What these don't tell us is how long the accommodating people at Xcel were willing to let Gopher State Ethanol's nonpayment drag on. As us ratepayers will undoubtedly pay higher rates as a result of this management decision to incur a huge receivable, I think that some answers are in order.
Let's start with why most of us are left in the cold and dark if we don't pay the Xcel bill, but this money-sucking entity is allowed to run up a $5.8 million dollar tab. Then we can ask which Xcel manager decided not to pursue collection. Then we can ask whether the stockholders will bite the bullet on this unrecoverable debt or if ratepayers will pick up the entire loss.
And after that, we can ask those same questions of two other huge creditors whose failure to collect will fall on our collective wallets: Ramsey County Property Tax Collections and the St. Paul Regional Water Services to name a few. Then you have the contractors who also did work for the plant, most of which are locally owned businesses.
Yet the owners who also sucked up additional State and Federal Funds in the form of subsidy are attempting to walk away for what ever the court can get for the property. Isn't the veil of Corporate Protection a great thing to have? Though in this case it might not be such a good veil after Enron (etc..) going after the owners of companies who hide under such a veil is much easier.
Following the Gopher State Ethanol bankruptcy case is one of the more interesting things.
More about Gopher State Ethanol (and the Ethanol Industry in general) is found on
http://www.birrenbach.com/GSE/
--
Sincerely,
John Birrenbach
[EMAIL PROTECTED]Birrenbach Consulting
http://www.birrenbach.com/
Internet, Computer Tech, Problem Solving,
Publishing, Database Management, & more
Business, Personal, Political
Phone: 651-222-2772
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