{"id":4883,"date":"2009-06-04T07:33:29","date_gmt":"2009-06-04T12:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4883"},"modified":"2009-06-04T07:33:29","modified_gmt":"2009-06-04T12:33:29","slug":"patience-is-a-virtue-henco-voters-are-paragons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=4883","title":{"rendered":"Patience Is A Virtue; Henco Voters Are Paragons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff Johnson’s “Hennepin County Taxpayer Watchdog” blog is one of my favorite new blogs.\u00a0 Every county should have one, provided every county in Minnesota has someone in it who’s dedicated to kicking butt for taxpayers.\u00a0 Sadly, many don’t.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Jeff took on one of the propaganda points that always attend “green” projects: “they’ll save money”.<\/p>\n

In this case, Johnson looks at a solar panel project<\/a> at a Henco public works building in Medina that purportedly would save Henco taxpayers “$15,000 per year”.<\/p>\n

Jeff just wanted to know; when?<\/p>\n

Before I provide you the answer to my question, let me say that there is no magic pay-off period for such projects. Some argue that an energy conservation project is successful if it pays for itself in 7 to 8 years. Others argue it can be 10 to 12. I\u2019ve even heard a few people argue that it should be slightly longer than that, based on the positive effect (regardless of how small) such projects allegedly have on the environment. I don\u2019t have a firm opinion yet as to where I fall on the pay-off period, but I\u2019m certainly comfortable with something in the 10-year range for a project such as this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So how long will <\/em>the Henco taxpayer have to wait to see a return on their “investment”?<\/p>\n

The Public Works Solar Panels? Well, after some explanation to me about how this project is not \u201call about the bottom line\u201d I learned that they cost about $900,000.<\/p>\n

Yes, these solar panels will begin to save the taxpayers of Hennepin County $15,000 per year in 2070. My 5th grade son, Thor, will be 71. I will be dead. And I\u2019m willing to wager that the Hennepin County Public Works building in Medina will be long gone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But on the bright side, we’ll still be paying off the deficit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Johnson’s “Hennepin County Taxpayer Watchdog” blog is one of my favorite new blogs.\u00a0 Every county should have one, provided every county in Minnesota has someone in it who’s dedicated to kicking butt for taxpayers.\u00a0 Sadly, many don’t. Earlier this week, Jeff took on one of the propaganda points that always attend “green” projects: “they’ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minneapolis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}