County Throwing Good Money Against the Wind Farms?

[XLFD]

The County Government revealed this Tuesday that they were prepared to put $7,725 more of the County's taxpayer's money into a legal challenge they are prepared to file against a ruling by an obscure three panel State group called the Michigan Tax Commission (MTC).  They had already invested $20,000, their share of the lawsuit involving four other Michigan counties as plaintiffs, into this enterprise in a hope to have what amounted to a 27% tax rate break for Wind developers revoked. 

 

This stems from an unheralded action in the MTC (reported back in 2011 by the Torch) that occurred in late 2011 that accelerated the depreciation of the value of wind turbines, occuring the month before the Lake Winds project was breaking ground, and during the time when local citizens of CARRE were doing their own legal action before Judge Richard Cooper in Mason County's 51st Circuit Court fighting against the proposed project in its stated form. 

 

 

The turbines did go up, and the legal effort turned out to be fruitless as Judge Cooper made the difficult choice of allowing Consumer's Energy to continue their efforts unabated, being swayed by the law firm representing Consumers' which featured his son Craig Richard Cooper as one of the attorneys that came forward.  The County spent a lot of money (well over $100,000) on attorneys, expert witnesses, and studies to defend their actions and assist the efforts of Consumers in seeing that the project would go through.  Some would also say they sacrificed the master plan and integrity of the county. 

 

Doug Roberts, chair of the MTC whose job to figure out the value of property if you tried to sell it, said it’s nearly impossible to do that for wind turbines because there’s no market for used ones.  So Roberts decreased the value of turbines to reflect that. 

 

Some officials of affected counties filed FOIA requests to find out about any studies used to justify the change, and got back nothing.  Larry Merrill, director of the Michigan Townships Asociation, said:  "It doesn’t do a lot to keep a high degree of confidence that the tax system is fair and equitable."  The group of counties and townships with wind farms says it found studies to support a higher value for turbines. And almost all the townships in Michigan with wind farms ignored the decision of Roberts and the other tax commissioners. They sent out tax bills based on the old formula. 

 

Wheeler Township, located in Gratiot County just west of Saginaw, is one of a number of townships that decided the true cash value of wind developments are more adequately determined by the previous ways wind turbines were assessed before the MTC decision.  The townships in Huron County that have wind developments made the same determination as Wheeler Township.

 

DTE, the wind developers thereat who decided to appeal these local decision, did not advocate for the changes by the MTC, but stated they must adhere to them.

“Our electric rates are scrutinized by the Michigan Public Service Commission; we must show prudent and responsible decisions when incurring any costs, including abiding by the current tax multiplier tables (the tax commission set last fall), so if a local jurisdiction recommends we pay under the old (tax multiplier tables), we have an obligation to appeal based on the current tax law.”  A noted here in June 2012. 

 

As noted in September 2012, Huron County Commisioners decided if DTE prevails in the appeal, it would decrease tax revenues for all municipalities where DTE owns wind turbines. Also, commissioners noted, although other developers (such as Consumer's Energy) continued to pay taxes according to the original depreciation schedule, they could opt to pay less taxes by using the schedule DTE wants.  Because county government coffers have so much to lose if DTE wins its appeal, the counties of Huron, Sanilac, Gratiot, Mason and Tuscola are considering an interlocal agreement to share the cost of the legal fees involved in fighting the appeal.

 

This forms the basis of Mason County's involvement in this legal action, which effectively is to mount a defense to DTE's appeal, which will more than likely be bolstered by the deep pockets of Consumer's Energy and any other affected utility.  But even before this they had invested a smaller amount to overturn the MTC's decision.

 

The history of Mason County's efforts to join and contribute to this cause is as follows.  On February 17, 2012, Mason County Adminstrator Knizacky met with an "alliance meeting" in Huron County regarding this issue. In their March meeting, the commissioners agreed to join the coalition of counties and donate $5000 to the cause.  Commissioner Nichols questioned Administrator Knizacky about the make-up of the coalition contesting the changes by the Michigan State Tax Commission and asked for membership, mission statement and by-laws as well as the name of the law firm handling the legal work and questioned if additional money would be needed in the future.  She received the other Counties' names, but the rest of her questions were unanswered or had no answers.  Hers was the only dissenting vote.

In October, $15,000 more was directed to this effort, and some of the answers were supplied in that resolution (p 8 and 9 of the minutes).  It was declared that would be the extent of our legal expenses for this effort.  This is why we are now paying for a "study", intead of legal expenses as of this month's ruling at the meeting.  State Representative Ray Franz was present and asked to comment, he volunteered that the litigation could be a lengthy and drawn out fight.  That is, $20,000 is not going to be where it ends-- and he was right.  Nichols was again the lone dissenter. 

 

At February's meeting, our County Commissioners showed that their generosity was needed to extend $7725 more of our tax dollars as our County' share of a $50,000 study made by some appraisers that get paid $275 an hour-- more than the attorneys ($260 per hour) involved get.  Nichols, among a new cast of Commissioners, is again the only one against.  Let's review

 

We have donated $5000 in March 2012, $15,000 in October 2012, and now $7725 of our public tax money in order to help another county defend themselves against another energy company.  Our money is going to try to prevent a tax cut from taking effect for wind developers, conversely viewed as a revenue cut for the county governments who permitted these wind farm developments (knowing that state policy could change the playing field at any time).  The power companies are also going to be uniting to fight the county coalition, spending their money to get their tax relief.  That extra money will be made through charging more for the energy they produce. 

 

Whomever wins, you should already know who loses.

[Marty Redman]

The County Commies must really think the people are dumb up there.  I like the part where they set there limit at $20,000 for legal fees in this case and then decide to devote more money to studies that support those legal fees, which the property owners of Mason County will have to pay, including those Carre people.  Id love to see how much money from taxes and obscene utility profit subsidizations is wasted on this legal luau.

[XLFD]

Plenty of more to come no doubt.  Early last year there was a legislative effort to bypass the MTC efforts with HB 5278 and HB 5279 introduced by that area's Michigan representative Kurt Damrowe.  As you can see, they have not progressed anywhere in over a year.  This will be done costly in the courts, and you can depend on either side appealing the decisions of each.