STARK COUNTY COMMISSIONERS: "A MIXED BAG" ON THEIR HANDLING HANDLING NEXUS PIPELINE "SUPPORT" REQUEST

CREIGHTON & REGULA 

HAVE PREMATURELY DECIDED?

 (SEE CORN'S REACTION)

Updated:  5:15 AM

The big problem that exists between the Nexus gas transmission group (NGT, a partnership of Spectra Energy and DTE Energy is a communication problem, plain and simple.

WHAT CORN HAS TO SAY



WHAT NGT HAS TO SAY



Back on February 11, the COalition to Re-route Nexus showed up at a Stark County commissioners meeting and asked for an opportunity to meet with the commissioners for the purpose of persuading the commissioners to support CORN's effort to convince the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to condition approval of Nexus to NGT agreeing to and accepting an alternative pathway.

The commissioners agreed to do so and set this past Tuesday, February 24th at 10:00 a.m. for CORN to come in.  Mondays and Tuesdays at 10:00 a.m. have been set aside for use as "work sessions" which serve as a vehicle for the commissioners to learn about concerns such as CORN's.

And they invited the folks from NGT, who surprisingly enough showed up.

Before Tom Bernabei and Janet Creighton became commissioners (first elected in November 2010), there was no such thing as regularly provided for work session time slots.

NGT's plan includes traversing Stark County's Lake, Marlboro, Nimishillen and Washington townships (on a line that runs about half way between State Street and Midway Street in Lake).   

CORN's general approach (unrefined as of now) is to relocate Nexus south of U.S. Route 30 in Stark County taking up some 30 miles of more rural land as compared to NGT's more populated route.

It was interesting that Commissioner Bernabei picked up on the communication problem.



While he was perceptive about what the real problem is between CORN and NGT, he should have - in the view of the SCPR - pushed NGT harder on getting NGT to commit to resolving the communication problem which The Report believes is solely attributable to NGT.

At the end of the session, yours truly tried to engage John Sheridan, the spokesperson for the NGT point of view as to why talking direct to CORN was a problem.



But as seen in the video, he was having none of it.

Here is a series of shorter videos on various matters that came up in the "indirect" discussion.

The complete video appears at the end of this blog.

WHO ARE THE PLAYERS?

NGT (SPECTRA ENERGY & DTE ENERGY)



CORN



LOCATION OF THE PIPELINE

NGT



CORN



SAFETY OF THE PIPELINE

NGT



CORN



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

NGT



CORN



So who was persuasive with the commissioners?

Well, insofar as Commissioners Creighton and Regula (both Republicans) are concerned, apparently NGT.



And here is CORN's reaction (asked for by the SCPR in an e-mail) to what CORN spokesman Paul Gierosky says in essence (the SCPR agrees) is a premature decision by Creighton and Regula.

OUR REACTION

The Repository wrote "Commissioners Janet Weir Creighton and Richard Regula have said they aren’t inclined to support the NEXUS re-route plan. Commissioner Tom Bernabei said he hadn’t reached a decision."

It sounds like you elicited a more definite response. But pressed to say something what is a person’s natural reaction? Personally, I was not surprised nor deterred by the statements in CR. The Commissioners have very little information, so far, on which to base their decision. Which CORN re-route plan are they not inclined to support? We have not proposed a definite plan. Are they saying they are not inclined to support any re-route plan? Or, are they saying they will only support a re-route that takes Nexus out of Stark County altogether? I don't know. We certainly would like their input.

I understood Commissioner Creighton mentioned in the meeting that from the statistics we shared the burden was being shifted to Stark County. However, the statistics do not support that. The number of structures within 1500’ on either side of the pipeline on the current Nexus route is 1052. On our preliminary alternate re-route that number drops to 488. This is a clear improvement. Is she not inclined to support a route with a clear improvement to the safety of the public? I don’t know the answer because we did not get a chance to ask.

The current Nexus route passes through 28 acres of wetlands in Stark County. Our alternate re-route passes through none. Are the Commissioners not inclined to support and defend the integrity of our wetlands environment? We have not had a chance to get into those details either, yet.

I thought her statement that inferred the Nexus pipeline was a burden on Stark County did convey something about her opinion.

We view this as a process. It is our responsibility to inform, educate and persuade the Commissioners to support our re-route proposal which avoids the heavily populated and faster growing counties in Ohio, for a more southerly, less populated and safer route.

We started this process in this manner in Medina County in mid-December it took 7 weeks, 20 different residents speaking out many at several meetings, multiple one-on-one meetings to build a personal relationship and countless emails providing information to build and support our case.

To expect anything less in Stark County would be unreasonable.

We will be submitting a re-route alternative to Nexus and the Commission (FERC) in the next 2-3 weeks. We would like the Stark County Commissioners input to, involvement with and support of what we believe is a sensible proposal.

What is disappointing about Creighton and Regula is that they are giving no reasons for their positions.

Bernabei (a Democrat) is much more impressive.

He is thinking about it.

And he thinks he needs to comment on his decision when he arrives at one.

