Floyd Co. Supervisors Approve Compromise Committee for Wind Turbine Ordinance
Floyd County Supervisors met in special session Thursday (11.07) morning, approving the official formation of a working group to consider options to move forward with the County’s controversial ordinance regulating the construction of wind farms.
Amendments to the ordinance proposed by Supervisors Jim Jorgensen and Dennis Keifer would likely kill projects proposed by Invenergy and NextEra Energy in western sections of the county. Invenergy has also notified the County that, if the ordinance is passed, it could lead to litigation against the County.
However, on the advice of Des Moines attorney Thomas Reavely, the third reading of the ordinance to make the amendments official was tabled during a public hearing held by supervisors on October 29th. Reavely recommended finding a compromise, an idea also supported by County Attorney Todd Prichard.
During Monday’s (11.04) regular Board meeting, chair Mark Kuhn proposed that an independent working group, to be led by mediator Louis Lavorato, a former Iowa Supreme Court justice, address possible compromises. At Thursday’s special meeting, Kuhn explained the group will operate privately.
On the panel: both Prichard and Reavely, Invenergy attorney Samantha Norris, Supervisor-elect Boyd Campbell, and John Robbins with NIACOG, who worked closely with the County’s Planning & Zoning (P&Z) Commission to update the wind turbine ordinance that was vastly altered by the amendments of Jorgensen and Keifer. No one from P&Z is on the “compromise committee.”
As he did Monday, Kuhn again on Thursday commended the direction approved by his fellow Supervisors.
It’s not known when or how many times the working group will meet, but they are pressed to offer solutions for a third reading of the wind ordinance, which Supervisors are to hold no later than December 13th, the date established when the measure was tabled last month.
