is that there is nothing
here that would require filing with that entity, and the
Stars exteracting as private citizens to this day with respect
to the transaction on the land, MPPD hasn't advised them
(04:02):
one way or the other with respect to whether they
decide to engage with news media or not to engage
with news media. That's purely their decision, so we don't
get to tell them what to do. There again, they're acting.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
As private citizens and in their role with NPPD, Ronald
Starzek is NPPD's land management manager, and he would be
one who would go out and find land that the
utility can potentially purchase. And it happens that they found
their land, which brings us to the price of the land.
(04:37):
According to the article here, it says that it was
sold at about five times the lands assessed value. Why
is such a high purchase price.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, the Tarjecs were approached by another energy company planning
to develop a project and they had received an offer
for thirty thousand dollars an acre for forty acres of
the two hundred acre roughly twittered acre piece of property
that they owned. So the Starzicks let MPPD know about
(05:14):
this offer. And given that this land is adjacent to
the land that we were already developing for new power
plant equipment new power plants, this was an attractive parcel
for us to add to that particular facility. So that's
(05:35):
why we engaged in this process of pursuing the two
huded acres from the Starzicks. In the first place. With
respect to the price for the land, there wasn't a
long period of time. In other words, the Starzicks didn't
have very much time to act on the thirty thousand
dollars per acre offer that they'd received, so we really
(05:58):
had to act quickly. Our praise value came in around
eleven thousand dollars per aacre plus for ag land for
a commercial property that could be up to twenty seven
hundred dollars. But the Starzics had already received a thirty
thousand dollars paracre offer for a piece of that property.
(06:22):
So that's the short story about why we came to
twenty five thousand dollars has a reasonable offer for the land.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Talking here with the chief operating officer with NPPD, MC
Spencer with US on news radio eleven ten kfab certainly
the land which is in rural Lancaster County, it's just
north of the Sheldon Station power plant. What is it
that NPPD is hoping to do with this land? There
was some talk about solar projects and development that certainly
(06:55):
has mixed reviews, depending mostly anymore, what side of the
political spectrum you're on. So what is MPPD going to
do here.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Well, ultimately, we would use this land for an expansion
of the new power plant, the Princeton Road Station, and
that's a combination of natural gas fire dual fuel, natural
gas and diesel combustion turbines and reciprocating internal combustion engines.
We don't have any plans for renewables on the property.
(07:25):
We would expand the Princeton road Station.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
There's a solar project in the vicinity, but that's not NPPD.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Is it. That's correct, It is not MPPD.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
How much role I mean, I can't just start a
solar farm without access to all of the utility cables, right,
There's got to be some partnership with the utility, correct.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yes, As a transmission operator, MPBD is responsible for providing
transmission service. Really, we have an obligation to serve throughout
the state and with our service territory, so we will
be involved in in that respect. What is not our facility.
(08:07):
We're not into getting any any type of gain from
the energy from that facility.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
How much is NPPD involved in some of the It's
it's really regional. It stretches from basically Canada to Texas,
and if one part of that power sharing region has
an issue, if there's freezing power lines in Texas, for example,
or severe heat and drought in Oklahoma, everyone else has
(08:35):
to kind of, you know, tighten the belt a little
bit and raise rates to deal with situations like that.
How I know OPPD is involved in some of that.
How much is NPPD involved in some of the sharing
of the pain and expense of some of the annual
phenomenon that phenomena that causes rowing brownouts for example.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, MPP is a member of the regional transmission organization,
the Southwest Power Pool, a regional transmission organization rto Southwest
Power Pool SPP. As a member of SPP, MPPD gets
the benefit of having a large pool of generating resources
(09:22):
to call on when we need energy that our power
plants can't provide, and we provide energy to the market
for others when we have access power. So it's a
it's actually a very good relationship. It's a good thing
(09:43):
for our customers and really for reliability within the state.
When there are issues such as the twenty twenty one
winter storm. Winter Storm URI in February of twenty twenty one,
that's a that's a significant of whether there's a regional
transmission organization or not. A gas line freeze and power
(10:08):
can be in short supply. So overall, can there be
interruptions in service for reliability to make sure that the
power is able to keep flowing and the power lanes
can be restored. Yes, sometimes there is, but that's a
rare exception, and in cases it's cases like winter Storm
(10:28):
Murrey such a significant event.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Certainly when people want to flip that power on, whether
it's in the wake of a storm or a winter
issue down in Texas or something like that, they want
the reliability of electricity and for that to be as
cost effective as possible. When they hear stories that say
whether it's we've got to take care of Texas here,
(10:50):
or whether we just bought a bunch of land, and
it's repeated in the media five times the lands assessed value,
and then NPPD does say two rate increase this year,
Obviously people feel like potentially, if if there were other
means to keep cost down, maybe we wouldn't have to
pass that cost along to consumers. So what do you
(11:14):
have to say to those that say that MPPD is
seemingly spending more money than necessary on purchasing land, and
now that rate increase is being passed along to the consumers.
