Legalectric

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Color me pissy, but you’d think that after TEN (&(*$*(*@$(*% YEARS of dealing with this Chisago Transmission Project in one capacity or incapacity or another that Xcel might notice when they’re sending out its reapplication (for what, the third time now?) that they’d notice that they neglected to send one to me! You’d think that they’d notice that the local citizens group Intervenor in all the previous Chisago Project incarnations, the ever-so-effective Concerned River Valley Citizens, was NOT served with an application, nothing sent to Bill Neuman or Shellene Johnson! But NOOOOOOOO…

Here’s Xcel’s site for the Chisago Transmission Project, now called, I kid you not:

The Chisago County Reliability Improvement Project

Here’s the service list from PUC as of October 31, 2006:
chisago-service-list.pdf

I’m on the list.. well DUH, I’d better be, not just because of 10 years of work on this, but there’s also those formal Comments I’d filed on the Notice Plan in July. On the October 31 service list, Shellene Johnson, Pres. of CRVC was inexplicably removed.

So the recap:

Xcel screws up by not serving moi.

PUC/Commerce or whatever screws up by removing Shellene Johnson.

The Agency Formerly Known As The EQB screws up because they don’t take that EQB list over to the new office at 85 – 7th Place E. and make that existing list the service list in the dockets.

When I emailed Robin Benson, keeper of the PUC’s lists, she said I was on it, and that Shellene Johnson had been removed and Bill Neuman was MIA.

When I called Bret Eknes of the PUC, he said that the Comment Period on Completeness wouldn’t be reopened, and that they don’t have to solicit comments. Objection, non-responsive! Reopening because of a screw up is different than soliciting comments.

When I called Bob Cupit, of The Agency Formerly Known As The EQB, he rolls his eyeballs, does his “Oh, give me a break” Overland impression, and says things that he says I cannot quote or he will shoot me!

When I called Xcel, Mary Martinka, as Jimbo Alders says, was on it, and yesterday they shipped off copies to me, to Bill Neuman, and to Shellene Johnson.

Jimbo Alders, of Xcel, emails and says his staff people were right on it when I called. Yup, they were! Didn’t notice I wasn’t on the list? Come on, Jimbo, you knew I’d moved to Red Wing even before my neighbors did!

Oh, give me a break… as I told Jimbo, you’d think after all this time that Xcel would have a big envelope with my name in it to serve me with everything that goes out the door — except nuclear waste, I’ll pass on that. I mean really, you’d think they’d know I’m gonna find out about the Chisago Application, just like I find out about everything else!
Well, as my ex-husband used to say, “Goes to show you don’t think!” Yup, uh-huh…

OK, fine, if that’s how it’s going to be, I’ll just pack up all my IGCC files and move to Colorado!

And on that happy note, here’s the Xcel bird cam – nope, no bird cam, they’re sensible and are gone for the winter… at least staying away from Xcel power plants. Oh, that reminds me, and I failed to get a photo of it, but there was this great sign, an Xcel billboard, on the Lafayette Bridge, yes, an XCEL sign that said “Beware! Powerlines Kill!” or some such. Whatever were they thinking?