At Industry’s Urging, Engineer Reverses Position on LPG Cavern Storage | February 7th, 2013 | Natural Resources News Service | Peter Mantius
Cuomo-Connected PR Firm Pushes Inergy-Crafted Letter to Media and NY DEC
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.—An Inergy LP official called a consulting engineer in January to urge him to recant decade-old negative conclusions about the structural integrity of a local salt cavern that the Kansas City energy company now plans to use to store liquid butane.
The engineer, Larry Sevenker of Kenner, La., produced a three-paragraph letter Jan. 15 to “set the record straight.” In an interview Feb. 3, Sevenker acknowledged that a company official helped him craft the letter and that he is still paid by the company.
Letter in hand, Inergy turned to M Public Affairs, a recently-hired public relations firm with close ties to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to disseminate it by making cold calls to upstate New York media outlets. Meanwhile, an attorney for Inergy, Kevin Bernstein of Syracuse, forwarded Sevenker’s letter to the state Department of Environmental Conservation with a cover letter that ended: “In short, Mr. Sevenker recognizes that his 2001 conclusion regarding a roof collapse was erroneous and effectively recants his inaccurate conclusion.
Wonder if this is the true origin of the term Reverse Engineering?
New Player and More Dots to connect: M Public Affairs
First thing I did was to google M Public Affairs. What I found was intriguing. The website consists of 1 splash page, and no links except for a contact email.
This prompted me to find out who owns the M Public Affairs site, so off to WHOIS to check it out. And lookie what I found. M Public Affairs website is registered to ASGK Public Strategies, LLC.
The next obvious question is Who is ASGK Public Strategies, LLC. Back to Google…..
Oh my, ASGK’s website looks like M Public Affairs. It’s a cookie cutter website with different sprinkles. Unlike M Public Affairs’s website, there are actual links to click. Let me bring your attention to the lower right corner, the blue box.
Normally when drilling for dots, I bump into elephants, this time I tripped over a donkey.
Click here for Axelrod biography.
Click here for Sedler biography.
So what’s the connection between M Public Affairs and ASGK?
M Public Affairs is a subsidiary of ASGK Public Strategies.
The “M” in M Public Affairs stands for Maggie Moran. She is the CEO and President of M Public Affairs. Per her LinkedIn Profile her past experience includes:
- Director of Business Development - Eastern Region at LiUNA
- Senior Advisor at Andrew Cuomo for Governor
- Campaign Manager at Corzine for Governor 2009
- Chief of Management and Operations at State of New Jersey
Moran isn’t the only one at M Public Affairs/ASGK using the revolving door.
Cuomo Spokesman Joins Public Affairs Firm | By DANNY HAKIM | 11/21/12 | cityroomblogs | NY Times.
ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s former communications director, Rich Bamberger, has landed a new job.
Mr. Bamberger, who left Mr. Cuomo’s office earlier this month, will join M Public Affairs, a New York and New Jersey firm that is a subsidiary of ASGK Public Strategies, the Chicago-based company that David Axelrod, President Obama’s political strategist, helped to found.
Interesting Side Note - The Hurricane Sandy Affair
While New York and New Jersey struggles to cleanup after Hurricane Sandy, Moran appears to be cleaning up too.
Sweeney Calls For Investigation of Florida Company’s Sandy Cleanup Contract | Tuesday, 05 February 2013 | BY BOB HOLT | NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Questions about actions between lobbyists and a company hired to do cleanup after Hurricane Sandy has made Senate President Steve Sweeney call for a review of their contract.
New Jersey gave a no-bid contract worth $100 million to Florida’s AshBritt after the storm, and 43 communities have signed on for cleanup work.
But the Star-Ledger reported that AshBritt was allowed to overlook rules on business, the environment and pay-to-play. Among lobbyists hired to help secure contracts are Ocean County chairman George Gilmore, and former top aide to Governor Jon Corzine Maggie Moran, whose husband is Matt Doherty, mayor of Belmar. Belmar has signed on with AshBritt for cleanup.
So Many DOTS, so Little Time
I will drill into these dots more, but lets end this blog post with a list of Inergy’s subsidiaries. Per 2010 SEC Filing: LIST OF SUBSIDIARIES OF INERGY, L.P. AS OF NOVEMBER 29, 2010 – It is a LOOOONG list.
©2013 by Dory Hippauf
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Dory, Thank you for this article and for digging up the dirt. Please continue to look into this. As we like to say, even if NY bans fracking, this facility will be storing and transporting Marcellus shale fracked gas and gas liquids unless we stop it. We here at Gas Free Seneca just put out a press release that we now have legal representation by Earthjustice, so, our position just got a whole lot better. It’s still David vs Goliath so we welcome any and all help.
You just keep opening my eyes wider and wider and wider!!! Can’t wait for the next one! Love reading and watching you make their cozy little connections public knowledge!! Keep putting it out ther, Dory!
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