Macoupin County Board Economic Development Committee met Jan. 4.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
PRESENT: Armour, Dragovich, Kilduff, Klausing, Payne (Remote), Starr, Duncan
ABSENT:
II. AGENDA ITEMS
1. Macoupin Trails Bike Trail Project Connecting Girard to Sangamon
Ben Orcutt with UK North America and Jenny Neff spoke about the trail from the northern most county border on the north side of VIrden to the Country Club Road in Girard. They had been working on fundraising for the project, but had not yet raised enough to complete the project. Ben had reached out to her a few months ago about a possible collaboration between his wind company and the trail project to complete this part of the project. Orcutt discussed his company and it's interest in Illinois. He had approached Neff as he needed to get one of his projects in Montgomery County connected to the West Chester substation in Sangamon. They had reached out to land owners and had some momentum but was running into losing farmground usage. That was when they decided to try and utilize the abandoned railroads with the Rail to Trails project. They had reached out to a surveyor company to try and connect the existing bike trail in Sangamon and create a bike trail 20 miles long with 3.53 miles in Macoupin County. In exchange, they would like to run their 138kV transmission line near the trail in some sections. The total cost for the engineering and construction costs for Macoupin Trail segment would be $4.5 million, which they would cover. The maintenance after the construction would be completed would not be something they would handle. Neff said she believed the fundraising they have completed as well as an adopt-a-mile program should be able to handle the maintenance in the future.
2. Wind Ordinance Implementation
Duncan said there was another wind company getting ready to submit for a permit. Since the county did not have zoning, there wasn't the typical infrastructure to handle implementing it. The committee suggested reaching out to Logan, McLean, and Menard to see how they handle the situation.
http://macoupincountyil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=15&ID=3799&Inline=True
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