Heard at the January 24th Culver Town Council Meeting where Tony was requesting that Culver become the first Come Alive Outside community in the United States. Tony Sellers is owner of Sellers Services, Inc. He has taken on Come Alive Outside to promote getting children outside and active.
We previously discussed efforts to make Culver Garden Court “Greener” than previous Garden Court projects. Apparently our project architect, Brent Martin, took that a bit literally when selecting the color scheme as you can see as the siding installation progresses. The siding is Certainteed’s Cedar Impressions and the color is Cypress.
There is a flurry of activity at the site now that the drywall and painting has been completed. The vinyl tile has been installed. The cabinets are in place. This is allowing installation of door frames, plumbing fixtures, electrical devices and electrical fixtures. On the exterior the siding is nearly complete as well as the soffit. The gutters and downspouts are scheduled for completion this week as well.
Above is the new map NextEra Energy has provided showing the area they are considering for their wind farm. This is the latest map provided to the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC). NextEra has moved the area they are considering further east than originally planned due to some of the concerns that have been expressed.
This map shows not only Lake Maxinkuckee, but a delineation of Lake Maxinkuckee’s watershed boundaries. As currently planned, there would be no towers within the watershed or within Union Township. I am pretty much putting this up here for informational purposes without much comment as it doesn’t really change my thoughts expressed here and here.
I had a brief conversation about this with the County Plan Director, Ralph Booker, today at the Broadband and Bagels event. He asked me if Culver was still planning to lynch him. It’s obvious that Culver as a community is straining some relationships with the County over this. I hope this doesn’t create a rift that makes future projects such as the recently completed Town/County outlet project impossible.
Tonight at the Culver Town Council meeting the Culver-Union Township Fire Department (CUTFD) received permission to purchase a Neoteric Hover Craft. For those of you interested in some specs, here you go. These are from the Neoteric website: This is a nearly new rescue hovercraft, with only 8 hours of operation. The craft has inline seating for four, and comes with a siren, PA system, 400,000 cp searchlight, red and blue LED light bar, rescue lift system, and stretcher mount. The engine is a 65 HP model with fuel and oil injection.
Personally I was more interested in what they’re going to call the fire fighters that are going to be trained to drive this puppy. After the meeting I suggested the “Air Heads” which Fire Chief Mike seemed to like, but the more I think about it, I think there should be a town wide contest to name the team. As I cautioned Mike, “If you don’t come up with a good name, there will soon be one and it might not be what you want.”
To get the ball started, here are a few off the top of my head:
Okay, so do you have a better idea? Enter yours in the comments if you like.
Recently there were a couple of things that appeared in the paper regarding the proposed NextEra wind farm that I found interesting. Alfred Nyby of Culver wrote an entertaining Letter to the Editor titled “The End of Culver” (click on it to the right to enlarge it) proposing that the Concerned Property Owners of Southern Marshall County take their arguments to the logical conclusion and take on all boating on Lake Maxinkuckee as their next target. I had to chuckle as I had previously expressed my concern that they were exaggerating the concerns here. Alfred’s letter appeared in both the Culver Citizen and the Pilot News.
In the Pilot News, the Concerned Property Owners of Southern Marshall County placed a full page color ad titled, “What Have I Done?”. www.wind-watch.org/alerts/2007/12/27/what-have-i-done/ by Don Bangert While it was pretty heavy on the melodrama, I think this is a more straight forward approach. Taking on the role of educators and talking to the potential leasing property owners seems more likely to have the effect they desire and isn’t as over the top. If Mr. Bangert is an actual participant in a contract with a wind farm and regrets it, then his testimonial is worth considering.
It sounds like NextEra will not be going before the Marshall County BZA before next Fall. Hopefully by then some of the emotion and rhetoric will have died down and the pro’s and con’s can be evaluated on a factual basis. I’m not sure if that’s possible at this point, but Culver as a Community would look better if it is.