WRAP YOUR HEADS AROUND IT...

Continuing with information from the September 11, 2017, Town Board meeting:

Under "Old Business" was item "E. Airlake Airport Annexation-Report Regarding Meeting with MAC."

During the Board discussion of this item, Mark Ceminsky came from the back of the room and "plunked" himself down at the table and mic before the Board. He did not ask to be recognized and to come forward, just went up there and sat. And talked.

I believe Supervisor and Chair Barfknecht handled this respectfully and calmly even though she would have been well within her role and responsibilities to ask him to please return to his seat and wait to be recognized.

Remember, the Board has given the public the opportunity to speak at Public Comment time and it can always put itself on the Board agenda for discussion of an item. The Board does not have to allow any general audience input at these public meetings (not public hearings, which are a totally different case), but it almost always has. What I am stating here is totally in keeping with the Open Meeting Law.

I feel Ceminsky's actions were very disrespectful to the Board and the Township proceedings. I doubt heartily that he would have been tolerant of such an action by another when he was on the Board himself.

At any rate, he brought up to the Board certain input such as the Township would be losing not only taxes but also the building permit fees for new hangars if the airport is annexed.

Well, that is true. Does he really think no one understands that? Did he think the Board wasn't listening on the other occasions he has said the same thing? Does he think that there is a realistic solution to keep the airport in Eureka and the Board is just stubbornly unwilling for some obscure reason to do that?

If there were a feasible solution, I am confident the Board would follow it. Members have already met and tried to negotiate a Joint Powers Agreement with Lakeville whereby Lakeville would sell sewer and water to MAC and the airport would remain in the Township. It was worth a try. Lakeville wasn't interested. MAC isn't interested in a well. It wants CITY sewer and water! We can't tap into the sewer interceptor without the process the Metropolitan Council has outlined and refenced in my last blog. Annexation law favors cities, that is the cold, hard fact. Yet, Supervisor Hansen continues to proclaim that the Board "has done nothing." He even proposed a Board letter to MAC that he wanted to say "Eureka has no interest in the airport." Well, yes, we do, but wishing doesn't make it so.

Supervisor Butch Hansen has promoted "at least asking" the Met Council if it would allow Eureka to access the interceptor. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? The problem with that is that he doesn't seem to understand and/or accept what has to be done by the Township preceding any Met Council CONSIDERATION of such a request, with absolutely no guarantee that Eureka could make a case that the Council would buy into. It is not going to tell any LGU (Local Government Unit) ahead of time what it is going to do. It says, "Submit this (detailed plan) and we'll consider it." The detailed plan is expensive to generate.

All this was discussed with Eureka's Council area rep and the person who oversees sewer for the Council at a Planning Commission Special Meeting that Mr. Hansen attended before he was on the Board. (He, himself, incidentally, came up front from the audience and stood next to the Met Council reps and started talking without being recognized by the Chair as well! Pattern.) Eureka is slated as ag until 2040. Had the recession not happened, the open land in Lakeville and Farmington, some of which is just now being developed, would perhaps have already been developed; things may have been different. But that is water under the bridge.

Hansen proposed a motion to access the sewer interceptor for airport use. Died for lack of a second.

Then he proposed another motion to give all the Eureka land north of 225th St. W. that borders on Lakeville TO Lakeville as has been put forth by Ceminsky and Hansen in the recent past. Died for lack of a second.

The StarTribune article of September 15, 2017, which says that "...at least one township supervisor fears that it (the airport annexation) will accelerate the end of Eureka," somehow doesn't reveal that Mr. Hansen has repeatedly actually supported the idea that Eureka should just "give away" all the land north of 225th bordering Lakeville if it can't access the interceptor and keep the airport. What has been his (and Ceminsky's) stated reason? "They are going to take it anyway. Let's just give it to them. Then we can 'regroup' and figure out how to stop this (annexation)." Or words very close to that. I frankly do not see how this would be of any benefit to the Township. In fact, on page 3-14, the Comprehensive Plan lists no. 5 under "Land Use Goals: Maintain the geographic boundaries of the Township." To propose giving all the land north of 225th to Lakeville is actually in direct opposition to the Comprehensive Plan, that publicly adopted document that is to guide Township decisions! How deep does Supervisor Hansen's understanding of the Comprehensive Plan go?

That same article quotes Hansen as saying, "I think it's foolish of us to throw away the airport to Lakeville. If we can keep the airport happy, they'll stay." The very next paragraph says that Gary Schmidt of MAC stated that the airport "needs city sewer and water to stay viable" and that "obtaining city sewer and water has been a goal for decades." That's city services, Mr. Hansen. The airport won't BE happy with a well. In the article Hansen is credited with saying that he wants "the township to get county permission to dig a well for Airlake and to hook up to the sewer line." As referenced in the article Commissioner Mike Slavik has said and as it was said at the last Board meeting, the County doesn't have a say in this. The County is NOT the Met Council. AND the airport doesn't want a well! Again, how deep does the understanding of oversight bodies and their realm of influence go for Supervisor Hansen, I ask?

The article also quotes Hansen as saying, "It (the annexation) opens the door to future annexation down the road." News Flash: That "door," because of annexation law, has always been open.
Opinion: So the way to "close the door" to future annexation is to concede right now and hand over hundreds of acres so we "can have a peaceful annexation?" Don't see it.

By now, I am tired of explaining it and the reader is probably tired of reading it. At the last Annual Meeting the citizens in attendance agreed that the Board should do what it could to keep the airport in the Township. It has now done that, in spite of Mr. Hansen's proclaiming again and again that "the Board has done nothing." In spite of the fact that Mr. Hansen stated he was going "to have to step in and clean up this mess."