How The Gold Glitters
Just as sound was the dominate issue in the previous meeting, tonight it was all about money.
The line of forces that have ripped apart many towns on the issue of wind projects reared it's ugly head again last night.
How powerful is the promise of money ? It's power was on display creating quite a tempest among life long citizens.
It is sad when not one person spoke of saving the planet or reducing foreign oil dependency.
Some would say the lure of new found wealth would not change the character of a community, but the peaceful and proud character which once was the steadfast quality of this small town was shattered last night. Already, the arguments of how to spend the pot of gold arose.
What has happened, as our grandparents cautioned us, to the notion one would want to cast a stern and skeptical eye upon the promises of easy money ?
As pointed out by many esteemed economists and the older and wiser among us,
the enticement of money gets quickly out of hand when too many hands are
promising too many handouts.
As our leaders in government sit idly by while our towns become torn apart by this, I find myself becoming more and more dismayed.
Views: 161
Comment
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Comment by Dan McKay on June 19, 2010 at 10:03am
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I'm sure most towns that will never have wind turbines proposed for their town realize the negative impact that is developing for them. I'm also sure that the want for money displayed in town after town with such proposals is burying the necessary question, will they last and if, by government mandate, made to last, at what and whose costs ?
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Comment by Tom Olds on June 19, 2010 at 5:34am
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The residents of Carthage are propably not aware that the other towns in their school district (I assume they're in a district/union) could get together and vote to "not honor" Carthage's TIF with the wind company. As you are probably aware, a TIF cheats these other towns out of a share the wind company would have paid the school district under "regular taxation".
In Jackson, where I live, there was a movement afoot in the other towns in our district (SAD 3) to do just that if we put in turbines and TIF'd the project. Even our selectmen, who were very pro wind (two had serious conflicts of interest) didn't want a TIF for that very reason.
If that happened to Carthage, they would be liable for the several hundred thousand dolllars their town should have paid the school district. Do you suppose the wind company would let them out of their TIF contract?
Wind companies love TIF's. TIF's are figured by multiplying the town's present mill rate by the total value of the project. The resulting figure is about what the wind company would have to pay under "regular" taxation. Then the negotiations begin with the wind company's lawyers. Most are negotiated so that the town gets 40% of the TIF money and the wind company keeps 60%. Lincoln and Burlington managed to negotiate a 50-50 split. Vinalhaven got 10% and the wind company kept 90%. All of the wind projects so far in Maine have been TIF'd except for Freedom's.
Tif's save the wind companies millions in tax dollars over the life of the project. The people seem to jump on the TIF's every time, even though a TIF guarantees absolutely no reduction in their taxes.
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Comment by alice mckay barnett on June 18, 2010 at 11:56am
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i feel i put my life on the line last nite....president obama will fix gulf coast citizens with money...he never mentions the wildlife. yet the photos of inocent animals is what the media uses to stir our hearts.
nobody knows how to live without money
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Comment by Lisa Lindsay on June 18, 2010 at 10:42am
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Glad I missed it. It's too hard to watch Carthage and its profound landscape die a slow death like this.
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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