And the saga continues, first from Xcel. Xcel DID send notice out to all the landowners, that was on January 31, two weeks after the deadline for intervention:
What to comment about? See all the links below to the DEIS, and consider:
Here’s the hearing schedule, but don’t be surprised if this changes after the Prehearing Conference on Friday:
Here are the piles and piles of the DEIS — it’s in a pdf and the links should work. The narrative, “Draft EIS” #2 on the list below, is probably the most important, and that alone is 872 pages. SOOOO, get to work!
Public hearings for the Mankato-Mississippi 345kV transmission line have been announced for May 27 28 and 29th.
Meanwhile, Commerce-EERA’s Asst. A.G. Dornfeld just sent a letter to the Administrative Law Judge stating:
In December, the Department requested that the state’s central mail services send these notices to about 1,341 additional landowners who could be affected by route alternatives identified during the scoping process. In the last few weeks, the Department discovered that mail services did not, in fact, send these letters to landowners.
Lovely… 1,341 potentially affected landowners who did not get notice. And this was discovered “in the last few weeks,” and only now are we finding out?!?!
Had they been given notice in December, they would have had at least some time, a couple weeks before the Intervention deadline, to consider what was proposed, learn about the process, gamble on how it might affect them, and decide whether to intervene.
From the 2nd Prehearing Order:
BUT WAIT — DISCOVERED “IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS” AND ONLY DISCLOSED NOW IS BAD ENOUGH, BUT DECEMBER TO MAY IS FIVE OR SIX MONTHS, AND IT’S ONLY DISCLOSED NOW?
1,341 landowners?
Now, there’s at least “a few weeks” more lack of notice to these folks, but really, months and months.
Lack of notice? WHEW! At least the Administrative Law Judge is concerned!
Here’s what Commerce’s Asst. A. G. thinks about discussing this in a prehearing conference:
A “courtesy, not a legal obligation.” These landowners could lose their land, and Commerce’s Asst. A.G. sees no responsibility to provide notice?
Due process should be top of mind these days:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
U.S. Constitution, Section 1(emphasis added).
Who cares? I sure do. I’m remembering CapX 2020, and the Cannon Falls landowners who received notice a matter of just DAYS before the public hearing. I remember learning about this at the public hearing, and scrambling to open a window for them to intervene if they wanted — which was tossed out. And I remember our Motion for Reconsideration to challenge that last minute change with ZERO notice:
Oh yeah, I will be objecting to Dornfeld’s objection. These 1,341 landowners need time to figure out what this means for them. Given how these routing dockets work, there’s a high probability that at least some of them will be affected.
So here I am, officing away under the tarp, when one of the campers comes running up and says a stump is smouldering. They’d just returned to their site, sat around the fire pit, and she looked over and saw smoke. I grabbed the pup and ran over there with her, and sure enough, back behind site 5, smoke was pouring out of a tree stump.
As I was calling our Ranger, leaves surrounding the stump burst into flames. Ranger was on the way, and the whole loop, all of whom had dogs, grabbed our gallon jugs of dog water and went to it. The bucket brigade saved the day. After it was out, we kept watering it. One of the park folks arrived, but no water tank, so we kept going to the spigot. Then the ranger called the Lake City Fire Dept for their grass fire rig, but the big ol’ one arrived and pumped gallons of water on the stump area, and also in the sort of nearby fire pit.
And just a short while later, they packed up and left, tragedy narrowly averted.
Trump’s disdain, disregard, every imaginable dis, is embodied in the federal funding freeze, funding cuts, closing of crucial agencies, gutting the federal workforce, and we’re all going to be paying for it. The impacts are already severe, and from there, it only gets worse.
It’s not easy. The state now has a website showing funding at risk and funding cuts:mn.gov/mmb/budget/federal-investments/data-and-reporting/showing “Temporary Disruptions” and “Permanent Cancellations.” What’s missing is an explanation that the “power of the purse” is with Congress, and that it’s unconstitutional for the executive branch to interfere with Congressionally appropriated funds.
The impact? Withholding funding pulls the rug out from under local governments.
At the last City Council meeting, we heard of a $1.9 million grant for bulkhead rehab, but that’s federal funding at risk, as is $641,543 for “airport operations and capital projects.” Red Wing “local road/bridge projects” total $4,439,275. How to make up for this $4,439,275 investment? How many jobs are lost? Do we foot the bill, or will the projects disappear?
