Mayor James J. Fiorentini and Ed Lepore of Ameresco in front of new exterior LED lighting at Haverhill High School. (Courtesy photograph.)
Eleven public schools will receive $2.5 million of energy efficiency upgrades as a result of an agreement signed this week between Mayor James J. Fiorentini and Framingham-based Ameresco.
The Energy Savings Performance Contract provides upgrades, expected to deliver energy efficiency and cost savings, enhance comfort for building occupants and reduce greenhouse gases and emissions, a statement said. The mayor said the contract will pay for itself.
“Our contract with Ameresco made it possible for us to replace our aging infrastructure, upgrade school buildings and make significant improvements—all without burdening taxpayers with additional capital costs,” Fiorentini said, adding, “The project includes efficiency measures that are expected to deliver more than $200,000 in annual energy savings.”
Some of the energy conservation measures are upgrades to lighting system technology, lighting control upgrades, energy management system upgrades and steam trap replacements. Schools benefitting from the upgrades are Bradford Elementary, Consentino, Golden Hill, Moody, Nettle, Pentucket Lake, Silver Hill, Tilton, Walnut Square, Whittier Middle and Haverhill High.
Michael Daigneault, Ameresco vice president, said, “The project is designed to extract energy efficiencies and to self-fund through future energy savings over the 20-year period. In addition, the City of Haverhill is expected to reduce its energy costs by nearly eight percent.”
Where did the $2.5Million come from to fund this project? The mayor just waves his magic wand and poof!!! He pulls $2.5Million out of one of his secret accounts where he’s got over $21Million hidden that he’s stolen from Haverhill taxpayers!!!!
“Self funding”?? A 20 year payback is absolutely ridiculous!! And that is if you believe a word from the mayor that the “actual” savings will return the kind of cost reductions he’s predicting. This doesn’t even take into account that several of the old city schools where money will be spent won’t even be around in 20 years to obtain the full benefit of any potential savings. If the city had a chief executive with just basic management skills and a forward looking city master plan it would be simple to determine if investing in those schools is beneficial. But this is Haverhill, so that’s not going to happen.
Anyone paying attention to the energy saving projects the mayor rolled out over the past few years knows he has lied extensively on expected savings. Remember his daily headlines regarding a city wide energy aggregation program just a year ago when he said over and over that city homeowners would save over 30% on their electric bill. Not one person saved anywhere close to that because the actual savings was only 4%!!! But that didn’t stop the mayor from lying to the media and the city council about the savings.
Projects like this that add very little value or benefit to the operations of the city are being done by the mayor for several reasons. The first reason is so that he can pull money out secret accounts that he has hidden from ripping off city taxpayers through a budgetary scam he’s pulled the last 6 years where he’s overcharged taxpayers to the tune of over $21Million. He needs to find ways to use that money.
The second reason the mayor will do projects like this is so that he can make statements about the steps he’s taken in the city to promote the liberal agenda of “green” energy efficiencies. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from to pay for it, or if the projected savings actually occur, or the payback realized is one that any sane businessman would accept….his whackjob liberal followers love it unconditionally. Especially the “green” crowd…they don’t care that it’s all lies and he’s ripping off city taxpayers…just as long as it’s “green” they’re all for it.
The main reason the mayor gets involved with projects like this is because he can now use this to promote himself during the upcoming election. It’s all about self-promotion for this corrupt, incompetent mayor. And it’s all at the expense of city taxpayers.