Whether one agrees with CORN or not, the work they are putting into their fight for a re-route is impressive and shame on Creighton and Regula for apparently deciding negatively on the request without the courtesy of offering reasons why.

This is the sort of thing that helps erode individual citizens confidence in their government that they are "really" heard and undoubtedly have to question whether or not they are respected when seeming arbitrary decisions are made.

As pointed out in the SCPR's first blog on Nexus, both Spectra Energy and DTE Energy have strong lobbying groups in Washington and Columbus.

CORN only has motivated and energized  everyday citizens.

The SCPR is impressed with CORN and encourages them to continue the fight.

Their effort is responsible citizenship at its finest!

Here is the full video of Tuesday.

STARK CO. COMMISSIONER "WORK SESSION" GETS DIALOGUE GOING ON NEXUS HIGH PRESSURE PIPELINE FIGHT?

BUT DID THE COMMISSIONERS TAKE CORN SERIOUSLY?

On the February 11 request of the COalition to Re-route Nexus (Nexus being the name of a high pressure [1400 psi] natural gas pipeline) proposed to traverse Stark County, the Stark County commissioners agreed to set a work session to get more detailed information on Nexus from CORN.

The meeting was held on Tuesday, February 24th.

• SCPR Note:  Stark County commissioners' work sessions are held almost weekly on Monday and Tuesday of each week beginning at 10:00 a.m.
• LINK to prior SCPR blog on pipeline issue.

CORN's objective for the meeting was to convince the commissioners to pass a resolution/send a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking that FERC approve Nexus (the partnership project of Spectra Energy/DTE Energy only on the condition that the pipeline be re-routed from its currently proposed route across Lake Township (on a line a little north of State Street).

At Tuesday's meeting, CORN said the coalition had garnered support of its mission from 14 political subdivisions in the pathway of the pipeline.  Two such supporters include the city of Green at the northern/western edge of Stark County and Lake Township in Stark.

Spectra/DTE has specifically dubbed the project for website purposes as being the "Nexus Gas Transmission" (NGT) project.

Interesting enough, NGT  (i.e. to say the Spectra Energy part of the partnership) showed up at the meeting.

And it appears that NGT was more persuasive than CORN.

For the SCPR learned today that Commissioner Janet Creighton (a Republican) apparently decided immediately after the meeting that she was not going to be a signatory to any letter nor vote for any resolution.

Creighton, the SCPR thinks, signaled clearly during yesterday's meeting she was not favorably disposed to CORN's request.

She was particularly annoyed that CORN's projected proposal would add 10 miles of Stark County which would be traversed by Nexus.

In answer to The Report's inquiry today, Commissioner Richard Regula (also a Republican) said he agreed with Creighton's position.

Only Commissioner Thomas Bernabei is a possibility inasmuch as he said he has not yet made an individual decision as to whether or not he supports CORN's re-route crusade.

But he, as president of the Board of Commissioners, did say that he did not anticipate that there would be an "up or down" vote as a body on CORN's request at a future regular meeting of the commissioners.

If he were to participate, it would be as an individual.

One of the complaints of CORN has been and came up in yesterday's meeting is that NGT refuses to meet with the civic activist group.

As yesterday's meeting broke up, The Stark County Political Report  asked NGT spokesman John Sheridan why NGT has refused to meet face-to-face with CORN.

Take a look at this less than a minute video.

i

A snub!  And an outright blank stare!!

As shown in the video, Ian Nickey of Hick Partners (a public relations firm out of Columbus) seemed to be in a panic mode in making his way from his place in the second row of chairs through the first row (Sheridan's locale) to insert himself between Sheridan and yours truly.

There appeared to be about half-a-dozen "protectors" of Sheridan in the the NGT entourage.

All of which, in the SCPR's viewpoint, belies the promise by NGT to "be transparent" and to "[welcome] community involvement at all stages," to wit:

Not (i.e. the video above) a flattering picture for Spectra Energy, no?

And maybe even worse, "a red flag" that citizens and government officials across the pipeline corridor need to take a closer look at the proposed project, no?

Stark Countians should be wondering why Sheridan (who, it appears, to himself to be a public relations type)  wouldn't answer The Report's question.

CORN, for its part, is not opposing the Nexus pipeline as such; merely its route through Ohio and more specifically (of local interest) Stark, Summit and Medina Counties.

The SCPR agrees with CORN that pipelines traversing American (including, Ohio and Stark County) are a necessity and also happen to be the safest way to distribute natural gas.

BUT, again agreeing with CORN, the pipelines need to take the least intrusive route in terms of population centers so that if one of the pipelines blows (which is relatively rare but which one recently did in West Virgina), human death and injuries are kept to a minimum.  Moreover, in a relocation, it is likely that the potential economic/financial loss to property owners will be lessened as well.

What is troubling to the SCPR and should be to Stark Countians (not only on the matter of minimalizing death, injury and property loss) is the apparent incommunicado of Spectra Energy and its partner DTE Energy in refusing one-on-one engagement with everyday citizens like the folks who make up CORN.

