Legalectric

Letter: Will Xcel deal preserve our fair share?

Carol Overland, Red Wing, The Republican Eagle

Published Saturday, November 11, 2006

To the Editor:

Decades ago, NSP built the Prairie Island plant, and it was welcomed in large part because of the economic benefits.

Tax revenue for this plant has been slashed by over 60 percent in the last decade. What happened to that deal?

There’s a new utility personal property tax deal between Xcel, Goodhue County and Red Wing. Is this a good thing? I’ve represented clients who’ve successfully preserved their tax base. I’ve also represented parties regarding NSP/Xcel deals because my clients suffered consequences, i.e., the “stick it to Goodhue County” nuclear waste in Florence Township, the Chisago transmission line redesigned at twice the capacity originally proposed, the TRANSLink deal and its codification as the 2005 Transmission bill which brings three 345kV transmission lines to Red Wing. I’m skeptical of any deal.

Utility personal property tax is an arcane tax paid by all utilities owning infrastructure to all local governments across the state. All jurisdictions are affected by the 60-percent tax rate cuts.

These cuts were a peripheral issue in the campaign: Candidates were asked about the dwindling tax base, but not what they would do to restore revenue. Only one spoke about her successful experience in negotiating with the utility. Potential solutions range from influencing the Department of Revenue rule change; stepped restoration of utility tax rates; production tax on all generation; elimination of blanket exemptions coupled with a Host Fee Agreement. Local governments must act in concert. Will they?

That’s my concern. This community has been held hostage by a “good neighbor” utility which showed its appreciation for the 1994 lobbying effort “to protect the tax base” by gutting that base as local governments cower. What’s encouraging is that there’s recognition that it’s time to protect our interests. What’s Xcel going to do if challenged, take its nuclear plant and go?

Those working on this deal have pledged to act to protect the tax base and made strenuous assurances that this deal is premised on legislative change. This deal is “a floor, not a ceiling” to preserve the status quo while legislative efforts go forward. That’s reasonable to restore the diminishing tax base, whether legislatively, administratively, or legally, is to enforce the original premise. We’ve got to support local government in its fight to preserve our fair share.

Carol Overland
Red Wing

And it’s later and much of the snow is melting, of course after I get the sidewalk shoveled. Could be worse, a friend in Austin said he’s got a foot’s worth covering a quarter mile driveway and a busted tractor that the shop can’t seem to “get to.” Sun is up, sky is clear, and I can see Wisconsin and Barn Bluff again. It really is a beautiful day, but it’s snow and it’s Minnesota and it’s winter again. The grrrrrrrrls are tuckered out after chasing their neon doggie toys through the snow, it was so deep by the pool that Ken was struggling, hopping and dragging her gimpy leg, and she finally just laid down and watched. Now they’re quiet! Time to get some work done. More coffee…

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Barry and Lake just walked by, and Krie woke me up in her excitement about seeing her big yellow Lab buddy out on the street, and I wonder “Why is it so cold in here” and tell Krie to take a time out, off she goes to her kennel, and I look out and there’s at least 4″ of snow, and there’s no denying it, it’s that season. Turn the heat back on, fire up the coffee, I hate cold, but the grrrrrrrrls want to go run at the park. Some of that rubs off and it’s not quite so bad.

But “my” house on the bluff overlooking the Rio Barranca is still waiting…

And while the water’s coming to a boil, here’s something inspirational from the inbasket:

A Hint of Possibility in the Air

By Garrison Keillor, in The Chicago Tribune

Wednesday 08 November 2006

So now we have thrown some rascals out and left some rascals in power and sent some new folks to Washington to learn the art of rascality, and what in the end, after all the hoopla, will really change? Or will the town drunk continue to run the municipal liquor store?

Perhaps there will be some rational debate on the war. The voters have said they don’t want the 30 Years War that Vice President Dick Cheney envisions, so it’s time for him and his friend to start making other arrangements. This happens all the time in the real world. If you can’t accomplish the mission, then you accept it and find a graceful way out.

The health insurance crisis may be addressed, and the crippled behemoth that is Homeland Security. And surely Congress will rediscover the use of the subpoena and require public servants to account for themselves under oath. This would be a novelty. After six years of ingenious spin, we could get a history lesson while we’re still young enough to profit from it.

