CommerceRI – RI Future

Representative Patricia Serpa (D- District 27) is already preparing for next year’s legislative session, as she today announced that she will prefile legislation designed to assist home and business owners that were harmed by the storm on Aug. 4.

Serpa is the chairwoman of the House Small Business Committee, as well as a representative for West Warwick and Warwick, two cities that are still recovering from the storm. To help these areas, Serpa announced that she will file two separate bills aimed at homeowners and business people. The first is a $500 tax credit to those who sustained property damage from the storm. The second is a $5,000 interest free loan for business that sustained damage, or lost business due to the inclement weather. The loan would be repaid to the state over a five-year period, and would be administered through CommerceRI.

Serpa said that constituents told her that their homeowner’s insurance would only cover $500 of repairs that could cost thousands of dollars, such as having a fallen tree removed from their property. Some households couldn’t get the repairs covered at all.

“Damage to fences, swimming pools, or sheds is not covered in some cases. Some reported suspected price gouging and feel as though unscrupulous home repair companies are taking advantage of them,” Serpa said.

In regards to the loan for business owners, Serpa said that the storm only added insult to injury for those who were trying to make up revenue they lost during the winter.

“Restaurants that were trying to recover some of their losses as the result of a harsh winter, lost their electricity for days and had to throw away food. Golf courses in the area will spend tens of thousands of dollars removing fallen trees. Many individuals and businesses that need trees removed are on a long waiting list because of the storm’s severity. It is imperative that the state do something to ease the burden,” Serpa said.

Representative Serpa will file the legislation this upcoming November in preparation for the 2016 legislative session.

One has to imagine the trepedation at the EDC, er, CommerceRI as they announced their first direct business-development loan since their symbolic name change. Would they vanquish the ghosts of loans-gone-bad with a profusion of public disclosures, instilling confidence in their ability to execute? That would be amazing.

Instead, they announced a loan to a virtually unknown entity called PV Solutions. See how there isn’t a link there on the company name? Red flag.

The company that wasn’t

Other than the two Projo stories, the one in PBN and CommerceRI’s press release, I find no such thing as PV Solutions or the alleged product Tflex solar panels on the Internet. Which isn’t to say they don’t exist. But it does raise the question of…WTF? At least have a Facebook page. I mean…right?

PR isn’t everything, but it’s important, especially if your borrowing the money to spur a global sales operation. That’s a red flag for me.

As reported elsewhere, PV Solutions is a spin-off of equally un-marketed rTerra. That website is a stub at best, but at least it exists. I have no idea what they would actually do or any projects they might have successfully completed. They do have a board of directors with a famous person. So there’s that.

Only Tim Faulker at ecoRI gave any real substance about the company. (Although Stanley Weiss’s quote in the PBN piece is a plum.) The basic business is small, industrial-scale solar farms using a flexible photovoltaic panel that’s quicker and cheaper to install. More importantly, they have a completed, 10-megawatt project on a capped landfill in Delaware. (See how there isn’t a link to the project there…red flag.)

On that rTerra board of directors page, third guy down is Joe Tomlinson, who founded this business. Says he’s a “visionary marketer.” Huh.

This might or might not be a viable business. It’s all about the execution. They need to sell, deliver, install, support, rinse and repeat.

But really, they need to sell. And if they do make a sale, I hope they’ll be nice enough to tell us about it.

Tag: CommerceRI

Rep. Serpa pre-files bill to provide financial relief to storm victims

Red Flags in the rTerra Announcement

The company that wasn’t