While it was laudable and constructive for Stark's commissioners to have hosted yesterday's session as requested by CORN back on February 11, the commissioners may have dropped the ball in not pressing Sheridan hard enough to agree to direct talks with CORN representatives.



One of the problems with private enterprise is that too many of them highhandedly (companies and unincorporated entrepreneurs, alike) think they can invoke public processes (in this case federal government [i.e. the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - FERC] approval of the pipeline) without being directly answerable to affected citizens.

On this count, NGT/Spectra/DTE comes up way short on fielding the legitimate concerns of citizens who live in the neighborhoods that the NGT defined pathway is to traverse.

Let the SCPR pause right here.

Another crazy thing about yesterday's meeting (the other being the NGT Nexus group's unwillingness to have direct talks with CORN) was that CORN was not prepared to share with commissioners a detailed map of the alternative plan they have in the works for FERC to adopt as the certified pathway for the Nexus pipeline over that proposed by NGT.

Isn't that wild?

The lack of a map was not likely a factor in Creighton's decision, but it certainly didn't help any that CORN officials seemingly were making a secret of its plan.

The CORN plan, as the video immediately below shows, is designed to go through southern Stark County rather than on a line through the city of Green (Summit County) on a line that would bring Nexus through Stark on a latitude about midway between State Street and Midway Street and on the southern side of Lake-O-Pines Street in Lake Township.  As proposed, Nexus would then continue through Marlboro, Nimishillen and Washington townships.

But why no actual map?

It was really strange yesterday as NGT and CORN presented their cases to the commissioners the degree to which that there was any dialogue between NGT and CORN, it was mediated through the president of the Stark County commissioners; namely, Commissioner Tom Bernabei.

The lack of communication in the assessment of the SCPR (which The Report attributes fully at being at the hand of NGT) has a juvenile quality about it.

Major American corporations act this way?

At the end of this blog, The Stark County Political Report presents "the entire session" as recorded by yours truly for readers to get a full sense of NGT's attitude.

The Report thinks that the arrogance of the NGT group comes through loud and clear as one progresses through the video.

Before getting to the full video, The Report has chosen some highlights of the work session for those SCPR readers who do not want to view the full one hour plus video.

But first accolades for Stark County commissioners Janet Creighton and Bernabei.

Before their election in November, 2010; there was no county government structure for a full airing of controversial issues, citizen concerns or oversight of county departments of government. With prior boards of commissioners, citizen/county government interaction was a hit/miss matter.

With their taking office came the institution of work sessions (when needed) at 10:00 a.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays of each and every week.

Consequently, Stark Countians, if they want to be heard or know about how county government functions; only need to avail themselves of a weekly opportunity to attend scheduled work sessions.

It is disappointing to the SCPR that Creighton seemingly summarily rejected CORN's petition without citing a rationale therefore.

But that is Commissioner Creighton.  She can be entertaining as a political personality.  But such a characteristic could result in her on occasion experiencing "foot in mouth."

The CORN folks are everyday citizens who do not have big corporate bucks at their command like NGT does.  CORN impresses the SCPR with the due diligence the group has shown (except for the map thing) in putting together an alternative pipeline plan.

Only in America can a group like CORN succeed.  Whether or not a public official agrees with these activists, they deserve a reasoned answer.

Stark Countians should not be pleased with discourtesy that Commissioners Creighton and Regula is demonstrating on this matter.

The SCPR suspects that because CORN seems to have a Summit County political center of gravity, they had little if any chance to convince Creighton and Regula.

CORN is not going to quit despite the Stark County setback.

Should the pipeline eventually be built on NGT's proposed pathway and on the off chance there is an accident within the next few years that cost lives, injuries, or extensive property damage; it is not going to set well that the commissioners invite CORN in and explain their reasons for denying the request that the commissioners weigh-in in support with FERC.

NOW TO TOPICAL VIDEOS OF YESTERDAY'S MEETING

WHO ARE THE PLAYERS?

SPECTRA ENERGY & DTE ENERGY



COalition to Re-route Nexus



THE ISSUES

THE ROUTE

THE ROUTE OF THE PIPELINE (WITH TIMELINE FOR CHALLENGE)
NGT PERSPECTIVE

THE ROUTE OF NEXUS
CORN PERSPECTIVE




ISSUE

OUTREACH & TRANSPARENCY
NGT PERSPECTIVE

NGT PERSPECTIVE



CORN PERSPECTIVE




ISSUE

GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT

NGT PERSPECTIVE



CORN PERSPECTIVE


ISSUE
THE SAFETY OF THE PIPELINE

NGT PERSPECTIVE



CORN PERSPECTIVE



ISSUE
THE ECONOMIC/FINANCIAL BENEFITS/DEMERITS OF NEXUS

NGT PERSPECTIVE




CORN PERSPECTIVE



To conclude this blog, for those readers who want to take in the entire meeting (1 hours, 17 minutes, 30 seconds), here is the video of entire work session: