Hercules Global
— by Jeffrey Wisniewski — 22 December 2010 — 27 comments below »
Tom Lochner reports (at the very end of the article): “[Hercules Mayor Ed] Balico read a statement from former City Manager Mike Sakamoto stating Sakamoto is not a partner in any business owned by Balico, in an apparent response to recent Times reports that the two are in the waste-to-energy business together. As of late Tuesday, the website of a Balico-owned company, Hercules Global Technology & Services Inc., listed Ed Balico as president of that company and two others, and Mike Sakamoto as Business Project Developer.”
Well, as of this morning, that page does not exist anymore. But the Google cached version does (click to enlarge)…
Uhm, yea.
UPDATE — Here is the full image of Google’s cache, including text stating that it represents the page as it appeared on “Dec 18, 2010 10:39:09 GMT.”
Jeff,
As always thank you so much, in this case, for the link to to the Google cached version. So much for some of last nights statements!
I find it interesting that one of the elements on the Hercules Global website refers to “WASTEWATER TREATMENT”, the very thing that the city of Hercules is really involved in finding solutions for.
Mayor Balico, last night, made it clear that Hercules Global is all about handling garbage and trash with no mention of wastewater treatment.
I can only assume that means that Hercules Global being involved in wastewater treatment is not really something they do and therefore there is no reason to assume there might be a potential conflict of interest for the president of Hercules Global to engage with the city or its mayor concerning wastewater.
If Mr. Balico doe not have anything to hide, then why did he take down his site? Thats right folks – because he DOES have something to hide. He is lying and cheating his way through Hercules with all his other cronies – Sakamoto and his son John included!
Thank you so much for spotting the demise of the Hercules Global website and for maintaining the Google cached link. Bet there are quite a few folks who are shredding documents, taking down websites, and covering as many tracks as possible. Wonder how Hercules Global was financed?
The site is managed by SEEdesign, Jojo Soriano’s company.
What a surprise.
Can someone please tell me what the term “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” means.
One lies (Balico) and the other swears to it (Sakamoto)………….
That’s an old saying indicating two people will help each other out. In other words, I will do you a favor if you will do me one. It doesn’t have to be financial.
Hercules Global has a new look! Jojo Soriano did a great job covering the truth…..and you’re preaching for this community to get along so we could move forward. Look at yourself in the mirror buddy and tell us what you really see….in front of the camera!
Ed Balico’s first response to any problem is to lie, whether or not the situation even calls for it. I am reminded of when Tom Lockner (of the Contra Costa Times) asked him about the scheme he was concocting with George Szabo a few years ago to destroy New Urbanism on the waterfront and he said, “I don’t know anything about Szabo. I thought he worked for Anderson-Pacific”, and then this venue showed that response in parallel with Balico speaking at length in an earlier city council meeting about the city hiring Szabo.
I am confused about why we would assume that Balico’s company is not involved in wastewater treatment, just because he didn’t mention it in one conversation, when otherwise it is one of the two big headers on the front page of his company’s website.
At this point I think Hercules should go back to contracting with Pinole. Changing to a more expensive system that profits Balico makes no sense.
HerculesGlobal website was created by SEEDesign. I’m not sure if he owns it but Jojo Soriano is the contact person for this company. I’d never thought connecting dots would be fun to do especially if they all lead to the “usual suspects.”
I would like to ask Kuehne and Ward why they oppose transparency in government budgeting – with a reminder that this is taxypayer money. Charlie Long delivered painful news, outing the truth about city finances. And to do so he may have had to be relentless, so as to stay the course of truth-telling and not be manipulated by a corrupt government to lie or hide public information. But this is far from insubordination. The city is a mess right now (duh), and Long in his short time learned enough to expeditiously and expertly get matters on track for a permanent city manager. Without this bridge, I fear what might happen. There are so many loose ends and secrets. So Kuehne and Ward, who have the power to right wrongs and take the high road, instead choose obstructionism. They waste more of the city’s money on Long’s contract and Nelson’s severance, while Hercules is paralyzed. Bringing back Long to finish what he started is progress. It’s integrity. It’s a major step to turning a postive corner. (And no, I don’t know the guy, don’t have anyting vested in his return, no strings attached.)
# Susan Keeffe commented on December 23rd, 2010
That’s an old saying indicating two people will help each other out. In other words, I will do you a favor if you will do me one. It doesn’t have to be financial.
