{"id":4419,"date":"2009-03-31T11:25:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-31T17:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/big-loan-for-santa-teresa-plant-went-elsewhere\/"},"modified":"2009-03-31T11:25:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-31T17:25:00","slug":"big-loan-for-santa-teresa-plant-went-elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/big-loan-for-santa-teresa-plant-went-elsewhere\/","title":{"rendered":"Big loan for Santa Teresa plant went elsewhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rio Grande Foundation<\/a> has published a report detailing $9 million the state loaned to a company that said it planned to create 200 jobs by building a new plant in southern Do\u00f1a Ana County but has instead \u201cexported jobs to Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cNot one dime\u201d of the loan has been repaid, the foundation\u2019s investigative journalist, Jim Scarantino, writes on the foundation\u2019s blog, New Mexico Liberty<\/a>. Oh, and you probably guessed this already, but the company\u2019s founder is a big-time Democrat who has given money to Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> and others.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Some details: According to Scarantino\u2019s report<\/a>, Andrew Ungerleider\u2019s Earthstone International<\/a> secured the loan from the State Investment Council<\/a> (SIC) at the urging of Richardson. Ungerleider pledged at the time to use the money to locate a facility for Earthstone — which uses recycled glass to make an abrasive compound for cleaning and sanding — in Santa Teresa.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Earthstone also planned to open a research and development facility in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Neither has happened, five years after the loan was made, according to Scarantino. Instead, the company\u2019s products are made in Mexico and Arkansas. And the company\u2019s headquarters remains in Texas. The only ties to New Mexico are the Santa Fe residence of Ungerleider and his wife and a fabricating plant in that city that employs about a dozen people.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

So the state hasn\u2019t benefited at all from the loan and hasn\u2019t been paid back.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Ungerledier was quoted in the article as saying that the funds secured for the Santa Teresa plant were instead used for research and development and marketing.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cHe says that the SIC funds have enabled Earthstone to win several patents,\u201d the article states. \u201cThose patents have become the foundations for several new companies being spun off of Earthstone. As for when New Mexicans can expect to see any direct return on their $9 million investment in Earthstone, Ungerleider offered a lengthy explanation. He says he is \u2018looking for patient investors\u2019 and foresees at some future time even larger returns than the SIC had originally anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in 2003 Richardson appointed Ungerleider\u2019s wife to the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board<\/a>, and she was elected chairperson. And Ungerleider and his wife, Scarantino\u2019s report states, have donated at least $25,000 to Richardson and other Democrats.<\/p>\n

\n

By way of disclosure, Scarantino used to write a regular column for this site<\/a>. A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Earthstone employs about two dozen people in Santa Fe.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rio Grande Foundation has published a report detailing $9 million the state loaned to a company that said it planned to create 200 jobs by building a new plant in southern Do\u00f1a Ana County but has instead \u201cexported jobs to Mexico.\u201d \u201cNot one dime\u201d of the loan has been repaid, the foundation\u2019s investigative journalist, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}