RNC: Dave Bicking interview about daughter Monica’s arrest
September 1st, 2008
As the Republican National Convention fades into the distance, likely canceled due to “weather,” the “grand march” is winding up, police are tailing the students leaving Macalester, helicopters overhead, and there’s a police blockade at Smith and Grand with a couple of arrests so far…
From Uptake (video reports here) and MinnPost, here’s an interview with Dave Bicking about his daughter’s arrest. Dave Bicking, Green Party, ran for City Council last election cycle and he was a crucial player in taking down Kandiyohi’s Midtown Burner, planned for the Phillips neighborhood.
And on MinnPost:
The good news is that there was a post in Twin Cities Indymedia that Monica Bicking had been released, but now that post has vanished…
And on a lighter note, from the STrib:
When is a letter just a letter?
March 25th, 2008
Sometimes a letter is just a letter. A letter sure isn’t a Power Purchase Agreement! Kandiyohi’s Midtown Eco-Crapper is having about as much luck with its Power Purchase Agreement as Excelsior Energy, but they’re spinnin’ it just as wildly! They have a deadline approaching for the option on the property for the burner, March 31, 2008, and to exercise the option they have to pony up $50,000 for the City, and meet conditions, one of which is a “commitment” to buy the power. This seems to be another project that’s doomed but will take a long time to go down. Not to worry, Excelsior has been over 6 years thus far, and it’s been a hilarious road…
They don’t have a PPA. That’s very clear, though they’re trying to muddy it with “the letter.” I did some checking on my own, made some phone calls, sent some emails, and nope, there’s NO Power Purchase Agreement. What they’ve got is a letter saying there is no commitment!
How can it be said any more clearly:
This letter is provided solely as an accommodation to Midtown with respect to the Option Agreement and does not create any obligation on the part of NSP to agree to any terms or conditions of a power purchase agreement, or to enter into a power purchase agreement with Midtown, or to issue or provide any approvals of any proposed power purchase agreement.
Here’s the STrib report on this today:
Small step forward for wood-burning plant
The developer has exercised its option to buy land for the power plant in the East Phillips neighborhood.
By STEVE BRANDT, Star Tribune
Minneapolis officials are poring over a developer’s claim that it has met conditions to exercise an option to buy a city site for a wood-burning power plant in the East Phillips neighborhood.
Kandiyohi Development Partners asserted to the city in a letter received Friday that it has the necessary commitment from Xcel Energy to buy the plant’s power, one of the city’s conditions for selling its land.
That’s an abrupt change of stance in a week. Kandiyohi earlier asked the city to extend its March 30 deadline for exercising the option.
Kandiyohi’s chances appear to hinge on whether it has “a commitment to enter into a power purchase agreement” subject to reasonable conditions, as required by the option agreement. “By no means is it an ironclad agreement,” said burner opponent Jullonne Glad.
In a letter last week, Xcel acknowledged that it is negotiating with Kandiyohi. But the utility’s commitment contains a big if — if the developer and the utility reach an agreement. If so, Xcel said it will seek necessary management and regulatory approvals.
“We are negotiating with them,” said Xcel spokeswoman Mary Sandok.
Greg Goeke, who is managing the land sale for the city, said city officials will decide “in a day or two” whether the developer has met option conditions. Kandiyohi tried last July to exercise the option, but the city said it hadn’t made enough progress on the power sales agreement.
Kandiyohi said in the letter that it has exercised its option, sending the city a $50,000 check due. If the city agrees that Midtown has met all option conditions, it still must meet stiffer conditions to close on the land by the Oct. 2 deadline.
By then, the option agreement requires that Kandiyohi have all necessary government approvals, including a state emissions permit; demonstrate financing commitments, which it has obtained from Piper Jaffray; negotiate a neighborhood agreement, and have a signed power sales agreement.
Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438
And an interesting twist, also from the STrib, after noting the above reference to “Piper Jaffray commitments” I remembered something — Lois Quam’s new career path:
Wonder if she recognizes the environmental harm of burning, the environmental harm of the Midtown Eco-Crapper — and that burning doesn’t do a thing for CO2, other than generate more!
Lisa Goodman gets holiday smack upside the head!
January 1st, 2008
Doing some catch-up here. I’m still downloading and finding files and getting everything into this computer, dealing some with my hospitalized mother, a brief time out that just wasn’t sufficient, and on and on and on… so, here goes!
