After five years of work, 10 governmental entities in Centre County are nearing completion of contracts for a Solar Power Purchase Agreement (SPPA) that aims to reduce energy costs and meet emissions goals.
But tensions remained high this week as State College Borough Council member Josh Portney continued to raise his concerns about how $123,000 in unplanned legal fees associated with the project were authorized, questioned its cost savings and said he feels as if he is “the only one being targeted” for raising those issues.
SPPA Working Group members and other local government officials have said the additional legal fees could have been better communicated to individual governing boards, but were not improperly handled.
Portney’s press conference on Monday in the lobby of a small State College barbershop was among the latest drama that has heightened in recent months as the participating groups near the finish line on a complex agreement — likely the first of its kind in Pennsylvania — to collectively purchase affordable solar power.
Among the issues he raised was a Sept. 10 text message exchange in which SPPA Working Group Chair Peter Buck, who is a State College Area School Board member, suggested to State College Mayor Ezra Nanes that Portney should be stripped of his Centre Region Council of Governments committee assignments if he refused to apologize for comments he made about the project.
The messages — obtained through a Right to Know request by Millheim Borough Councilman Robert Zeigler — were sent the day after a State College Borough Council meeting where COG sustainability planner Pam Adams gave a presentation and answered questions about the SPPA, including the processes for the attorney fees, in response to comments made by Portney and others in prior weeks on the Tor Michaels radio show. After that presentation, Portney declined Nanes’ call to apologize for his remarks, including that the project was turning into “a financial scandal.”
In response to Buck’s text message, Nanes replied, “That’s an option. Need to discuss with Evan [Myers, the Borough Council president].”
“This is reprehensible for someone to ask someone who is not a part of our entity, to ask … the leader of our entity to remove a member [from committee assignments],” Portney said.
Nanes does not hold a position in the COG General Forum and could not remove Portney from committee assignments. He told StateCollege.com and repeated at a Borough Council work session on Tuesday that he never entertained the idea of asking for Portney to be removed from committees and did not discuss it with anyone else.
“Peter’s a great friend and somebody I respect a lot and he was very upset at that moment,” Nanes said. “I wanted to acknowledge his feelings and not dismiss him in a text message… I have no role in [committee assignments], and I never spoke to Evan about it, not a single time.”
Buck, meanwhile, described the message as “an annoyed text message about something that bothered me,” and alleged that Portney was using the exchange as a distraction.
“I think Josh Portney is just trying to change the subject because he has proven that he really, really wants to misrepresent the PPA,” Buck said. “He has consistently said verifiably wrong things on the radio and in writing and in public meetings proving that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Myers, who as council president is ultimately responsible for State College’s COG committee assignments, confirmed that neither Nanes nor anyone else discussed the issue with him and that the first he heard about it was when the text message exchange was made public on Friday. He added that he knew of no reason for Portney to be removed from committees and that like other council members he is free to raise questions about any issue.
“No one ever spoke to me about removing Josh Portney from any COG committee assignments,” Myers said. “Not Mayor Nanes – not anyone. Never happened. …The thought has never entered my mind. If Mr. Portney had ever asked me about it, I would have told him just that. He never asked me if anyone ever contacted me.”
Nanes said that he and council members were “shocked” over the summer when Portney began going on Michaels’ radio show to comment on the SPPA legal fees without first discussing his concerns with them.
“He went right to the radio, didn’t even investigate or wait for information, just went out and made allegations, said the SPPA was becoming a financial scandal, I believe were his words, which, those are incendiary allegations,” Nanes said. “That implies wrongdoing, financial gain, ill will, a whole bunch of bad stuff, right? Which is just not a great way to deal with your fellow elected officials and public servants who work really hard with integrity. There’s no benefit of the doubt there. There’s just an allegation.”
Portney says he has spoken out about the project because of his fiduciary responsibility as a borough council member.
“As a council member representing tens of thousands of residents of State College Borough, we need to first prioritize our financial stewardship as the greatest responsibility that we have,” he said.
Buck and Nanes also questioned the specific forum in which Portney has aired his concerns. Both Portney and Michaels work in the office of Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township, where Portney works in constituent services and Michaels is chief of staff. Others who have called in to the show — where the SPPA has been a matter of daily conversation for months — to voice concerns also have ties to Conklin’s office or campaign committee. (No one suggested, in interviews or public meetings, that Conklin himself has had any role in the criticisms of the project.)
Nanes said Portney, Michaels and others haven’t been “upfront” about their professional relationship.
After Myers started Tuesday’s budget work session with an attempt to “clear the air” following the text message controversy and Portney’s press conference, Nanes addressed the Conklin office connection and Portney’s claim that he’s been “threatened to stop” asking questions about approvals of the legal fees.
