EARL WATT

   • Leader & Times

Wind proponent John Handy addressed the Seward County Commission at Monday’s meeting with a clear message — the public shouldn’t be able to vote on wind or else the public will want to vote on everything.

Handy made his comments against a proposed resolution introduced by Commissioner Todd Stanton to allow a non-binding advisory vote before approving the conditional use permit that was recently made public.

“What is before you is a resolution to a public vote,” Handy said. “The real question is whether this county will begin deciding what can be built here by public opinion. Travis Fieser farms is in the project area, and last December he wrote you, ‘Many businesses in the county would have probably never been built if a public opinion poll was taken before they were allowed to come here. Feed yards, dairies, National Beef, or even the county's own landfill would probably have been asked to leave.’ He is right, and everyone in this room knows he was right.”

Handy characterized the permit as lawful and said making businesses need public approval would put into question all businesses moving forward. He also added that voting against corporate hog farming hurt the county.

“If a lawful permit can be stalled and put to a county-wide vote after years of planning, hearings and conditions already met, then no approval in this county is final,” Handy said. “Why would the next business look at Seward County? Eli Svaty put the same point in your record. He faced a similar opportunity in the 1990s, or we did, and the decision to stop that investment has hurt this community for decades. We've already run this experiment. We know what it costs. This county needs growth.”

Handy said the battle over wind farming alone has done damage to Seward County. Similar claims were made prior to the corporate hog farming vote almost 30 years ago, which was the last time a public advisory vote has taken place.

“The fight itself is the advertisement that keeps more growth away,” Handy  said. “Here's what saying yes is worth with the CUP. From the figures in your own record, over $400,000 a year to this county, $230,000 a year to USD 483, about $7 million over 10 years, among all the other economic developments that it will bring.”

Handy then challenged the statements made by those who oppose wind development in Seward County.

“Ryan Martin wrote the economic benefit is minimal,” Handy said. “In that same letter he wrote to this county and said, ‘This county was built on oil and gas, agriculture, irrigation, and cattle, but nobody put those to a public vote either.’ Now look at who was asking for this vote. Neil Coffey wrote planning and zoning last December. ‘First, I would like to clearly state that I am not in favor of wind generation.’ Friday he told the paper he's not opposed to wind projects. In the same letter he wrote, ‘I think each and every landowner should have the opportunity to capitalize on the economic returns offered by wind generation developers.’ He is right about that. You cannot say a landowner should have the opportunity and then put that opportunity to a vote of people who do not own his land. He also told the paper, ‘you don't listen to us at all,’ and that on that setback, they didn't touch it. Later in the same article, Mr. Martin says he is glad to see they added 900 to the 1,000 feet. One of them is wrong. The permit is 1,900 feet from every non-participating home. The average in the state is between 1,000 and 1,500 feet.”

He then suggested since most of the public has not seen the agreement, it would not be appropriate to ask them to vote on the project. However, the public would not be voting on the project according to Stanton’s resolution but on the overarching concept of corporate wind farming of any kind. The proposal does not specify a specific project or proposal.

“Commissioner Stanton wrote in the paper in April of 2025 this is a part of the county 99 percent of the Seward County residents have never seen,” Handy said. “Now he wants that 99 percent to decide what happens to it. In April of 2026, Mr. Martin wrote on a suggestion card that he was confident the results would reflect opposition to the 70 to 75 percent range. On Friday, he told the paper, ‘We don't want them no matter what is negotiated.’ He named a number for anyone voted and he says nothing on the merits will change his mind. That is not a man seeking the public's opinion. It’s a man seeking an outcome hoping the delay would deliver it. Those are their words from the record and from Friday's paper.”

Handy said additional information was not needed.

“The public has been heard,” he said. “The application was filed last October. The hearing ran from December through January and February. Then in April, this board voted five to zero on Commissioner Stanton's own motion to keep the record open for more comments in the middle of July. October to July, more than nine months, no one was shut out. In those nine months, Martin told the paper this county got maybe 12 to 18 minutes of input. He himself filed more than a dozen submissions into this record, seven of them in one week in July. Your phone numbers and emails are on the county website. You have asked for the public's input and you've made yourself available.”

Despite 72 percent of respondents requesting a public vote on a scientific survey conducted by Gravis Marketing and a non-scientific survey conducted by the Leader & Times which also received 72 percent of respondents wanting a public vote, Handy question the results.

“You will hear 72 percent of this county wants a vote,” he said. “Wanting a vote is not the same as opposing the project, but take the number. Where are they? No one shows up to these meetings except a few people against the wind. No one calls or writes you guys except that same handful. If that handful is 72 percent, somebody needs remedial math and no one asks for a vote, not once all winter or spring.”

The results of the Gravis Marketing poll were printed in the July 28 edition of the Leader & Times, and the L&T poll was conducted in March.

“Planning and Zoning recommended approval in February,” Handy said. “In your entire record, the first request for a public vote is dated two months after that. They lost, and now they want to vote. This commission approved the same project December on wind, five to nothing, four separate times. No one in the public wanted to vote then either. A straw poll is not one of the factors Kansas requires you to weigh. Waiting on one gains you nothing and costs you the record you have already built. This resolution does not deserve a second tonight.”

Handy then urged the commission to support the wind project without a public advisory vote.

“A company followed every rule you set for a year and a half,” he said. “It has earned an answer on those merits.”