Officials In a Wind Town Are Quite Often Making Money on The Deal

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Is this the "corruption" others have talked about?

Are town officials who have ties to a wind energy project financially benefiting from a wind company?  That seems to be the case more often than not, and according to wind company Ecogen’s website, there are several town officials in Prattsburgh and the surrounding area who seem to have made out very well money-wise from the wind project.        

One Prattsburgh board member's parents have signed up to become wind farmers (this same board member was voted off the board in the last election) and his parents are set to get between $500,000 and $1,000,000 from wind farm payments from Ecogen.  Ecogen's website reports that that same board member is said to get paid between $20,000 and $60,000 for an easement agreement to use his land in some way for the wind project. 
   
Also listed: a former Town Supervisor for Naples - who could get about $1,000,000 for an easement agreement to allow the wind company to use his land.  Ecogen's website also shows how two former members of the Yates County Town of Italy zoning commission sold their property to Ecogen for between $250,000 and $500,000.

One board member in Prattsburgh told our news department that having this knowledge about Ecogen's website explains a lot of things.  "Before I was on the board and once I got on the town board, I couldn't understand why board members would be voting for such a bad deal...an obvious bad deal for the town and the...community at large.  And now I think it's pretty clear why", the board member said.

Ecogen published this information on their website on orders of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who came up with a code of conduct for wind companies to disclose their dealings with municipal officials.