Did you catch the great article about Lisa Goodman’s role in the Kandiyohi proposal for the Midtown Eco-Crapper? It’s here in the STrib:
Goodman’s actions on burner questioned
As an investor, Lisa Goodman left the debate on the project and did not vote. But was her letter to the MPCA a conflict of interest?
By STEVE BRANDT, Star Tribune
Last update: December 24, 2007 – 7:43 PM
Lisa Goodman says she did everything by the book when she invested last year in Midtown Eco Energy, which wants to generate energy in Minneapolis’ Phillips neighborhood by burning wood.
The Minneapolis City Council member filed a statement with the city clerk disclosing a conflict of interest. She left the room during the council’s discussion of Midtown Eco Energy’s request that the city reserve up to $86 million in tax-exempt revenue bond authority for the project. She abstained from voting on the request. She didn’t lobby colleagues.
Goodman said those actions exceed what’s required.
But she also wrote in August to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, urging it to issue an air quality permit for the facility.
Although on personal stationery, the letter began by referring to her post as a council member. It didn’t disclose that she had invested at least $2,500 in Midtown.
The wood-burning proposal has attracted opponents, some of whom look askance at the Goodman letter.
“I think it’s a little sleazy,” said Carol Greenwood, a Seward neighborhood environmental activist. She called Goodman’s omission of her investment “a little disingenuous.”
Goodman’s action may not run afoul of the city’s ethics ordinance. It says that a city official should avoid any situation that might give rise to a conflict of interest. A conflict is defined as participating in the discharge of official duties in a government decision, action or transaction in which one has a financial interest greater than an occupational peer.
An ethics professor weighs in
But the proscription appears to apply only to city officials influencing a city decision, not a state action. David Schultz, who teaches government ethics at Hamline University’s law school, calls that a “statutory gap.”
“She’s got a conflict of interest, no doubt about it,” Schultz said, even if no law is broken. “What’s she’s doing here more than anything else is using her position as a council member for personal gain. That fits under one of the classic definitions of conflict of interest.”
In an interview, Goodman refused to disclose the amount of her investment but it’s at least $2,500, the threshold that required her to disclose it on an economic interest statement last year.
“I can’t afford to be making a large investment,” Goodman said. But she also said: “I could lose a ton of money.”
She described it as an investment in a project in which two “people who are in my life like family” are involved.
They are Kim Havey, the city’s former Empowerment Zone director, and Michael Krause, a former Green Institute president and city DFL chairman. They are two of three partners in Kandiyohi Development Partners, which is proposing the Midtown project. They said they asked friends and family to invest seed money in the project.
Goodman and Havey have known each other since college days in the 1980s and shared a condo for years. Goodman, Krause and Havey own an 8-acre Kandiyohi County farmstead.
Goodman adapted form letter
Goodman, who represents downtown and the Cedar-Isles area, said most of her letter was copied from a form letter circulated by the Midtown project. But she inserted her council title at the form letter’s start. Although it’s on personal stationery, her letterhead also lists her council title.
Asked about that, Goodman said: “I was just listing what my job was. It wasn’t a position of the city.”
Schultz disagreed: “She’s using her position. If she had just signed it Jane Doe at 1 Elm Street, maybe that wouldn’t have been so much of a problem.”
“She’s using her influence as a City Council member,” said Nancy Hone, one of the activists opposing the Midtown project. Another opponent, Alan Muller, who discovered the letter in state files, said it raises questions about Goodman’s ethical sensitivity.
After Goodman was asked by the Star Tribune about the letter, she wrote the agency to clarify that she was not acting in her official capacity.
The city’s ethics code requires those working for the city to “maintain the highest ethical principles and avoid misconduct and conflicts of interest, apparent or real.”
Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438
Here are endorsement letters by various officials, from Speaker Margaret Kelliher to Mayor Rybak to Corcoran’s Eric Gustafson and East Phillip’s Carol Pass (Pass revoked her endorsement at the MPCA public meeting, but is it in writing in the MPCA record?).
Speaker Kelliher endorsement using form letter from Kandiyohi
Let’s watch as the endorsement retractions roll in…
MPCA disappears Midtown Eco Energy docs
August 28th, 2007
The MPCA is disappearing documents. The Notice for the MPCA’s meeting at the Franklin Library had Kandiyohi’s Draft Air Permit and Technical Support Document too, and for some odd reason it’s disappeared. So here they are:
Midtown Eco Energy – MPCA Public Notice
Now, loading the application… nope, too big, even when shrunken pdf…