People still care deeply about our government, despite every invitation to disillusionment. This is the astonishment. For my generation, the first big blow was the failure of Washington to get to the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and then its inability to change a disastrous course in Vietnam. You stand at the majestic polished wall with the 57,000 names on it, and you look across the river to Arlington, and here, within one mile, are two enormous aching sorrows, and a mile behind you is the U.S. Supreme Court, which threw the election of 2000. Some people killed our president and got away with it; men were shipped off to die in a lousy war promulgated by Democrats afraid to be called weak on communism; and an election was stolen, no protest. And yet we still stroll down to the church and cast our ballots. We live on hope.

Forty years ago I drove to Baltimore for a friend’s wedding and then, on a powerful urge, veered off toward Washington. It was night. I drove through a confusing grid of diagonals and circles, saw the great dome illuminated, drove up to it and parked and walked in. You could do that then. A few cops stood around, and you strolled past them and into the rotunda, and stood dazed and humbled in this space where great men had moved. The tragedy of secession was played out in these halls, and the New Deal was launched, and FDR was carried up here after Pearl Harbor to declare World War II, after which wise men designed the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe and the GI Bill of Rights that built an American middle class.

It has been a long time since we had reason to be proud of these people, though they are essentially the same people as those who accomplished great things. So what’s wrong?

One problem with Congress is that 90 percent of it is ceremonial and so little has to do with elucidation. The Honorable meets with representatives of the American Beer Can Association, the Swizzle Stick Foundation, the League of Tutu Manufacturers, and poses for photos and listens to their pitches, and then goes to the floor and proclaims Eugene P. Fenstermaker Day, and then to a subcommittee hearing to read a two-page statement praising the arts as a triumphant manifestation of the human spirit, and then back to the office to welcome 10 fat men in beanies and the 4-Hers from Hooperville, then off to the banquet of the American Ferret Federation, and seldom during the day is the Honorable ever challenged or questioned or asked to listen to anything that wasn’t vetted and paid for. The Great Personage is either regarded with servile deference or heartily abused by bloggers. This is not a good life for an inquiring mind.

You meet congressmen in private and they’re perfectly thoughtful and well-spoken people, nothing like the raging idiots they impersonate in campaign ads, and you think, maybe Congress needs more privacy. Send them off on unchaperoned trips to see the world firsthand. More closed-door caucuses where they can say what they think without worrying that one stray phrase may kill them.

Or maybe Congress simply needed more Democrats. We are a civil bunch, owing to our contentious upbringings. With a smart, well-spoken woman for speaker instead of that lumbering, mumbling galoot who covered for the Current Occupant, perhaps life will get more interesting. Maybe they’ll do something good. It’s possible.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

So what’s up with “the press?” Today I find that these two Letters to the Editor about Excelsior’s Mesaba coal gasification project are not available in the Opinions section of the Grand Rapids Herald Review, but are on line and show up in a search of “Excelsior.” So I guess we’re supposed to know they’re there and do the search. OK, fine, we can do that. And this isn’t nearly so bad as other offenses lately, like Wente’s and Davis’ major journalistic ethical problem and the Forum making non-news “news,” but hey, you’ll have to wait for the book.

Here’re today’s hidden Letters to the Editor:

Who are elected officials working for?

Herald-Review
Monday, November 06th, 2006 02:26:39 PM

Editor:

It’s curious to note that over $20,000 has been contributed by Tom Micheletti and his wife, Julie Jorgensen (principals of Excelsior Energy) to campaigning and elected officials including; Norm Coleman, Mark Dayton, the Minnesota DFL Party, the Minnesota DFL House Caucus, Mark Kennedy, Amy Klobuchar, the National Republican Senate Committee, James Oberstar, and Tom Saxhaug. It makes one wonder who our elected officials are really working for, the lobbyists of Excelsior Energy or we, the constituents?

At the MN Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board’s website, Excelsior Energy has disclosed lobbyist expenditures of $60,000 in 2002, $100,000 in 2003, $60,000 in 2004 and $40,000 in 2005. That’s $260,000, where did this money come from? Itâ??s amazing how much money lobbyists will spend to attempt to get millions and millions from us tax payers.

Amanda Nesheim
Bigfork