Two percent not a lot, but on top of two
percent here, five percent there, eight percent there, it all
certainly adds up well.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
To be clear, and to put the two rate increase
in context, MPBD has not had a rate increase for
eight years, so the last rate increase was twenty seventeen.
So this is a fairly modest rate increase. And we're
going to point in our history where we're building, and
(11:57):
we're building to serve the low that's growing in the
state of Nebraska, not building for speculation that there's load
that's going to be coming on in Oklahoma, Texas. So
we're building these resources for Nebraska customers. And I would
say when we look at our track record, our rates
(12:19):
have been flat for a very long time. It's a
modest increase.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
That is Mick Spencer, a COO for NPPD. Mick, thank
you very much for the time today and answering these questions.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Absolutely, thanks for the opportunities.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Get bet here. On news radio eleven ten kfab he
laid it out and said, yes, this land was was
owned by a couple of executives within NPPD, including one
who manages land purchases, and then the other his wife
is the audit and ethics officer with NPPD, And certainly
(12:56):
you got those saying that seems like a major conflict
of interest. Mick says, they filed a conflict of interest
statement within the utility. You got various people taking a
look at all of this modest rate increase. I don't
know how much that's related to the purchase of the land,
but he says, we're building because Nebraska is growing. We
(13:19):
want to be able to provide the energy to you
when you need that energy. So that's I don't know
how much that answered every single question for every single
NPPD rate payer. Certainly it doesn't look great. I imagine
that they knew that when they did this anyway, because
they felt like this is what they needed to do,
(13:40):
and appearances be darned, pardon my language. Some of the
emails that came in during our conversation a moment ago
with the chief operating officer for Nebraska Public Power District
related to questions surrounding the purchase of land from two
NPPD executives at five times the value of the assessed land.
(14:02):
I've got some people saying, well, when did they buy
the land? Did they just buy the land and flip it,
you know, in a year or two. Now I'm trying
to find the part in the story here from the
whether it's the Flatwater Free Press or this one from
ten to eleven news at a Lincoln. Let's see here
(14:23):
now here we go. The woman who bought the land
is from the area we're talking about, rural Lancaster County Hallam,
and she purchased the land about three years before she
started working with NPPD, and that was in nineteen ninety one.
(14:43):
So this isn't something where she said, hey, what a
tremendous opportunity. I'm married to the guy who's in charge
of purchasing land for the utility. I found some land. Hey, honey,
here's where maybe you should dire direct to utility to
buy some land. Now, if that happened within a pretty
(15:03):
close amount of time, I think people would be going
to jail the purchase from the late eighties that I mean,
maybe maybe she hatched this plan well before she started
working for the utility. I don't know if she was
married to this guy or what his job was at
that time. But if we've waited nearly forty years to
(15:26):
get this done, that is a slow boil that, if anything,
I'd just be impressed by. I'm playing the long game here.
Scott Voyees Mornings nine to eleven on news Radio eleven
ten KFAB
Scott Vorgiez. A number of KFAB listeners have forwarded me
variations of the story. The one I have here is
from the flat Water Free Press, and the story here
has to do with Nebraska Public Power District. I want
to be clear before someone says I heard on the
AM radio that opp This is not OPPD. This is
(00:23):
n PPD, Nebraska Public Power District. They just recently purchased
a big parcel of land in rural Lancaster County and
they've got some big plans there. But the questions from
NPPD ratepayers as well as others who are taking a
look at this purchase, say, you know, it's interesting that
(00:45):
the land was purchased at five times the assessed value
of the land, and it was purchased from two NPPD
executives who have not been allowed to talk to the media,
and the purchase was made in execusative time during an
NPPD meeting. We welcome onto the program here to take
(01:06):
a closer look at some of the questions that those,
especially NPBD customers have here. Chief operating officer for the utility,
Mick Spencer, joins us here on news radio eleven ten
KFAB and Mick, thank you very much for taking the time.
Good morning, Good morning the assessment. Here in the Flatwater
(01:27):
Free Press, they talked to a law professor who served
as an ethics lawyer in the administration of George W.
