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DeWitt County Board Rejects Enel Response Regarding Curtailment, Moratorium on Building Permits To Remain

Just a day after last month's DeWitt County Board meeting where the Board put in place a hold on issuing further building permits for the Alta Farms II wind farm in northwest DeWitt County pending a response from Enel, DeWitt County Board Chair Terry Ferguson indicated he had received a response from the energy company regarding curtailment.

 

That response was rejected Thursday night by the County Board at its regular monthly meeting. Board Chair Terry Ferguson supported lifting the hold on the building permits and allowing those to be issued by the Zoning Administrator. In fact, he believes the agreement was met "quite some time ago."

 

 

Ferguson described the situation as a point in life where there are things that you want and there are things that you get. He calls this a moment things you get because it is what they asked for. 

 

 

Megan Myers pointed to specifics in the curtailment agreement and believes it's very vague. She says she is not trying to prevent the project from happening and would hope Enel representatives would sit down with the County to hash things out.

 

 

Myers and Aaron Kammeyer wanted to know about repercussions for non-compliance with the ordinances and agreements as the project proceeds. State's Attorney Dan Markwell explained Enel will either in writing or through demonstration prove they can meet the agreement. He says there are some things in the life of this project that are only going to be able to be proven once the project gets to a certain point.

 

 

During a back and forth with Kammeyer and David Newberg about censuring for non-compliance and recourse that can be taken by the County, Newberg offered his belief the County is telling Enel they cannot have their structures.

 

 

Melonie Tilley, Buck Carter, Jamie Prestegaard, and Myers voted against the measure to resume issuing building permits while Jay Wickenhauser, Dan Matthews, Ferguson, Kammeyer, and Newberg voted for it. Travis Houser abstained. Board members Nate Ennis and Christy Pruser were absent from the Thursday meeting. 

 

Several board members that voted for the measure appeared visibly frustrated by the vote and tensions spilled over after the adjournment of the meeting as Terry Redman confronted several board members and had a brief and tense back-and-forth with Matthews over Redman confronting board members as they were leaving. 

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