Rants
Growing or Dying
Years ago I was part of a group that went to New Bremen, Ohio. We went there as a delegation from the Culver Chamber of Commerce to meet with Jim Dicke II, to discuss how to turn around Culver and possibly get his assistance. Jim had been instrumental through his company, Crown Equipment, in revitalizing New Bremen. From that small group and the then Culver Chamber Board, the Culver Second Century Committee was born. (More on that another day.) One thing he said in that meeting has stuck with me over the years, “Communities are either growing or dying. There is no such thing as staying status quo.” (I don’t know if it was a personal statement or someone else’s, but I always attribute it to him.) I’ve repeated that over the years in multiple settings. I generally try and attribute it to Jim, but even when I don’t, I’m not too concerned, because it fits with one of my other favorite quotes, “Plagiarism is the Sincerest Form of Flattery.” Which I first saw in a B.C. Comic by Johnny Hart…
In this case, I am asking that question about Marshall County, as one of the first actions of the new County Commissioners was to enact a moratorium on projects that involve Solar Farms, Battery Storage Facilities, Carbon Capture and Data Centers. While I understand some of the arguments about Solar (though I don’t necessarily agree, I’ve discussed that here and here), I am particularly interested here in stopping Data Centers.
Data Centers have been protested in other areas for many reasons. One of them, NYMBYism, seems to be the main one behind these efforts. The protests are not coming from our Amish community, so most of the protestors have cell phones and use the internet. I assume they’re not against them as a concept. I also find that interesting coming from the Commissioners, some of whom have expressed their support for our new President, Donald Trump. In a January 7th press conference, President-elect Trump introduced an investor group, DAMAC, planning to bring $20 billion dollars in data center investment to the U.S. In the speech, he specifically called out Indiana as one of the places to benefit from this investment. Though apparently not Marshall County, per our moratorium.
The others reasons don’t seem to apply or could be controlled. There are complaints from other areas that they use too much power… but that’s what’s drawn them here… our somewhat unique position as a crossroads of power grids. Interestingly, the same reason that the solar farm developers have been drawn here, though for the opposite use, i.e. solar farms uploads power and data centers downloads power. The second complaint is excessive use of water, but that’s been mostly corrected and we don’t have a water shortage here. Also, in other areas they are concerned about the draw on existing water infrastructure, but this moratorium is in the County… which does not have a water system. The third complaint is potential pollution from back-up generators, but again, we’re on a major grid line and if that goes down, there’s a lot more to worry about than back-up generator exhaust! A couple of interesting resources here and here.
The main point here is that we seem to be moving towards an anti-development stance in the county. This despite a new national movement to reduce development impediments, Marshall County seems to be focused on setting up road blocks. I realize that some of this is grassroots, but that doesn’t mean it’s based in facts. It seems to be more based in NIMBYism and lack of knowledge. All of these things would increase our tax base, with minimum disruption to our communities. Yes, they should be researched and possibly controlled, but two years from now, we may lament being passed by.
While a data center wouldn’t employ a lot of people in the long term, it would generate jobs during construction. Once completed, it would be low impact on roads, i.e. no semi-traffic as with other manufacturing. Besides the building itself, they do not use up as much land. They are often taller than our general manufacturing construction, sometimes building 90 feet high. They don’t have larger numbers of regular employees, so no acres of asphalt parking lots. We already have setback requirements, impervious surface requirements and if we don’t want to give exceptions on heights, we have existing height restrictions.
But we currently have a moratorium. So what is our alternative? MCEDC has spearheaded three shell buildings in the past, with what seems to be great success. Are more on the horizon? The last one the building in the Plymouth Industrial park at the SE corner of Pioneer and Jim Neu Drive, which currently houses Divert. It has been occupied since 2022. Is there another in the works? Seems that there should be.
I don’t know what the answer is to the growth question. MCEDC is trying, but it’s hard to do without the County behind them and with headlines that make us seem anti-development. If the County Commissioners and County Council have another plan, I haven’t heard it yet. Hopefully they have something in mind. Because Communities are either growing or dying and I don’t think they want to preside over the latter.
Edit: Yesterday, January 28th, 2025, I attended the PIDCO Annual meeting. The guest speakers were from NIPSCO. The topic of data centers came up as well as wind & solar. Several things of note were mentioned that I thought were worth adding here:
- Marshall County is well positioned to vie for these new developments do to the proximity to the new transmission lines.
- Any infrastructure or increased capacity costs related to a data center would be born by the developer and not the existing rate payers.
- NIPSCO is eager to help if we would choose to pursue a data center.
- NIPSCO is required to have capacity for it’s projected power needs, exclusive of renewables like wind and solar for those time when renewables aren’t available, i.e. when the wind’s not blowing and the sun’s not shining… Regardless of whether wind and solar developments are pursued, NIPSCO is exploring battery storage to even out their capacity and take advantage of storage to supplement electric service when production costs are at their highest.
Solar Panel Ideas
I’m always amazed when I see snow covered solar panels. Even some of of the ground mounted panels that are at a significant angle during the winter months often have snow clinging to them. In the case of the Culver home in the picture to the right, not only is there a reasonable angle on the panels that you would think would let the snow slide off, but you can see that the snow has melted off the rest of the roof around them. How is it staying on the black solar panels!?
So, I have a few ideas about this:
- Can some of the power generated be used for some minimal heat for the panels. I wouldn’t think it would take a lot to warm the surface enough that the snow doesn’t stick or that it slides off. Granted, this might require some power storage to handle that middle-of-of-the-night snow, but could it be done efficiently enough to offset the power loss from leaving them snow covered?
- Can the face of the panels be created with a non-stick surface like a new frying pan? Just slick it up a bit, so nothing sticks to it. That might help with dirt and debris as well. Every rain becomes a rinse cycle!
