Ambulance chief quits, mum on reason
Staff writer
Just a year after his hiring, county ambulance director Chuck Kenney resigned Monday, citing only personal reasons.
Kenney is the fourth ambulance director to quit in recent years.
Curt Hasart, under investigation for not disclosing criminal charges against him, resigned a year ago.
He had replaced Travis Parmley, who had quit 14 month earlier. Ed Debesis quit a little less than two years before that after four years on the job.
The resignation came at a meeting during which county commissioners faced people airing complaints about wind farms and weakening of a resolution opposed to a conservation program.
Marion resident Rose Davidson, who leads both the county Republican Party and the group Patriots for Liberty, said the time set for a public comment on a proposed resolution opposed to the so-called 30x30 conservation program was inconvenient for farmers working on harvest.
She talked until commission chairman David Mueller told her that her time was up. Davidson said she had more to say.
Rose Vinduska told commissioners that many people had the impression that the government doesn’t care what they think.
Steve Schmidt, who often has spoken about the anti-30x30 resolution, said he would prefer a position letter, which is what commissioners ended up with, over a resolution, which could have unintended consequences later.
Discussion of Sunflower Wind’s effort to expand westward into three townships began with Goessel resident Quentin Guhr.
Guhr told commissioners that cell phone and Internet services were disrupted by the Diamond Vista wind farm. A resident in the Sunflower Wind farm area also has reported failures.
“The technician from Rise Broadband told her the issues were because of the wind turbines interfering with the signal,” Guhr said.
Saying county residents might not be able to reach emergency services when needed, he asked whether the county would be responsible for injury or loss of life because of a problem it knew existed and did nothing about.
“We need to research the disturbance that wind turbines cause to Internet and cellular services,” Guhr said.
Commission candidate Clarke Dirks said although he’d heard that Diamond Vista had paid $20 million into the economy, he saw less tax revenue.
“While this money was injected into the local economy, I don’t see that money reflected in increased sales tax revenue,” Dirks said. “I would recommend the county do an audit to see where the money went and how it was used.”
Wind farms have an exemption from property taxes but make payments in lieu of taxes to local governmental units.
Dirks said turbine blades shed pollutants into the environment.
“They’re not carbon free. They’re not pollution free,” Dirks said.
He said pollution caused by wind turbines was something grandchildren and great-grandchildren would have to clean up.
Dirks gave commissioners a copy of Harney County’s wind development guidelines.
He said he’d heard rumors that Enel, which owns Diamond Vista, will “repower” its wind farm in about 10 years by putting up bigger turbines and will ask for a new tax abatement.
Dirks said anyone connected to any of the wind farms should recuse themselves from discussion.
Mueller was a community liaison for Diamond Vista from 2017 to 2018.