Bush and he says it's the chief ethics officer for
NPPD is one of the people selling the land of
the company. That's a laugh, he says, I haven't seen
(01:47):
that before. Is there some funny business going on with
this land purchase?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Well, so funny business going on with the land purchase, Scott.
From the standpoint of the employee who sold the land
to MPPD, Dona Starzak and her husband Ron Starzek, they
filed a conflict of interest form with MTPD right at
the start of this process, and they were recused from
(02:19):
having any any kind of participation as MPPD employees with
the MPPD process. So they were strictly like any other
citizens with land available to sell, So they didn't play
any role in the negotiation on behalf of MPPD.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
We you said they filed a conflict of interests statement
with the utility. According to the story here from the
flat Water Free Press, they did not do so with
the State of Nebraska, either before or after the sale.
Despite a state statute that requires any employee of a
political Subdivision NPPD as one on to identify potential conflicts
(03:02):
if the salary and benefits succeed one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. Donna's title's Chief Audit and Ethics Officer is
well north of that. So that's what between that and
the story here that says the Stars X did not
respond to emailed requests for comment and MPPD leaders declined
to make them available for an interview. There are those
(03:25):
that say it looks like someone's trying to hide something here.
What do you say to those who feel like there
is something that has been potentially covered up with all
of this.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So, with respect to Nebraska Political Accountability and to Disclosure Commission,
our understanding of the statute is that there is nothing
here that would require filing with that entity, and the
Stars exteracting as private citizens to this day with respect
to the transaction on the land, MPPD hasn't advised them
(04:02):
one way or the other with respect to whether they
decide to engage with news media or not to engage
with news media. That's purely their decision, so we don't
get to tell them what to do. There again, they're acting.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
As private citizens and in their role with NPPD, Ronald
Starzek is NPPD's land management manager, and he would be
one who would go out and find land that the
utility can potentially purchase. And it happens that they found
their land, which brings us to the price of the land.
(04:37):
According to the article here, it says that it was
sold at about five times the lands assessed value. Why
is such a high purchase price.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, the Tarjecs were approached by another energy company planning
to develop a project and they had received an offer
for thirty thousand dollars an acre for forty acres of
the two hundred acre roughly twittered acre piece of property
that they owned. So the Starzicks let MPPD know about
(05:14):
this offer. And given that this land is adjacent to
the land that we were already developing for new power
plant equipment new power plants, this was an attractive parcel
for us to add to that particular facility. So that's
(05:35):
why we engaged in this process of pursuing the two
huded acres from the Starzicks. In the first place. With
respect to the price for the land, there wasn't a
long period of time. In other words, the Starzicks didn't
have very much time to act on the thirty thousand
dollars per acre offer that they'd received, so we really
(05:58):
had to act quickly. Our praise value came in around
eleven thousand dollars per aacre plus for ag land for
a commercial property that could be up to twenty seven
hundred dollars. But the Starzics had already received a thirty
thousand dollars paracre offer for a piece of that property.
(06:22):
So that's the short story about why we came to
twenty five thousand dollars has a reasonable offer for the land.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Talking here with the chief operating officer with NPPD, MC
Spencer with US on news radio eleven ten kfab certainly
the land which is in rural Lancaster County, it's just
north of the Sheldon Station power plant. What is it
that NPPD is hoping to do with this land? There
was some talk about solar projects and development that certainly
(06:55):
has mixed reviews, depending mostly anymore, what side of the
political spectrum you're on. So what is MPPD going to
do here.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Well, ultimately, we would use this land for an expansion
of the new power plant, the Princeton Road Station, and
that's a combination of natural gas fire dual fuel, natural
gas and diesel combustion turbines and reciprocating internal combustion engines.
We don't have any plans for renewables on the property.
(07:25):
We would expand the Princeton road Station.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
There's a solar project in the vicinity, but that's not NPPD.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Is it. That's correct, It is not MPPD.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
How much role I mean, I can't just start a
solar farm without access to all of the utility cables, right,
There's got to be some partnership with the utility, correct.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yes, As a transmission operator, MPBD is responsible for providing
transmission service. Really, we have an obligation to serve throughout
the state and with our service territory, so we will
be involved in in that respect. What is not our facility.
(08:07):
We're not into getting any any type of gain from
the energy from that facility.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
How much is NPPD involved in some of the It's
it's really regional. It stretches from basically Canada to Texas,
and if one part of that power sharing region has
an issue, if there's freezing power lines in Texas, for example,
or severe heat and drought in Oklahoma, everyone else has
(08:35):
to kind of, you know, tighten the belt a little
bit and raise rates to deal with situations like that.
How I know OPPD is involved in some of that.