- Can someone come up with the equivalent of Solar Pam? Maybe Pam is the answer!? They make it for air fryers, grills, baking, etc. Maybe they need to run with this idea. “Spray your solar panels with Pam every Fall for a snow free winter!”
- Or do we go mechanical? The new installations have mechanisms where the panels follow the sun and in some farming applications the panels just go vertical to allow vehicle access through rows of panels. If 90 degrees isn’t enough, maybe they literally rotate to where the snow falls off. Or can we put the equivalent of a windshield wiper on them to squeegee them once or twice a day.
Someone is missing a good opportunity here. Maybe Elon is already working on this, but if he isn’t, he should be…
Ugh! Time Change Again…
Indiana used to be as smart as Arizona, but Mitch Daniels dumbed us down. Or as those of us in Marshall County remember, put us on Heim Time…
County Development for the Future
There was a County Development for the Future meeting last week and after my post on collaboration, I was pleased to see that it went back to its roots this month. MCEDC president, Greg Hildebrand, gave an update on some of MCEDC’s activities in the past quarter. He then allowed Marshall County Plan Director, Ty Adley, to speak about an upcoming initiative to update the County Comprehensive Plan. From there it transitions to reports from the communities on their projects. A few of these were Stellar Region wrap-ups and READI 1 projects, but there were many discussing their submissions for READI 2.0.
The meeting was pretty positive, with everyone supporting each others’ initiatives and inviting each other to come see the results of their work. There was none of the negative competitive complaints that have been aired earlier this year. This could partially be due to many of those voices being absent, but if they had attended, I don’t think they would have had reason to express negativity. It was all good.
The idea of doing a new Comprehensive Plan for the county should be an opportunity for more collaboration and was my main take-away. It’s all about how it is created, accepted and used though. In the last couple of years, I have served on two comprehensive plan committees. The differing results have been somewhat stark.
Plymouth’s plan was embraced by the Plymouth Plan Commission and and the Plymouth Common Council and Administration. I think this had a lot to do with their participation on the process. Within a month of adoption, implementation meetings were started and subcommittees where formed. A zoning review committee was formed and some zoning ordinances changes suggested by the comp plan have already been passed. A marketing committee was formed and a new logo is already out there with buttons being passed out and new banners being placed on light poles. There is a sense of urgency and the need to continue the progress.
Culver has been making false starts. After Culver’s Stellar projects were finished and their projects from Marshall County Stellar were finished, Culver began an initiative they called Culver Crossroads, patterned after Marshall County Crossroads. (Marshall County Crossroads was the group that spearheaded and achieved Stellar Region designation for Marshall County.) Subcommittees were established and meeting were held. From those meetings it became clear that Culver’s Comprehensive Plan needed updating. Most of the easily achievable goals from the 2014 plan had been made through the Stellar designations. Culver Crossroads became the Comprehensive Plan committee. Culver started this project around the same time as Plymouth or a little earlier. Culver’s plan took longer to complete. There was much more community participation in Culver, but despite that, there was much more community rancor regarding the plan. The plan went through several additional community meetings and rewrites. But the biggest difference is that the Culver plan was completed last Spring and there has yet to be an implementation committee established. The Culver Plan Commission cancelled a meeting this summer because they didn’t have anything to do! Really? After the 2014 plan, the Culver council immediately created a strategic action plan and started working it. That lead to Culver’s Stellar designation. That same push isn’t happening this time. Not only that, the Culver Crossroads committee never officially disbanded, but effectively just evaporated and lost all momentum.
So here’s a short list Ty and the county plan commission can consider to make the post planning process successful:
- Keep the energy flowing. While there is generally some sense of relief that the planning process is done, there needs to be a conscious effort made push pass that and focus on the excitement of a new plan and the potential it represents.
- Encourage implementation by keeping the plan front and center. Plymouth has made it agenda item at council meetings and plan commission meetings much as both Plymouth and Culver did with Stellar. This means putting it on the commissioners’ meeting agenda and the plan commission agenda so it’s seen at every meeting and advances can be celebrated and any lost momentum is questioned.
- After their 2014 plan completion, the Culver town council created a Strategic Action Plan (SAP) pulling out the top items to pursue and identifying a budget to make this happen. Culver’s 2014 plan identified housing as a prime issue, created a housing subcommittee and that subcommittee’s research resulted in Culver’s pursuit of Stellar Community designation. This should be a function of the county commissioners, since they set the county direction and prepare budgets.
- As Plymouth has done this year, use the comprehensive plan committee to seed an implementation committee and new subcommittees to address specific issues. In some cases, new leaders have emerged where they had specific interests, but may not have had the same energy for the plan as a whole.
There are other things, but those are the top ones that I’ve seen be successful and move the plan forward. Good Luck Ty! This will be a big undertaking!
And good job Greg! MCEDC needs to keep “bringing the communities together” high on their priority list.
DST – 2025
March 10, 2025
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Humor, Personal, Rants, Tips
DST, government, Humor, Rants
How do I feel? Pretty much as crappy as the Daylight Savings Time (DST) change always makes me feel. To add insult to injury, we were at a conference in Vancouver, Washington, the end of last week and just got back yesterday, so DST got multiplied by the three hour time difference to make it all the more fun!
I know President Trump has made some comments about ending DST. I have a little bit of hope that the nonsense could end. Marco Rubio is in the cabinet and as Senator, he championed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would do away with DST. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement surely would support this as well, considering the negative health effects related to DST, i.e. increased heart attacks and strokes.
As always, this is your warning to give me a little leeway for the next week or so. I’ll be grumpy (grumpier) in the morning as my internal clock is slow to reset.
0 comments