Poplar Grove may tweak zoning rules to allow solar farm

Poplar Grove may tweak zoning rules to allow solar farm

By Susan Vela
Staff writer

Posted Sep 11, 2018 at 3:56 PMUpdated Sep 11, 2018 at 4:11 PM

POPLAR GROVE — Trajectory Energy Partners wants to build a solar energy farm north of Illinois 173 that would be large enough to power several hundred homes.

Poplar Grove officials first must consider amending the village’s zoning ordinance to permit solar farms with mounted solar energy collectors in agricultural/rural, general business, light industrial and heavy industrial districts.

Trustees will recommend approval at a Sept. 19 board meeting. If the proposal gets the nod, Trajectory Energy and other solar companies can apply for a special-use permit to install solar panels.

“I look at it as a win-win,” Board President Owen Costanza said. “That land will no longer be sitting vacant. This is a great use of the land, and it’s a great renewable source of energy, far better than the windmills. It looks to be a no-brainer to me. It doesn’t seem to impact anybody.”

About a dozen proposals for solar energy developments have been pitched in the last year in Boone, Winnebago and Stephenson counties and a similar phenomenon is rippling throughout Illinois. The boom is driven by the Future Energy Jobs Act. The state law approved in 2016 requires Illinois utilities to get 25 percent of their retail power from renewable sources such as solar and wind by 2025.

Poplar Grove’s zoning rules regulate solar energy development, but the language only accommodates the placement of solar panels on roofs and not large-scale solar power operations.

“Due to ongoing technological advances, solar has become more competitive,” according to a report from village planning staff. “What was once a way for residents to reduce energy bills by having a few panels installed has become larger operations that generate electricity that is delivered to the utility distribution network and can be utilized by multiple customers per project.”

Some trustees see no problems with changing the zoning ordinance so that Trajectory Energy Partners, based in Highland Park, can put solar panels on land that’s now zoned for light industrial and general business purposes.

Jon Carson, Trajectory Energy’s managing partner, said the company would lease the land from First Midwest Group.

Representatives from Trajectory Energy have appeared at Poplar Grove Village Hall to field questions about their proposal. Their development, they say, would deliver “community solar,” allowing local homeowners to subscribe to use the electricity generated and receive credit for their involvement.

“I think community solar is going to be a fantastic benefit,” Carson said.

Trajectory is a young company founded in 2017 and responsible for solar projects across the country.

“We’re excited about this one,” Carson said. “It’s a nice site.”

Costanza said the lease includes language that holds Trajectory responsible for decommissioning the solar energy project should the enterprise fail. Trustee Neeley Erickson said she still has concerns about whether the soil would be suitable again for farming if that were to happen.

Ryan Lindberg’s family has a farm adjacent to the parcels that could become a solar farm. He has some concerns about drainage issues but, for the most part, he likes the endeavor.

“It’s a lot better than having a Walmart next to you or a huge subdivision,” he said.

Susan Vela: 815-987-1392; svela@rrstar.com; @susanvela

Above is from:  http://www.rrstar.com/news/20180911/poplar-grove-may-tweak-zoning-rules-to-allow-solar-farm

Similar slayings draw vastly different political reaction

RYAN J. FOLEY,Associated Press 2 hours 39 minutes ago

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IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The cases are strikingly similar: Two talented young women were stabbed to death by male strangers while doing athletic activities alone in normally safe parts of Iowa.

But politicians who quickly expressed outrage about the immigrant suspect charged with killing runner Mollie Tibbetts have been silent or more restrained about the white homeless man accused in the death of a college golf star from Spain.

Hours after Cristhian Bahena Rivera was arrested last month in Tibbetts' death, President Donald Trump declared that the farmhand had killed the "beautiful" young woman because of the nation's "disgraceful" immigration laws. The president recorded a video citing Tibbetts' slaying in his case for building a wall on the border with Mexico and adopting other policies intended to keep immigrants from entering illegally.

So far, Trump and many others who followed his lead have not weighed in on the death of Celia Barquin Arozamena, who was attacked Monday while golfing on a course near Iowa State University. The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday on Barquin, who was the Big 12 women's golf champion this year and a 22-year-old engineering student.

Neither has Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who tweeted that Tibbetts would be alive if immigration laws were enforced and added: "Leftists sacrificed thousands, including their own, on the altar of Political Correctness."

King represents Ames, which includes the university, and a part of western Iowa where the suspect accused in Barquin's death lived as a teenager and young adult in small towns. Court records show that 22-year-old Collin Richards repeatedly received chances to turn his life around but instead kept committing crimes and violated probation again and again.

Richards once threatened to "shoot up" a convenience store where he was caught shoplifting. He dragged his ex-girlfriend out of a home in a headlock, allegedly cutting off her airway and leaving her injured. He got high and stole a pickup truck after wrecking his own car. He burglarized a gas station to steal tobacco and beer and stole from his own grandparents' home. He was found with an illegally long knife during a traffic stop, and he injured a police officer during a scuffle.

None of that earned Richards prison time or a felony conviction, in part because prosecutors agreed to plea deals that reduced charges to misdemeanors and judges imposed sentences of probation.

Richards was sent to prison last year only after he tested positive for methamphetamine and marijuana, failed to complete an anger-management course he started four times and didn't pay court-ordered fees to a halfway house, court records show.

Even then, the two-year sentence was reduced to about seven months after credit for good behavior and some jail time already served.

After his release, Richards was arrested weeks later for public intoxication. Soon, he was living in a tent in a homeless encampment in the woods near the Coldwater Golf Links in Ames. He told an acquaintance that he had an urge to "rape and kill a woman," police said. He allegedly stabbed Barquin and left her body in a pond near the ninth hole.

Rivera followed a different path, allegedly entering the country from Mexico illegally as a teenager and later getting hired at a dairy farm by providing false identification documents. He was described as a reliable worker.

He had no prior criminal record in Iowa before, police say, he followed Tibbetts, a 20-year-old University of Iowa student, in a car while she was running on July 18 in the small town of Brooklyn. He's accused of killing her and leaving her body in a cornfield. He pleaded not guilty Wednesday, and his trial is scheduled for April.

After Tibbetts' death, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said residents were angry "that a broken immigration system allowed a predator like this to live in our community." She also said she might be open to considering a plan to require Iowa employers to use the government's E-Verify system to check their workers' eligibility to be in the U.S., although it's not clear whether that would have prevented the farm from hiring Rivera.

On Tuesday, Reynolds referred to Barquin's death as "horrific" and "senseless" but said it was premature to determine whether any changes needed to be made to keep young women safe.

"As we all learn more about what happened in this senseless tragedy again, we will look for opportunities and ways that we can do better," she told reporters, according to the Des Moines Register.

On Wednesday, she urged Iowa State fans to wear yellow to Saturday's football game to honor Barquin.

Meanwhile, a third slaying of a young woman was drawing attention in the nation's capital. Wendy K. Martinez, 35, was jogging in Washington's Logan Circle neighborhood Tuesday evening when she was fatally stabbed in what police said was probably a random attack. She staggered into a restaurant where customers tried to save her life.

Above is from:  https://www.yahoo.com/news/slain-golfer-suspect-lived-contrasting-lives-iowa-city-045634748--spt.html