Legalectric

Tom, don’t you get that you’re doing my advertising and rallying the troops and fundraising for me?

Over the last five years, I’ve marveled at the carefully orchestrated work of lobbying art that is Mesaba. After reading Harvard’s “Financing IGCC – 3 Party Covenant” it’s even more of a marvel. It’s phenomenal, the most amazing house of cards I’ve ever seen, and I am in awe of the job that Micheletti’s pulled off. But when I see him throwing a hissy fit like he did again today, I wonder how he did it! Once again, in public, at today’s Trout Lake Township regular meeting, he took the mic from Mike and announced that he wouldn’t take questions from me, ostensibly because I’m a lawyer representing people on this issue. The crowd was not impressed, to put it mildly, and were standing up for me, and he had about 80 guys in seed caps that were ready to throttle him. One guy said the same thing that another said at the Progressive DFL caucus last time he blew: “What have you done that’s got him so afraid of you?”

Heaven forbid I should politely raise my hand to ask Mike what part of the corridor would be shared pipeline and transmission… and they obviously had worked out ahead of time that they would not “allow” me to speak. Dog, get a life, guys…

The strong support I got from the crowd is part of what makes this work so rewarding. The other rewarding thing was that those who attended had obviously done their homework, and knew enough to ask about the expected market for this electricity, options as landowners, and even line losses! It was such a thrill — it didn’t matter that I was incapacitated with this creeping crud and could barely quack out a Donald Duck impression — they did all the work, knew the issues, and expressed it showing they’d put some thought into it. Like wow!

Special thanks to the Trout Lake Town Board for hosting this meeting so that township residents could learn about Mesaba infrastructure coming through the township.