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History of a bad idea
A thread
http://minnetristagovernanceblog.com/2020/11/22/history-of-a-bad-idea/
A thread
http://minnetristagovernanceblog.com/2020/11/22/history-of-a-bad-idea/
Every bad idea starts somewhere. Minnetrista passed an ordinance in 2015 making ground mounted solar energy systems a "Permitted Use" on Ag Preserve parcels in the city and is now navigating possible litigation because of it.
The purpose of the Agriculture Preserve zoning designation is to, obviously, preserve parcels for agricultural use. One would think that would preclude covering Ag Preserve lands with industrial ground mounted solar energy systems that make it impossible to grow anything. But no.
I started asking myself: How did this bad idea happen? Did a council member come up with it? Staff? An over zealous resident? Or was it initiated by some outside interest? Could our contracted city engineering firm, WSB Engineering, be involved somehow?
I asked the city's planning department to send me some background and minutes of the meetings regarding the ordinance and this is what I found: A perfect example of outside interests influencing city policy in Minnetrista.
Below is a video from April 2015, several months prior to the ordinance being passed, where a representative from the company SolarStone made a presentation to the city council.
Note about 5 minutes into the video () he points out the "unique relationship, alliance, partnership" his company has with the city's contract city engineering firm, WSB Engineering, that does their engineering, planning, environmental and construction…
…services." Well now, that explain$ a lot.
Also note how Whalen just can't wait to have it brought up at a future work session and when she asks the council if they want to do so and gets absolutely no response she just makes the statement
Also note how Whalen just can't wait to have it brought up at a future work session and when she asks the council if they want to do so and gets absolutely no response she just announces, unilaterally, that they will schedule a work session to explore it more. And they did.
And they passed the ordinance a few months later in July.
