Legalectric

Way way back, we’re talking 2017, the Citizens Assembly issued its report, part of which were suggestions to improve city meetings, that “better meetings” and ethics and the City’s Code of Conduct were the areas that were important to me. Why? Because at the last meeting, a concerted effort was made, through a secret meeting and a Resolution from that meeting, to prohibit virtual participation and to eliminate the Statement of Intent.

Notice who showed up for this workshop and notice who DID NOT show up for this workshop:

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF WORKSHOP!

Here’s the packet for the meeting:

Everything I say about this is flavored by the LONG time it took to get to this discussion, and the flagrant misbehavior of some Council members, disregard for basic concepts of how government operates and DOESN’T and SHOULDN’T operate, and the dissing of the public. That said…

The discussion was a start. They went through the suggestions I’d offered (because I was the only one who’d offered specific suggestions, a few times over the last SIX YEARS), variations of what I’ve been offering since 2017, and they DID discuss them. For the most part, they have focused on two things.

• Develop “Standard Operating Procedures/Best Practices” explaining how things are done.
• Update the “How to Participate” flyer that’s on the table in the foyer (there should be an announcement of this handout at the beginning of meetings for folks new to appearing).

That’s a start, good to see, and ONWARD!

Here’s the 2/27/2023 City Council Meeting: youtube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rqZKMLVXYI4&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE&t=8603

And here’s a transcript of that meeting:

Here’s the City’s Statement of Intent they want to eliminate:

I put together a handout about “Better Meetings” recommendations in Citizens Assembly Event Report for the meeting:

I also made copies of a Letter to the Editor that Alan and I had written following the ejection or resignation of Dennis Egan as Mayor due to conflict of interest, and as Citizens Assembly was discussing ethical issues and the City Code of Conduct, which is so deficient and needs updating. This last Council meeting was a wake up call for update of the Code of Conduct — discovery of the Gang of Four’s secret meeting, two Council members falsely stating and doubling down that it was an Agenda and/or Executive/Leadership committee meeting (plus “COVID is over,” I mean, really?!?!), and for trying to prohibit virtual comments and eliminating the Statement of Intent? I’d like to see Oath of Office committed to at each meeting!

From Goodhue County DFL:

Due to the continuing rate of COVID-19 spread, the Goodhue County DFL will conduct “contactless caucuses” on February 1, 2022. We’re seeing a record breaking surge of infections and hospitalizations; there is no way to know who’s been exposed or where someone’s traveled. Our caucuses rely on volunteers to operate, and we want to ensure everyone can participate in the democratic process safely. Because our Democratic caucuses are an open, public event to anyone that affirms they are a DFL-er, the Goodhue County DFL unit (Goodhue21) is providing multiple ways for all Democrats to participate in the 2022 Precinct Caucuses.

Participation in this year’s caucus will consist of submitting the following:

Precinct Caucus Non-Participation Forms: Precinct caucus attendees can submit a Non-Attendee form which shows their desire to hold Precinct Officer or Convention Delegate positions via email, mail, or in-person drop off at their caucus location. If there are more people interested in being a Convention Delegate than delegate slots, a random selection will be held during a public Zoom call on Wednesday, February 9. Watch your email for more details.

Resolutions: Attendees can also submit resolutions to be considered for inclusion in the State DFL Party Platform. All resolutions must be attached to the official resolution form. All reso​lutions will be forwarded to the OU convention (similar ones may be combined).

Ways To Participate:

Fill out the online form (Goodhue 21 Google Form) and submit directly to Goodhue 21 DFL.

Download and print the online form (Non-Attendee, Resolution), fill it out, and email the scanned document to goodhue21dfl@gmail.com. You can also physically mail documents to 11995 350th Street Way, Cannon Falls, 55009.

Print and fill out the online form, then submit in-person at your Precinct Caucus location on Caucus night.

