It is not, obviously. And neither is legislative work. To the outsider, working it may seem effortless, but it is always the fruit of many years of study, hard work, and dedication. And results are never guaranteed. Lobbying for a bill is no different.
So yesterday, I went to the Capitolio to attend the hearings on the bills that are pending on the Port of San Juan, PC3926 and RCC2074. PC3926 would transfer Piers 15, 16 and Hangar 21 to the City of San Juan. RCC2074 would impose a moratorium on the San Juan Waterfront's reckless divestiture of land to private entities by the Puerto Rico Ports Authority.
The deponents were from Advantage Consulting, retained by PRPA to determine the impact of transferring break bulk cargo operations from San Juan to Ponce.
I was shocked to learn that the plan was to only question these folks "lightly". I was not so shocked the deponents were provided an outline ahead of time for their convenience. But even in highly scripted theaters, things have a way of running amok. Then it is every man for himself.
The Advantage report, prepared for PRPA consumption two days prior to House hearings on the issue in November 2007, concludes that the increase in transportation costs would be only "in the order of one percent" of current freight charges.
At this point I should paraphrase the Master Plan for the Port of San Juan, prepared in 1990 for....tada! the PRPA. It states, more or less, that the major drawback of the port of Ponce is its location, some seventy miles away from the major distribution centers of the island.
This is key to understand why the Advantage folks took PRPA for a ride in reaching the conclusion there would be only a minimal impact on transportation costs, when bringing in cargo through Ponce. Or did they?
You see, cargo comes in a ship, it is unloaded, and most of it goes to warehouses and distribution centers. Guess where most of them are in the island? In the metropolitan area, or roughly from Carolina, Canóvanas, San Juan, Bayamón, Guaynabo, Cataño, and perhaps even Toa Alta and Toa Baja.
This means that a hypothetical sheet of plywood would arrive in Ponce, only to have to be trucked back some seventy miles, to a distribution center around San Juan. That costs money. Quite a bit, in fact.
And that is only the transportation cost. And that was before oil hit $100 per barrel.
And this, my friends, is the beginning of the nightmare for that piece of plywood and the hapless customer who needs it pronto. Advantage assumes the goods would go from Ponce directly to their ultimate destination, further claiming that in that regard, Ponce and San Juan are equidistant from the rest of the island.
Another evaluation on the same topic from Estudios Técnicos, claims that ground transportation costs will increase 67% on year 1, and a further 19% on year 2. Estudios Técnicos prepared that report in May 2007. Keep the date in mind.
Ah, but the clients were different, Vicente Feliciano of Advantage smartly noted. The Advantage study was for PRPA, and the Estudios Técnicos report was prepared for someone else, the Port of Ponce (Port of the Americas). As if that made the conclusion unassailable. Perhaps Advantage should have billed Ponce too, for their report.
Equally tartly, Advantage learned that the Boards of Directors of both PRPA and Ponce have many common denominators, including the President of the Board of PRPA, the Director of the State Department of Transportation and Public Works. Ouch. The existence of reports with deeply troubling and inconsistent opinions should have been known to all concerned. The Estudios report bounced around for six months.
It soon became apparent that PRPA wanted to predetermine the outcome of the Advantage study, and it selectively furnished Advantage with facts that would lead to the inevitable conclusion that going with the break bulk cargo to Ponce was a good idea.
When our Advantage folks began feeling cornered at the hearing, they began making caveats. Ah, it was ONLY the break bulk coming in through piers 13 and 14, none of the other piers (15 and 16) was going to be affected.
They cavalierly ignored the fact that the operators for break bulk operate on piers 13 and 14 AND 15 and 16, and that these small companies would be effectively unable to operate simultaneously in Piers 15 and 16 in San Juan and God knows where in Ponce. Net effect? They would also have to clear out in Piers 15 and 16, leaving that space free for other, non maritime uses.
The home run was scored inadvertently by Rep. Angel Pérez when he asked the circumstances behind the contracting between PRPA and Advantage. Initially, Advantage stated they presented a "proposal". How come, were they mind readers? Such proposal had to respond to some kind of PRPA input or request. Finally they admitted it was so...was it a phone call, or a meeting, they were not clear as to how it came about.
This was the onset of Legislative Alzheimer's disease.
Finally, the date was more or less pegged to October 2007. How was it so that then, in less than a month, they had completed such a complicated analysis?
The answer was unexpected and left most people's mouths agape.
They were able to present this report in less than a month's time, because it was "based on another report that was prepared on the same premise (that is, switching the break bulk cargo) to Yabucoa port." When was that study prepared? In 2006. Who was it for?
The Puerto Rico Ports Authority.
In my legislative work, I have been witness to many embarrassing admissions. This one broke the charts.
- Assuming the smarty pants here was Advantage, when PRPA accepted the the Ponce study, how come it did not strike PRPA as familiar analysis...from 2006, just the preceding year?
- Did Advantage resell work twice to PRPA...and PRPA knew about it and paid for it?
Feeling further cornered, Advantage defended their outcome, stating that the move to Ponce was viable because, otherwise,
The weighing in of San Juan alternatives was not included in the study (as they had been pre-discarded by PRPA), but I reckon that by now Feliciano had to pull all the stops.
Feliciano stated they took the cost figure of $200 million they were provided by Bonilla for the Hangar 21 lineal pier construction expense as a valid one. Facing such a staggering amount, any move to Ponce would be less expensive.
The ball flew out the park when they said that eventually, all the warehouses would move to the south of the island.
At that point I wondered whether the ushers were adding anything funny to the water glasses at the deponent's table.
I bet Mr. Feliciano nad his sidekick would have rather been adrift somewhere in the Mona passage, than sitting at the business end of that legislative inquiry. After all, it was to be a quick hearing... that ran amok.
My take is that it always takes two to dance. PRPA wanted a result, and provided selective information to lead to what they needed. Advantage, on the other hand, recycled a previously delivered and paid for product whose existence was not known publicly until yesterday to allow PRPA chief Lcdo. Bonilla to advocate for the transfer to Ponce.
The fact is, no self respecting firm would allow itself to be bent this way to obtain a result. But then again, they kept their client happy. Total customer satisfaction. This is the difference between helping a client make a decicion, and justifying a decision already made.
The conclusion to all of this is that now, more than ever, Rep. Chico's Economic Development Committee is convinced the Moratorium is needed to stop this merry go round at the Port of San Juan.
From the State controller's website, here is the contract info for Advantage and the PRPA:
www.ocpr.gov.pr
 | 3135 | 2008-000055- | ADVANTAGE BUSINESS CONSULTING, INC. | 10,000.00 | Vigencia Vencida | 08/31/2007 | 09/01/2007 | 09/30/2007 | SERVICIOS MISCELANEOS NO PERSONALES | Autoridad de los Puertos |
| 3135 | 2008-000085- | ADVANTAGE BUSINESS CONSULTING, INC. | 31,250.00 | Registrado | 10/17/2007 | 10/17/2007 | 06/30/2008 | SERVICIOS TECNICOS | Autoridad de los Puertos |
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