How much is NPPD involved in some of the sharing
of the pain and expense of some of the annual
phenomenon that phenomena that causes rowing brownouts for example.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, MPP is a member of the regional transmission organization,
the Southwest Power Pool, a regional transmission organization rto Southwest
Power Pool SPP. As a member of SPP, MPPD gets
the benefit of having a large pool of generating resources
(09:22):
to call on when we need energy that our power
plants can't provide, and we provide energy to the market
for others when we have access power. So it's a
it's actually a very good relationship. It's a good thing
(09:43):
for our customers and really for reliability within the state.
When there are issues such as the twenty twenty one
winter storm. Winter Storm URI in February of twenty twenty one,
that's a that's a significant of whether there's a regional
transmission organization or not. A gas line freeze and power
(10:08):
can be in short supply. So overall, can there be
interruptions in service for reliability to make sure that the
power is able to keep flowing and the power lanes
can be restored. Yes, sometimes there is, but that's a
rare exception, and in cases it's cases like winter Storm
(10:28):
Murrey such a significant event.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Certainly when people want to flip that power on, whether
it's in the wake of a storm or a winter
issue down in Texas or something like that, they want
the reliability of electricity and for that to be as
cost effective as possible. When they hear stories that say
whether it's we've got to take care of Texas here,
(10:50):
or whether we just bought a bunch of land, and
it's repeated in the media five times the lands assessed value,
and then NPPD does say two rate increase this year,
Obviously people feel like potentially, if if there were other
means to keep cost down, maybe we wouldn't have to
pass that cost along to consumers. So what do you
(11:14):
have to say to those that say that MPPD is
seemingly spending more money than necessary on purchasing land, and
now that rate increase is being passed along to the consumers.
Two percent not a lot, but on top of two
percent here, five percent there, eight percent there, it all
certainly adds up well.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
To be clear, and to put the two rate increase
in context, MPBD has not had a rate increase for
eight years, so the last rate increase was twenty seventeen.
So this is a fairly modest rate increase. And we're
going to point in our history where we're building, and
(11:57):
we're building to serve the low that's growing in the
state of Nebraska, not building for speculation that there's load
that's going to be coming on in Oklahoma, Texas. So
we're building these resources for Nebraska customers. And I would
say when we look at our track record, our rates
(12:19):
have been flat for a very long time. It's a
modest increase.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
That is Mick Spencer, a COO for NPPD. Mick, thank
you very much for the time today and answering these questions.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Absolutely, thanks for the opportunities.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Get bet here. On news radio eleven ten kfab he
laid it out and said, yes, this land was was
owned by a couple of executives within NPPD, including one
who manages land purchases, and then the other his wife
is the audit and ethics officer with NPPD, And certainly
(12:56):
you got those saying that seems like a major conflict
of interest. Mick says, they filed a conflict of interest
statement within the utility. You got various people taking a
look at all of this modest rate increase. I don't
know how much that's related to the purchase of the land,
but he says, we're building because Nebraska is growing. We
(13:19):
want to be able to provide the energy to you
when you need that energy. So that's I don't know
how much that answered every single question for every single
NPPD rate payer. Certainly it doesn't look great. I imagine
that they knew that when they did this anyway, because
they felt like this is what they needed to do,
(13:40):
and appearances be darned, pardon my language. Some of the
emails that came in during our conversation a moment ago
with the chief operating officer for Nebraska Public Power District
related to questions surrounding the purchase of land from two
NPPD executives at five times the value of the assessed land.
(14:02):
I've got some people saying, well, when did they buy
the land? Did they just buy the land and flip it,
you know, in a year or two. Now I'm trying
to find the part in the story here from the
whether it's the Flatwater Free Press or this one from
ten to eleven news at a Lincoln. Let's see here
(14:23):
now here we go. The woman who bought the land
is from the area we're talking about, rural Lancaster County Hallam,
and she purchased the land about three years before she
started working with NPPD, and that was in nineteen ninety one.
(14:43):
So this isn't something where she said, hey, what a
tremendous opportunity. I'm married to the guy who's in charge
of purchasing land for the utility. I found some land. Hey, honey,
here's where maybe you should dire direct to utility to
buy some land. Now, if that happened within a pretty
(15:03):
close amount of time, I think people would be going
to jail the purchase from the late eighties that I mean,
maybe maybe she hatched this plan well before she started
working for the utility. I don't know if she was
married to this guy or what his job was at
that time. But if we've waited nearly forty years to
(15:26):
get this done, that is a slow boil that, if anything,
I'd just be impressed by. I'm playing the long game here.
Scott Voyees Mornings nine to eleven on news Radio eleven
ten KFAB
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