Come to your Precinct Caucus location on Caucus night to fill out and submit your forms.Regardless which option you select, all Non-Attendee and Resolution forms must be received by 9pm on February 1 to be considered. Options one and two can be submitted any time before the deadline. Submit completed forms at any one of our 8 caucus locations:

Cannon Falls Elementary School, Door A

Goodhue Public School, Door 8

Kenyon-Wanamingo Elementary School, Wanamingo, Main Door

Kenyon-Wanamingo High School, Kenyon, Main Door

Lake City High School, Door 2 or 11

Pine Island High School, Door 18

Twin Bluff Middle School, Red Wing, Main Door

Zumbrota-Mazeppa High School, Zumbrota, Main Door

A Goodhue-21 DFL representative will be at each of the 8 caucus locations from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm on February 1 to accept your documents.

Download the Non-Attendee Form:

From the DFL website at https://dfl.org/…/Precinct-Caucus-Fillable-Non-Attendee…

Or fill out the online form (Google Form) at https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSfwhoVXHWa…/viewform…

Download the Resolution Form:

From the DFL website at https://dfl.org/…/Adopted-7-August-2021-Rev-A-Page-A-1.pdf

Or fill out the online form (Google Form) at https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSedeZF3u7j…/viewform…

Email all documents or any questions to goodhue21dfl@gmail.com

Find your Caucus Location here. You can find more information on our website at www.goodhue21dfl.org

Last night, Sen. Osmek held a Senate Energy Committee meeting in Rochester. It was standing room only, at least 100 showed up (I had 100 flyers, and had 4 left and I know I missed a few).

Here’s the bill DRAFT, SC5558-6:

Here’s the powerpoint explaining the bill:

Who all showed up and testified? All a bunch of paid suits, with just three exceptions, pushed to the very end. Check the list of lobbyists here:

Alan Muller got on the list to testify, he’ll be writing to the Committee soon:

And here’s my comment sent to the committee:

Where were Senators Dibble and Marty? I must confess, I was so disgusted by Sen. Marty’s handling of the e21 debacle back in 2015 that I’ve not been back to the Senate Energy Committee since then (Marty tried to introduce Xcel’s e21 bill, and tried to shut down testimony opposing that bill…
(report from that meeting) though the room was packed with those who had rolled over supporting it, only three of us there opposed it, myself, Alan Muller, and Office of Attorney General’s RUD James Canneday. Sen. Marty pulled the bill as he “introduced” it and then substituted an e21 light and wouldn’t allow testimony on anything else! Well, we did what we could, and it wasn’t until the very end in conference committee or just before that he put the awful Xcel-desired language back in. SF 1735 – SHAME on each Senator who voted for it). Back into the fray, I guess!

My take is that Sen. Senjem, or the Republican caucus, or ???, are concerned about Sen. Senjem’s seat, why else would they put Mikey Bull up there beside him, emitting puffery about the bill? Seems there’s just one other Senate hearing scheduled, info below.

Next up, next week, Mound, Minnesota, in Sen. Ozmek’s district:

Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 4:00 PM

Mound Westonka High School’s Performing Arts Center

905 Sunnyfield Road East

Minnetrista, MN 55364

Now, Mikey, about “carbon capture and storage,” good grief. Did you learn nothing from all those years of Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project? Here’s why it’s good the Mesaba Project was not built!

Pipedreams of Green and Clean

Over the many years, there have been many “agreements,” and over the many years, time after time, people affected by these “agreements” have come to me for advice, to represent them, as they’re faced with consequences of these agreements. What agreements? The 1994 (Chapter 641) and 2003 (Chapter 11) Prairie Island bills, the
Merger Stipulation Dec 15 1999, the 2005 Transmission Omnibus Bill from Hell (Chapter 97), the e21 Xcel Business Plan pieces dribbling into Omnibus bills 2015 (Chapter 1) and since. Now this:

The two page agreement made public is in that filing. Note the requirements related to this docket and the IRP, to support, to facilitate, to not object to Xcel’s plan. They agree to “supporting the Company’s request to recover the undepreciated balance of the King plant as a regulatory asset through 2037… of the Sherco 3 plant through 2035” [which was just rehabbed and we’re paying for that now]. They agree to Sherco 2 use “on a seasonal basis until its retirement in 2023;” 706.4 GWh of energy efficiency savings annually (not cumulative, methinks?); support of decoupling, support of acquisition of at least 3,00 MW of solar before end of 3020; and support acquisition by bidding process and proposals of build and own.