“Nobody’s threatened you; I certainly haven’t. I’ve reached out to you,” Nanes said to Portney. “So I would like to know who it is that you said threatened you, because we cannot do the business of this borough with the thumb of Representative Conklin’s office pressing down on us through a for-profit radio station that is… hosted by Tor Michaels. We just cannot do this. You work together. You need to explain this relationship, be honest and open about it with all of us.”
Portney responded that he “should have reached out,” after learning about the text messages, but took umbrage at the suggestion he had not been transparent about his professional relationship to Michaels. Portney spends limited time in the office, he said, and does not report to Michaels.
“I don’t like the insinuation that Representative Conklin’s office is controlling this council,” Portney said. “I’ve made it clear on the air, I’ve spoken to members of the press: We work in separate functions… I appreciate the concern, but there is no thumb; there is no pressure, and I think we should move forward.”
Nanes, who said the tensions had created “a crisis of trust” on the council, offered a measure of comity before the meeting moved onto regular business.
“I have no interest in a quarrel with you, Mr. Portney,” Nanes said. “You’re a very smart person, have a lot of energy. I think you can do great benefit to the community and I ask that we do that business here civilly, respectfully.”
Councilman Matt Herndon, meanwhile, said the focus should remain on the project itself, which has the potential to save participating entities hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
“We should be looking at the economics of this and not going into back-channel innuendo debates,” Herndon said. “We should be looking at the economics of this project and saying ‘Is it going to save our taxpayers lots and lots of money?’ Right now it looks like the answer is yes. So I want everyone to remember that and remember these numbers and remember how energy pricing works.”
SPPA Nears the Finishline
The SPPA Working Group met Wednesday morning to review the long-delayed final contract documents, and the participating entities are expected to sign them over the next two months.
The 10 participants in the SPPA are Centre County, the Centre Region Council of Governments, State College Area School District, College, College, Ferguson and Patton Townships, State College Borough Water Authority, College Township Water Authority and Centre Hall Potter Joint Authority.
CATA, Centre County Housing Authority, Centre County Recycle and Refuse Authority and Halfmoon and Harris Townships were part of the working group but have dropped out over the past two years for varying reasons.
Harris Township was the last to exit the project in September after the kerfuffle over the attorney fees, with Supervisor Frank Harden saying the township could get comparable green energy rates on its own and Supervisor Bruce Lord saying he felt the working group was “in over its head.”
The township may still join the agreement, however, before the final documents are signed, Supervisor Dennis Hameister said at the working group meeting.
Participating entities are projected to save a combined $4.3 million over the course of the 15-year contract with the solar developer, according to information presented to the working group.
Solar developer Prospect 14 will build a a 22-megawatt solar array on Misty Meadows Lane in Walker Township. Participants will purchase solar energy from Prospect 14 at predetermined rates, starting at about 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour the first year followed by a 1.5% escalator annually.
For State College, Portney pointed to a 2023 memo from Borough Manager Tom Fountaine and Public Works Director Sam Robbins that estimated the borough’s 2025 electricity generation rate would be 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour through its current method of purchasing renewable energy certificates. Portney also said that his recent requests for the borough’s electric rates have gone unanswered.
Fountaine, though, wrote in an email to StateCollege.com that the rates for 2025 were not received until September and have been scheduled to be presented to Borough Council.
“The September 9th SPPA presentation discussed estimated costs, as the Borough did not have final electricity costs at that time,” Fountaine wrote. “During the presentation, there were several questions from Council. Staff has been working to answer those questions and the information gathered will be distributed to Council the next time the Power Purchasing Agreement is on the agenda. Originally, this topic was to be on an agenda in October but was delayed until December 2024.”
“The March 31, 2023, memo included electricity costs, and the Borough received a final cost proposal for electricity, including renewable energy recs in September 2024. This information is on the agenda for Council in December 2024. It has not yet been presented because the SPPA Working Group [didn’t] meet until, November 13, 2024, to finalize the documents.”
The participants in the SPPA will also have a five-year contract with Direct Energy for transfer of electricity generation and a six-year contract with consultant GreenSky Development to provide ongoing management services related to the agreement.
Total project costs for SPPA participants, including consultant and legal fees, with discounts, are $563,310. Costs are billed proportionally to each member by share of electricity to be used from the agreement. So as the largest consumer in the SPPA, State College Area School District, which will be purchasing 80% of its electricity through the agreement, bears the largest cost at $280,902.
The contract sets an operational date of October 2026 for the array.
“If they do not meet that deadline, there will be financial costs that they will then have to pay each of us at that point in time,” Randy Brown, working group member and SCASD finance and operations officer, said on Wednesday. “Those are things that caused the additional legal fees because there were different layers and different language that needed to begin the documents to protect each of our organizations.”
