Legalectric

It’s amazing what 14 months in COVID isolation, going nowhere, but working, working, working, can do to a brain…

This is your brain on vacation… no, wait, this is MY brain on vacation:

Or this?

It’s the rhubarb sauce… and no eggs, the fridge froze everything, and, well, over-easy frozen just isn’t doable, whereas french toast is.

Yeah, a week of loafing… do do do, lookin’ out my back … window:

Site 22e at Potawatomi State Park, it’s the best site in the park, and yeah, hard to get, shoulder seasons are most likely:

Lots of asparagus, for breakfast and dinner, those went too fast to even get photos!

… and the weather was perfect, raining at night, gentle little drops but lots of it, and cool but just right. Though it was SO windy up on top of the Door County Maritime Museum lookout in Sturgeon Bay:

And look, it’s Aunt Mimi welding!

Yes, there’s a shout out to women shipbuilders:

It was mostly sunny in the day, so we were checking out other parks, like Peninsula State Park. Good luck getting reservations, Weborg Campground is impossible, it’s more intense than other parks, but overall, reservations just aren’t available! Will try for 104 or 105 sometime in my lifetime!!!

Picnics. We saved a lot by not going to restaurants… sigh… though there looked to be some good ones here. On the other hand, saved enough to tow the too-low mpg trailer! Picnic areas were open at Peninsula park:

Also just opened last week, and the SMELL, oh my, newly constructed Eagle Tower, scary high, but accessible with the longest biggest ramp ever:

And from the top:

And a cruise around Shore Drive:

And a little bit of work, with this view out the office window:

And off to Washington Island, isolated community, and it reminds me of Florence Township just south of us in Red Wing:

First stop, Camp Jacobsen — unfortunately, Alan had on his Jacobsen’s shirt the day before:

Had a very chilly picnic at Whitefish Dunes State Park, water was almost surfable:

It was odd, Sadie, who is terrified of rainstorms, was absolutely fascinated by the waves, jumping up and down happily excited!!!

It was so cold, the park was pretty much deserted. Trilliums everywhere, and here, they weren’t as rain damaged as at Potawatomi:

And its about time the STrib published one of mine — a couple of friends seem to get one in like the tide! For some reason they won’t publish any thoughtful LTEs on energy issues, which I OFTEN write, but nada… yet when I dash off one in fit of a pique, there it is, in print! That’s happened twice in the last few years.

Tonight is the Red Wing City Council meeting, and on the agenda is:

And the Attachment for 10D explaining the situation.

Tune in HERE – link for webcast is at the top!

And the flyer I sent to Red Wing residents with the City Attorney opinion, you’d think I’d sent a letter bomb! Mayor Wilson’s response was particularly bizarre:

Now, where are those Petitions, etc., subject to Data Practices At Request.

Just filed… Walleye Neighbors in Minnesota and South Dakota Comments on the Walleye Wind Draft Site Permit. Now it’s time for a nap!

Dorenne Hansen died this morning, and we’re mourning.

A visitation will be held from 4:00-7:00 p.m. on Friday, May 21, 2021 at Bonnerup Funeral Service, Albert Lea, and one hour prior to services at the church. A funeral service will take place at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 22, 2021 at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Myrtle with Pastor Josh Blair officiating. Interment will follow at Pilgrim’s Rest Cemetery. A celebration of life meal will be held at the Glenville City Hall following committal services.

She was a founder and the very life of Association of Freeborn County Landowners. When we met, she let me know that she had been living with Stage 4 cancer for a while, that was June, 2017, and she’d said that she was on some sort of trial, the longest living person in the medical world. She was a delight, off the charts brilliant, strong, exacting, and angry and a fighter in the best of ways.

Dorenne was able to motivate and turn out her community, with neighbors meeting and coming together to foil the intruder to their neighborhood.

Dorenne was a little hesitant at first, and after a few rounds with Invenergy and the Public Utilities Commission, she got in the groove, was adept at reading between the lines, and channeled her outrage into action, rallying the troops for yet another round.

Dorenne Hansen was the voice of AFCL.

Association of Freeborn Landowners got the first ever contested case for siting a wind project, and in another first, the ALJ recommended the project’s permit be denied:

No small feat!! In the STrib’s article then, on both Freeborn Wind and the Bent Tree project, wind developers and wind promoters were histrionic:

Administrative Law Judge says PUC should reject Freeborn County wind project

A choice snippet from Litchfield in the STrib article:

Dan Litchfield, an Invenergy senior manager, objected to Schlatter’s interpretation of Minnesota’s noise regulations, saying it “is impossible to meet for a wind farm. … Every other wind farm in the state has not been subject to this interpretation.”

And what did the PUC do??

Freeborn? PUC upends ALJ’s Freeborn Wind Recommendation

Marie McNamara, who has been through the PUC grist mill with Goodhue Wind Truth, put it well:

Despite getting the site permit, Freeborn Wind did move 17 of the 41 turbines to Iowa, a different sort of success, 24 shy of our goal. Yet after that initial administrative win, followed by the PUC’s 180, it was downhill from there. The last gasp of our efforts came last month:

Freeborn Wind appeal – we lose…

And then NSP/Xcel tries to send us a bill, adding insult to injury — our Objection is here:

Xcel, cost taxation? WHAT?

Throughout all these very intense years, Dorenne was undergoing routine chemo treatments, on and off and on and off, with time to recover some in between, and she was often literally working on our Freeborn Wind project while infusing! We spent a lot of time at the library bonding over transcripts, zzzzzzzzzzzzz. And Myre-Big Island State Park was right next door, so a good place to have confabs and convenient for hearings in Albert Lea.

Dorenne and I last talked not long before the appeal came down, and she was getting ready to stop chemo, which because the cancer had progressed, was on a weekly basis, utter torture with no respite between treatments. She was not having fun, her quality of life was nil, and she was ready to stop chemo, though she was so mindful of her family and friends whom she cared about and who cared so much about her. I appreciated her advance notice and a chance to let her know how much I appreciated and enjoyed and leaned on her.

Over the last four years, people in the community who had not met before got together, worked together, and became fast friends over wind turbines, becoming large parts of each others lives. Dorenne, you will be sorely missed. What an impact you’ve had… what a life well lived…