Posted on 10/05/2015 10:36:03 AM PDT by READINABLUESTATE
Orono, MN – For more than a year, we have been following the story of a Minnesota man, Jay Nygard, who is routinely risking jail time because he refuses to remove a wind turbine from his property. Nygard has been in and out of court over the years, and despite a short-lived victory in October, he was recently back in front of a judge facing a contempt of court charge for refusing a court order to remove the turbines from his property.
He did eventually remove the turbines, leaving only the cement bases because removing them would cause structural damage to their house. This was not good enough for the local government, who ignored the advice of three different engineers and demanded that they remove the bases, despite the risk of damaging the home.
So the neighbors might have a legitimate gripe then. That’s the kind of information I was looking for as most people replying to this thread see it as a government intrusion issue.
gotta wonder if, perhaps, there is an electric co-op run by the local govt that doesn’t like competition
A guy living about a half mile from me was burning leaves in his back yard when a Deputy Sheriff drove up, handcuffed him and took him to jail. Yet the Mexicans burn leaves in their yards and no one in authority says or does anything.
“My wife was criminally charged for watering our lawn.”
A lot of this insanity has to do with self-financing government agencies. Politicians realize if they raise taxes they’ll get thrown out. So, they create self-financing agencies. (Yes, I’ve mentioned this in other posts.) My county and city have a self-financed EPA. They created a mountain of regulations so they can write fines. They legitimize the serious nature of their work by making violations criminal. That gives them the opportunity to be the good guy by waiving the criminal aspect if you just pay the fines. It’s like when a cop tells you, “I could write you up for (fill-in) but instead I’m just writing you up for (fill-in) and instead of owing (fill-in) you’ll only owe (fill-in.) Gosh, isn’t he being a sweatheart?
“Yet the Mexicans burn leaves in their yards and no one in authority says or does anything.”
You don’t try to fine people with no money as it costs more than it makes. The arrest is to make the fine seem like a bargain. It’s a game.
Drawing the lightning to the house and away from the neighbors sounds like a good thing for the rest of the neighborhood.
That complaint must have a been a liberal logic thing...
He completed the build **AND THEN** applied for the permit.
The authorities consider this a power encroachment, so I think he`s f*cked.
But Nygard’s neighbors, Penny Rogers and Peter Lanpher, say that the 29-foot turbine’s blades come across a fence onto their own property. They also claim that the turbine is very loud and reflects the sun onto their property.
“If you sit on their deck, it is almost like you could reach out and touch it,” Tennant explained.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/mn-man-faces-six-months-in-jail-for-building-a-wind-turbine/202332/
After all,Al Gore does hold the patent for wind mills.
“So the neighbors might have a legitimate gripe then.”
They might have initially. When he was sent to jail, the wind mills in question were already gone except for the cement bases, which were not removed because of the risk of structural damage to the home.
It is strange that after he removed the windmill and destroyed the footing by sawing off the bolts the city was still not happy. They wanted the 4 foot by 4 foot cube of concrete removed as well. The problem is the footing is flush up against the house foundation and below ground level, removing the footing would damage the foundation.
They didn’t care.
And I was fined for mildew on the north side of the house. A friend of mine had a vegetable garden and was told it was unsightly nad had to be removed. She eventually plated the squash in the flower beds around the house and was complimented on the beautiful flowers...
Now I live out in the sticks and I can’t see any of my neighbors. Heavenly...
Yup. That’s what they did to my wife. Made her take a morning off to wait for a judge to say, “fine 100 dollars.” Meanwhile, I get home later in the day and I have a 100 dollar fine from my property manager saying I have to water my lawn.
Slowly but surely I am zero-scaping.
You might put someone’s eye out with that thing!
How many turbines did he have. The picture shows one, but the story references ‘turbines’ and ‘pads’ suggesting some number.
Your property isn’t really your property. This country looks more and more like the old Soviet Union.
Does anybody else notice that when there is a news story like this, that the same 8 paragraph article gets re-written a thousand times?
Whatever happened to in-depth reporting?
I can appreciate that the windmill had to down down, but jail time for leaving a footing beneath the ground seems pretty extreme. There must be more to this, such as interference with underground utilities.
Need more facts on that one. What were the weather conditions? What was he burning?
Someone noted up thread that it was within the setback.
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