They’re using this to gain approval of Xcel’s acquisition of the Mankato Energy Center doing an end run around the Integrated Resource Plan, due to be filed any second now.

This first came to my attention when I saw Sierra Club request withdrawal of its comments in the 18-702 docket, regarding Xcel acquisition of the Mankato Energy Center (MEC) gas plant.

What? Withdraw Comments? That’s not possible. Once something is filed, it cannot be deleted. Hmmmmmm, what on earth is it that they want to withdraw? Here ya go, note these are the “public” comments, so some redactions:

Very well done Comments, eh? And note, they’re right in line with the Comments of the Office of the Attorney General – RUD, which concludes:

And in a shorter version, ILSR hits the highlights:

Looking at all of this, I had to weigh in. I’m so tired of these deals that are against the public interest, deals that inflict infrastructure and other harms on unsuspecting people. Unintended consequences? Intended consequences? Reckless actions not caring? It’s not that hard to envision the resulting problems.

Really, I am so tired of these deals that are not in the public interest, and are all about rolling over for Xcel, giving them what they want, and getting a significant kicker for all that “support.” That’s how it’s happened in the past (remember all that funding for pushing transmission and coal gasification?), and odds are it’s no different today.

Remember the signs in so many windows, on so many lawns? How things change…

Alan Muller and I went to a meeting last night about Xcel Energy’s Integrated Resource Plan – coming soon to a Public Utilities Commission near you! Here in Minnesota, it’s expected to be filed July 1, 2019. Right now they’re filing a lot of documents in the prior IRP, PUC Docket 15-21. To search it go to PUC SEARCH PAGE and search for “year” 15 and docket 21. After they file their 2019 IRP, it will be given a new docket number and filings will be in that docket.

Here’s their presentation from last night:

I found this slide particularly troubling because of the overstatement of demand:

Reality, well, they say “existing resources” are at 10,000MW and peak demand at 9,400 or so… but, peak demand from Xcel’s SEC 10-K filings:

There are indeed issues with Xcel and its forecasting, almost always overstated. Remember the CapX 2020 “forecasts” of a 2.49% annual increase? Here’s Xcel’s forecast from the last IRP, Docket 15-21 (as above), p. 45 of 102:

What is Xcel doing to reduce peak? There’s a statutory requirement to reduce demand by 1.5% annually, so don’t think it’s going up anytime soon.

What is Xcel doing to shift the useage from peak to off peak?

And one thing that really sticks in my craw… Sherco 3. The turbine crashed/blew up/fell apart, and did a lot of damage. Sherco 3 was down for 22 months, and we did just fine without it. BUT Xcel proposed, and the PUC agreed, to rehabbing Sherco 3 at tremendous cost to us ratepayers. Now it’s back in service, and they’re agreeing to shut down Sherco 1 and Sherco 2 in the future, and then shut down Sherco 3 further out. Why did this happen? Why spend all that money to rehap Sherco 3, when we likely didn’t need it then, and THEN shut down Sherco 1 & 2. Why wasn’t Sherco 3 left closed, and then shut down Sherco 1 and 2 in the future? Why revive Sherco 3?

I also don’t at all like the way they call nuclear “carbon free” because it is NOT, look at the fuel cycle, and look at all the other problems. Nope, not OK.

And what is Xcel doing to partner with local governments, big box stores, warehouses, apartment buildings, over parking lots, to get solar on thousands of acres of rooftops?

What is Xcel doing to get PV solar, hot water solar, and simple solar heaters on every residence?

And what is Xcel doing to put up solar on brownfields, such as closed sand mines, closed coal plants, closed turkey-shit plants, closed garbage burners (Red Wind did put up solar at its closed incinerator site, but its small, need MORE!)?

Sooo, here we go. Xcel is trying to get everyone on board so there will be no serious challenges to their IRP, just as they did with e21 Initiative (what a load that was… grrrrrrrr).