What’s a WECS?

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Depiction of the large scale WECS’s that the Concerned Citizens protested at the County Level

Representatives from the Concerned Property Owners of Marshall County requested that Culver change their zoning ordinance regarding WECS’s and as a result, the Culver Plan Commission held a Public Hearing on an ordinance change at their August 2013 meeting.   (WECS is the acronym for Wind Energy Conversion Systems and applies to any device that takes wind energy and converts it to usable forms of energy.)  The initial request was for Culver to match the County’s zoning requirements which currently bans commercial WECS’s and allows residential systems with a Special Use Permit in selective zoning districts.  Unfortunately audience members requested that the ordinance be tweaked to further restrict residential systems as well.  At that time I spoke up and reminded the Plan Commission that they had recently created an A1 – Agricultural District with the intention of mirroring Marshall County’s A1 district.  This was done to eliminate discrepancy protests to extending our Territorial Authority.   The Commission agreed with my argument but still had some reservation so they decided to table the issue.

At the September Culver Plan Commission meeting the topic came up again. Russ Mason, Building Commissioner, had conversations with some farmers and had made some minor tweaks to the height restrictions for WECS’s.  Audience members also spoke up and protested the allowance of WECS’s in residential areas even under the special use requirements.  I again spoke up with two points:

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Audiologist Humor

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I was at an Audiologist conference with my wife, Becky, the last few days.  Below’s a sample of Audiologist humor from the Resound blog.  You’ll see what I’ve been putting up with for the last few days.  Putting up with it at a resort retreat wasn’t bad though.  If I’d been healthy it would have been better.  I came down with a cold the day before we left and I’m still fighting it now.  Unfortunately for Becky, all of her quality time with me has resulted in her catching it now too.

One thing I’ve decided.  Audiologists like corny jokes… and Alcohol…  Lots of Alcohol!  So here you go…

Audiologist Pick-up Lines:

  • Want to come over and study forced oscillation and resonance factor?
  • Trust me, I am a doctor.
  • I bet no one can put you in a supine position faster and better than me.
  • Want to learn the log roll?
  • Two words: Fixation denied.
  • Ask me about down ten up five
  • I know the Sabine’s Reverberation Equation. Want to come and test it out in my boudoir?
  • We do it periodically with frequency and great amplitude.
  • Between you and me, we can make Longitudinal waves and Transverse waves.
  • Let’s measure how loud and how far your voice can propagate via simple means of compression and rarefaction.
  • Bone oscillation. Need I say more?
  • Audiology. We bring the “Oooo?!” in Otolaryngology
  • Allow me to find your natural frequency
  • Does the word tinnitus ring a bell?
  • Someday I will find the cure to tinnitus (that ringing noise you hear in your ears) and win the “No Bell” prize.

Creative Electrical Repairs

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Damaged Electrical Box I Reported
Damaged Electrical Box I Reported

I pulled into a client’s facility a month or so ago and noticed an electrical box that had been knocked loose.  I know how these things can be overlooked.  Sometimes they are noticed, but then forgotten by the time you walk inside where something could be done about it.  I snapped a picture, sent it to my contact and suggested that we could fix that for them since it was a code violation and potential safety issue.  We weren’t called, but someone “repaired” it.  While the solution was creative, it doesn’t exactly meet code.

Someone's Zip Tie Solution
Someone’s Zip Tie Solution

Let us help you with simple electrical maintenance issues like this.  Creative electrical repairs are generally frowned on by code officials.  Something like this is a safety and liability issue.  It’s not the best place to skimp.  A “solution” like this can actually increase liability!  If something happens now, there is no doubt that someone knew the problem existed.

 

Marshall County Economic Development For the Future (cont.)

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Last Wednesday I attended the third MCEDC Economic Development For the Future Meeting at Swan Lake.  Culver was represented at this meeting by Bill Githens, Dave Schoeff and Ginny Munroe.  This meeting had a “report card” kind of feel.  In the previous two meetings we talked about what MCEDC needed in order to help the communities and about a list of goals for each of the communities.  At this meeting we listed all of those goals along with all of the associated action steps on poster boards and asked the communities to report on their progress.  All of them were able to point to some of the good things they have done and areas where work was needed.  A couple even added additional goals to their list.

Culver Objectives 8-13Culver’s list was one of the longest, but that is partly due to me being an activist, as you can see from my comp plan map   The Culver list is shown at the right and you can blow it up to see what is on it (feel free to step up and accomplish anything on there you would like to!)

This meeting was the first that Ginny had attended and it was interesting to hear her comments on how it energized her. Seeing how other community representatives were stepping up and taking ownership on projects was an important goal for MCEDC in these meetings. We hope to instill some civic pride and civic competition and we seem to be achieving some success.

We have already scheduled a follow up meeting for the fourth quarter of 2013 and hope to build on the successes we have seen so far.  This program is already paying back with some exciting dividends.