Disapproves of Lee zoning board actions
www.saukvalley.com 21 January 2012
As reported by recent coverage in the Telegraph, the Lee County Zoning Board of Appeals endorsed new wind farm noise rules on Jan. 5. To the chagrin of the 80-plus citizens in attendance, the passage of these rules was conducted undemocratically and, most likely, illegally.
Zoning Administrator Chris Henkel read the proposed rules aloud from a document authored and submitted by Mainstream Renewable Power, the very wind company that is seeking a special use permit to foist a monstrous noise-producing, quality-of-life-ravaging, 191-plus mega-turbine wind farm upon our neighbors in Hamilton and adjoining townships.
No copies of this document were made available prior to, or at, this meeting, which effectively deprived the public of its right to read and accurately discuss the information therein before the zoning board of appeals voted to adopt the “wind company-written” noise rules.
Unless Chairman Ron Conderman and Administrator Henkel can unerringly document that all of the 80 public attendees at this meeting possessed photographic memories, they both should be held accountable for orchestrating a closed-meeting segment within the apparition of an open meeting.
The bottom line here is it was unconscionable for zoning board of appeals officials to collaborate exclusively with a wind energy company to write Lee County’s Wind Turbine Noise Ordinance, and it was equally unconscionable for them to withhold the pre-contrived ordinance’s text from the public.
Aristotle said, “Tyranny is that form of government which exists to serve those who govern rather than those who are governed.”
More and more, Lee County governing officials are failing to serve the people who elected them. Instead, they are flagrantly doing the bidding of special interest groups, and on Jan. 5, the actions of our zoning board officials served up a blatant and egregious case in point.
Jim Timble, Franklin Grove
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/01/21/disapproves-of-lee-zoning-board-actions/