Are you sure about that definition. I thought it meant “let’s start up some companies and get the city to pay for them”
# Jeff Boore commented on December 23rd, 2010
I am confused about why we would assume that Balico’s company is not involved in wastewater treatment, just because he didn’t mention it in one conversation, when otherwise it is one of the two big headers on the front page of his company’s website.
Jeff,
You are mistaken in your assumption. As Frank Batara stated at the city council meeting – don’t believe everything you read.
Just because when you read on the Hercules Global website that the company is involved in wastewater treatment that doesn’t mean they are in wastewater treatment. It may mean they just needed to fill some space on the webpage and it looked better than filler that looks like this @%$^$&^*^%$. All you have to do is ask the mayor (Ed Balico) what they do. He will have his proxie (Ed Balico – the president or CEO) tell you that that they only do garbage and trash.
Don’t believe everything you read on a website.
@ The Eyes Have it — I don’t generally believe something just because I read it on a website. Obviously, anyone can establish a website and put something untrue on it. However, when a company designs its website, it typically will consider the message that it intends to give to the public, of course. I cannot imagine any reason why Ed Balico would have made the decision to put the words “Waste Water Treatment” on his company’s website unless he intended to do business in that area. (Of course, I have no idea of whether he has acted on that intention.)
I don’t understand why it was insubordination for Charlie Long to stand by his commitment to provide his findings to the public, but it was not insubordination for Oliva to refuse to pay the $5 million to the state as he was directed to do in March.
Has the money been paid yet?
http://Www.SEEDesign.com is Jojo Soriano’s company.
He has been involved in many projects paid by the city and in this case by Balico’s company.
While connecting the dots follow the money trail from the city to the Hercules Chamber.
Free office space in the building sold twice.
Yearly subsidy for operations/marketing in the amount of $55,000.
Payments to J. Soriano for their online and hard copy newsletter.
I believe that C Long was unraveling this web of favoritism and corruption.
I believe he ticked off Balico who then formed an alliance with Kuhuene and Ward.
All because o f the cozy relationship with Red Barn and all the others feeding from the Hercules trough.
http://herculesglobal.net/
Other award winning websites by JoJo Soriano, Sala Restaurant, PKeg, Hercules Chamber, Hercules Global, La Strada, Penner Homes, Cabalen, Chokos, NEO, Seedesign. Follow the $$$ all the way down the yellow brick road.
With the exception of La Strada ……. my $$ are not spent in any of these businesses.
Hi all,
I thought I must respond to this since I was the one managing this site (HerculesGlobal.net). I have designed several web sites with my design and marketing firm SEEDesign.com, and this is one of the newest ones I’ve worked on. The page in question: mgmt.html navigation link has been removed many months ago – and from what I understand, Mike Sakamoto was a consultant under P3. My role is to publish the information via the web site that was given to me, and my marketing/design firm SEEDesign.com has been working on this site. Notice the current web site’s navigation buttons are now different from the above’s screen capture – it’s been that way for several months. The image above was the initial launching several months ago. By the way, it’s copyrighted material unless you have permission from HerculesGlobal.net.
Sorry “Anonymous” whoever you are, I didn’t design NEO, Choko’s (they have a web site?), Powder Keg, Hercules Chamber – even if I did, it’s part of what I do with SEEDesign.com!
For more information, visit:
http://www.seedesign.com/html/aboutus.html
The Eyes Have it,
I stand corrected! :)
jojo the more you talk the worse it makes you look…….and the website was just taken down…..I looked at that exact website 3 weeks ago….it was functional… you are just trying to cover your tracks because you support these clowns…..thats ok you will go down with that ship – you already sinking…and just to ignorant to notice….
I may be a little naive, but waste water treatment has been an issue for Hercules for decades. Do you think that perhaps the named individuals saw this as an opportunity for creating yet another front to bleed off the City’s reserves and other funding? If this had gone on much longer, I’ll bet Global Technologies was slated to be the next “No Bid, Pie in the Sky” solutuion that in then end would fail after lining the pockets of individuals. Hercules once had over 15 Miillion in reserves. It appears these individuals came up from L.A. over a decade ago to harvest the Hercules golden egg. It goes all the way back to 1998 folks!
Hobbs, Sakamoto, McKinney and Oliva all migrated here from SoCal and isn’t it a coincidence that they were all co-horts in SoCal and then each orchestrated the next one’s golden parachute until the we end up at today’s mess. Quite convenient huh. Waste to energy …… Sounds reasonable to believe that was going to be the latest and final scam. All retire rich and laughing at Hercules dupes.