Elk Konnected Hand out at County Commissioners meeting on 4/25

[flintauqua]

You say potatoe, I say potato!

Goodnight.

[Patriot]

And what about taxpayer monies solicited and received by Elk Konnected from the Longton City Council that were solicited and disbursed specifically to pay for EK's 'membership dues' in Public Square Communities, LLC.?  I wonder if the taxpayers in Longton knew about that or would support it if they knew.

[Ross]

Look at the date the PILOT agreement for the Caney River project was signed by the Elk County Commissioners - December 31, 2008.

And I do not find any article that specifies Chisholm View will generate $3,000,000 in tax revenue.  What I do find is different variations of this:

"Company officials said the wind farm would contribute up to $5 million annually to the local economy via property taxes and rent payments to landowners who will host the turbine easements over the 20-year contract."

The actual amount of property tax payments will not be known until the project is appraised and it's valuation added to the tax base, the mil levies determined, and the tax due computed. 

So, go ahead and keep comparing things that occurred three years apart, in different states, under different state laws.  To me that is disengenuous at best.

The whole point is a study could have been performed, before negotiations were made, very simple right?
Possiblities, and probabilities studied?

Estimates of value for tax purposes, taxasseor office involvement, even outside advice or involvement, which is used by many government agencies acrosss this country?

But, I suppose the commissioners may have been to busy with their own families involvement in the land lease's for the turbins, do you suppose that is a possibility?

If that's a possibility the commissioners could have commissioned a committee to do the research and crunch numbers.

It's like the Neighborhood Revitalization Program the paper work states a study has been performed, if that is true, who performed the study, where is the study for the public to read?

I believe that to be a false statement so, please show me the paper work, where is the paper work?

Lets do away with excuses, what do you say?

VOTE IN AUGUST IT'S IMPORTANT

[Ross]

Ross, I don't care how BIG or how small you type, you're still just a Narcissistic Gadfly

Wow, thanks for the recognition Flint.
I really don't deserve the recognition.        
I'd rather recieve recognition, but, thank you, anyway.
I am waiting the recognition of the voters in August, that's the important thing.

May I see your degree in psychology? Just kidding! Joking!
(laughter here)

Besides, calling people names is very, very rude!
Is it that you don't like colors?
Do you watch black and white TV?

The calling of names, with words that can be construed in many different ways, is simply a politicians tool to confuse the public.

Let me clarify, what I read in your name calling, definitions from the wikipidea.

Narcissistic as Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others. I am no group, so perhaps, I think you may be referring to that very small group Elk Konnected, LLC, is that a possibility?

Social gadfly, a person who upsets the status quo. I personally am retired and that status quo would be difficult to upset, I sure  wouldn't want to upset that status quo. Again, perhaps you are referring to Elk Konnected, LLC and the upsetting of the status quo of Elk County Government, is that possible? Is it possible because of having Konnected Kounty Kommissioners and the lack of any line between certain Elected County Commissioners and a privately owned companies ideas about the way Elk County should be governed?

Now wasn't that fun?

No sir, I don't rate recognition but I do believe all the voters of Elk County do.
And I hope each and every one of them vote in the primaries, don't you?


Let's, you and I work together to get the voters out to the polls, okay?

This was so good, I just had to copy it and enlarge it:

Narcissistic Gadfly

Cool Huh!

[flintauqua]

The whole point is a study could have been performed, before negotiations were made, very simple right?
Possiblities, and probabilities studied?

Estimates of value for tax purposes, taxasseor office involvement, even outside advice or involvement, which is used by many government agencies acrosss this country?

You just can't give the Elk County Commissioners any credit can you.  Could it possibly be that they set a new standard for the amount counties in Kansas should expect from wind farm development PILOTs.

Take a look at this article:

http://www.gctelegram.com/news/tradewind-pilot-agreement-2-17-12

That's right.  Trade Wind, the same developers that built Caney River will make PILOTs to three different counties totaling $4250 per MW on a wind farm that is to be 210 MW in size.  

Correction - I read the article wrong and noticed my mistake when I read a second and third article about this project.  Haskell and Grant will each get $3750 per MW installed in their respective counties.  Finney County will only get $500 per MW if and when any wind turbines are installed there.  So, $3750 per MW, that's only 83% of what Elk County got.  Hmmmm!

So why is it that over three years after Trade Winds signed with the Elk County commissioners that the going rate is 5 17 percent less than what Elk County negotiated in 2008?  

Are the county commissioners in Garden City, Ulysses, and Santanta idiots for not even getting what itty bitty Elk County got over three years earlier?  

Are they total dumkoffs because they didn't take into account the supposedly much higher amount in property tax revenue that the Chisholm View project will supposedly generate in Garfield County Oklahoma?  

After all, that project was announced several months before these three sets of county commissioners signed on the dotted line.  They all had the luxury of knowing about this supposed "Golden Calf" of a project in Oklahoma, something the Elk County Commissioners would have needed a crystal ball to have knowledge of.

And what about poor ol' Cloud County.  In September 2010, twenty months after the Caney River PILOT was signed, they were forced by the developers of a 201 MW wind farm to accept a PILOT agreement that tops out at just $1,493 per megawatt!  That's not even a third of what the Elk County Commissioners negotiated, and it's on a project exactly the same size.

I could go on and on, but it will never prove to Ross and his cohorts that the Elk County Commissioners knew what they were doing when they negotiated, in good faith and with excellent results, the best wind farm PILOT agreement at the time in the state of Kansas, and one that more than three years later has still not been topped by any other board of Kansas county commissioners.

[ELK@KC]

Flint, why are you trying to confuse Ross with the facts.

[Ross]

You are so right you could go on and on and on and prove nothing.

You can't prove that a better negotiation would not have happened if a real study had been performed.

For instance show me the study that was done on the Elk County Community Revitalization Program?

Show it please?

[Ross]

Flint, why are you trying to confuse Ross with the facts.

What facts?
Show me the study that was performed prior to the negotiations with the windfarm, please?

Show me the study performed by Elk County associated with the Communty Revitalization Program?

The revised edition of Meade County's Communty Revitalization Program for Elk County, says there was a study done, where is it?

Show me the facts, please?

[ddurbin]

Ross,
I rather doubt you could ever prove that a study woulda/coulda resulted in a better contract, so where does that leave this argument?

[flintauqua]

Ross,
I rather doubt you could ever prove that a study woulda/coulda resulted in a better contract, so where does that leave this argument?

I know where it leaves this argument.

There are ten operating wind farms in Kansas, with four more under construction and an additional three with Power Purchase Agreements in place.  In an exhaustive search of the web, and actual conversations with three of the people I know personally that are executives in wind energy development companies, I can state that not one of those 17 projects had a study done to determine what the PILOT would be.  And none of the wind energy execs know of a Kansas project with a per MW payment higher than what Elk County is receiving.

Go ahead and prove me wrong Ross!  

My statement that the Elk County Commissioners did an excellent job negotiating the PILOT on the Caney River project stands.

As for the neighborhood revitalization program - Can anyone find any proof, or even mention of, that any of the 69 counties in Kansas that have enacted a neighvorhood revitalization program did a feasibility study of any sort that is available to the public?  I stopped checking after I read the websites associated with twenty said programs and found no results from any studies that may or may not have been done.  I also cannot find any studies done by third-party entities such as the state universities, state agencies, think-tanks, Kansas Inc., etc.