A good PR company is always looking out for their client's best interests.  This would necessarily include notifying their client of anything discovered that may run counter to their client's interests, right?  Charles Ryan Assoc. bills themselves to PATH as a bunch of geniuses, and PATH eats it up, spending millions of dollars to have CRA representatives present at all public events to "observe" the public.  But what happens when CRA discovers something that makes them look foolish and also runs counter to PATH's PR business model?  They keep it to themselves, of course!  They never want to give PATH bad news or admit that they made a grave mistake.  Just like a cat who falls off a piece of furniture, CRA keeps a straight face and says, "I meant to do that."

In order to keep this fun for the hundreds of people waiting to find out Charles Ryan's secret, we'll turn this into a cyber treasure hunt.  Here's your first clue.  If you figure out CRA's secret, post it in the comments.  If you knew their secret all along, don't spoil it for everyone else! 

Congratulations to hafabee and ? who caught on with only one clue and helped direct the power companies in their cyber treasure hunt for the secret Charles Ryan Associates was trying to keep from them.  Mission accomplished!

Here's their "secret" -- and how they ever thought they'd get away with it is beyond me!  Charles Ryan Associates designs and maintains PATH's many claimed and unclaimed (front group) websites as part of their "self-anointed genius" PR services.  The geniuses at CRA have been hosting a dead link on PATH's main website, which at one time connected with one of their long-since abandoned front groups, the "Coalition for Reliable Power".  This has been going on since PATH allowed their ownership of the domain to expire on August 30, 2010, nearly six months ago.  A "dead link" is a link on a website that connects to a non-existent website.  Extremely unprofessional!

Once a domain registration is allowed to expire, ownership is terminated and that domain is made available for purchase by anyone.  This is why hosting dead links is a bad idea.  Anyone could buy up an available domain name and construct their own website.  That's exactly what happened with the Coalition for Reliable Power.

PATH's website has recently been hosting a live link to a grassroots Coalition whose mission is, "dedicated to  increasing the reliability of the West Virginia and U.S. electrical systems through sensible improvements to our electric generation, distribution and transmission systems.  In our mission to create a vital public conversation about reliable electrical power  and real alternatives to our dangerously centralized electrical grid.  Our current goal is to press for the rebuilding of the Pruntytown to Mt. Storm 500 kV transmission line in West Virginia which will make the proposed PATH line completely unnecessary."

Meanwhile, CRA had begun a new internet advertising campaign intending to drive traffic to a page of PATH's website with the dead link on it and were inadvertently also driving traffic to the Coalition's website.  On Monday, CRA happened to click on the dead link and arrived at the Coalition's site.  Did they tell PATH what they had found?  No, they thought they could keep their incompetence a secret.  So, they removed the dead link from PATH's website and didn't say a word.  Lack of integrity seems to be a character trait that's shared all around by those behind this project.  Maybe now they know how we feel when we're intentionally lied to again and again...