The Wright County Board of Commissioners took the rare move of continuing its regular Tuesday meeting this week to Wednesday morning because of the complexity surrounding the on-going issue of construction of a satellite ground station in Rockford Township.
The board discussed at length a resolution that would have ordered stoppage of the project which would locate ground satellite communication equipment on private agricultural land in Rockford Township, reportedly within approximately a mile of the Buffalo Airport.
Commissioner Nadine Schoen has been leading the push for examination of project which has been on a fast track since this spring. Schoen and other commissioners have questions regarding public safety, the overall impact of the project, and the lack of any type of local control and oversight.
Despite a good deal of local opposition the project has continued to move forward without much scrutiny because of what Wright County legal officials have called “federal pre-emption.” The issue is a federal statute that is said to be able to pre-empt action on a county, local or state level. Throughout Tuesday’s discussion, Commissioner Schoen said she had been in contact with federal officials that she indicated seemed to feel that the project might be in a gray area of the “pre-emption clause,” though there was limited documentation from any given agency.
Commissioner and Board Chair Darek Vetsch stressed that a board action that would force stoppage of the project could open the door for potentially very costly litigation against Wright County. Discussion continued and the Tuesday meeting ended with direction from the County Board to have county engineering officials, with the permission or cooperation of the land owner, examine the site later that day to measure how much ground had been moved. The hope was to determine if there was more than 500 cubic yards of soil moved so far. If so, the action would be in violation of the current county ordinance, which could give officials the authority to force the company doing the work to go through the conditional use permit, or, CUP process. The board agreed to resume its meeting on Wednesday morning.
During the Wednesday session, the board learned that county officials were unable to investigate the site Tuesday as the owner was not at the property, and wouldn’t be available until next week.
With that development, the board voted 3 to 2 against the original resolution to order stoppage on the project, but then voted unanimously to direct engineering officials to further examine the site as soon as possible and report findings back to administration. If the project is found to be in violation of the standing ordinance, the CUP process could be implemented.
