SARGEANT – Paying $1 million a year in taxes, plus an upfront, one-time payment of $2.

Wednesday, April 12, 2000

SARGEANT – Paying $1 million a year in taxes, plus an upfront, one-time payment of $2.5 million to Mower County is not enough for Jim Hartson.

The Waltham Township farmer expressed his dissatisfaction over Great River Energy’s attempt to "circumvent" – Hartson’s choice of word – the law by seeking a personal property tax exemption.

The scene was played out Tuesday night at the Sargeant Community Center only 4.5 miles from where GRE, an electric generation and transmission cooperative based at Elk River, hopes to build a 434-megawatt natural gas-fired power generation facility in Pleasant Valley Township.

A planned 161-kilovolt transmission line will connect the peaking plant to an existing substation facility in northeast Austin.

The proposed transmission line also will provide a link between an existing Northern States Power transmission line and the Austin Utilities substation.

GRE held a similar informational meeting Monday night at Brownsdale.

Hartson’s questions and comments dominated an otherwise docile group of 15 residents who came to hear GRE explain the transmission line’s impact.

Richard R. Lancaster, GRE’s vice president for public affairs, has been at every meeting and hearing on the proposed project and attempted to answer Hartson’s and others’ questions and, in the case of Hartson, deflect his criticism.