The Adair County Board of Supervisors talked with Matt Garwood of RPM Access briefly last Wednesday during their regular meeting about concerns he has surrounding the county's proposed cap on wind energy development in the county.
Garwood said that his group started a project in 2017 along Highway 25 which entails plans to include 24 wind turbines. They currently have 21 landowners who have signed up for the 48 megawatt wind turbines and RPM has roughly $250,000 invested in the project thus far.
These turbines were on schedule to be built in 2020 and 2021 after all the studies have been complete.
Citing that these projects take time, Garwood asked that this project be grandfathered into the upcoming cap amendment.
The cap amendment does not currently include a specific number of wind turbines that can be built in Adair County. At one time, 555 was tossed around as a proposal for a final tally, however the Supervisors and their legal counsel are seeking more information before they choose the specific wording of such an amendment to Ordinance 31A, of which the last amendment was passed in October of last year.
"Hopefully by next week we'll have the draft of our amendment to our ordinance to see if we need to make a change," said Supervisors Chair Matt Wedemeyer. "On a normal ordinance, you have a draft of it, you approve it to be published, you have your public hearing. At that public hearing, you have the right to waive the second and third hearings."
Wedemeyer said that there really won't be any true decisions that will be made until the Supervisors have a draft on the table.
Veterans Affairs
Veterans Affairs Commissioner Lee Ashmore asked the Supervisors to consider hiring a custodian to clean the group's office. Diane Queck is an on-call custodian for the courthouse and Secondary Roads. She has agreed to fulfill the position and the Supervisors gave their approval for her hire. She will clean the Veterans Affairs office a few times a month.
Mobile Food Bank
Supervisor Jodie Hoadley shared with the group that there will be two more mobile food pantries this year in Orient, one in November and one in December. Hoadley was asked if the county would help fund transportation for officials to and from the sites. The cost for an entire year would be $7,500 but she was unsure what it would cost for the two that are yet to be held this year. The Supervisors asked that more information be brought to them before a decision is made.