Airport ordinance debate resumes with little progress

Just shy of a year after the Grundy County Board of Supervisors indefinitely tabled any action on a set of ordinances for the Grundy Center Airport that could have interfered with the Ivester Wind Farm, Brian Schoon of the Iowa Northland Regional Council of Governments (INRCOG) returned with the same proposal on Monday morning. And once again, the talks went nowhere.
           
“Why do we want to go through this big thing, add more rules and restrict things for at most about a dozen flights a year?” Supervisor Harlyn Riekena asked. “I don’t see the point of this whole thing. It has nothing to do with wind turbines or anything. It’s just overregulation—or regulation without a purpose.”
           
The city of Grundy Center has spent around $8,000 on crafting the ordinance and paying the fees to get it off the ground, but because the airport is outside of city limits, it also requires the county’s approval. Because the new rules would restrict the height of surrounding structures (including wind turbines) within a two-mile radius, the supervisors—and especially the more adamant supporters of the Ivester project—have balked at implementing it.
           
Passage of the ordinance would allow the city to collect a grant to recoup most of the money spent throughout the process and make improvements at the small grass strip facility in the future. The airport restrictions add yet another wrinkle to an ongoing saga that has been perhaps the most controversial county government matter in the last five years.
           
“It’s been contentious, and this could just add another layer of contentiousness,” Supervisor Barb Smith said. “If this is added, that would be just one more thing for the naysayers to latch on to.”
 
Read the full story in this week's Grundy Register. Subscribe by calling (319) 824-6958 or clicking here.