Business View Magazine | February 2019

288 travel east and southeast, the suitability gets lower and lower. So, I wasn’t really anticipating much demand for a wind farm in Linn County.Then about a year ago, there was one that popped up in Black- hawk County,which is two counties to the north of us, so we thought we’d better get ourselves ahead of the curve a little bit. If a utility company or a wind developer wanted to propose a wind farm in Linn County,where might they propose it and what might some of the issues be that we would need to be aware of in terms of our review process? “So,we partnered with the IISC on this project and they’ve done a bang-up job looking at wind suit- ability specific to Linn County.They’ve taken our ex- isting zoning regulations and from a GIS mapping standpoint identified some opportunities and con- straints for wind farm development.They’re putting together an evaluation guidebook that we can use at the staff level in our analyses. If we ever do get a proposal for a utility scale wind farm, then the in- formation they’re providing for us will be helpful as part of our review of that proposal.The final thing they’re going to do for us is to put together a public outreach effort; we want to gauge the appetite of our residents for alternative and renewable energy development, in general, but then, specifically,what their attitudes are for utility-scale wind farms.” Finally, in a testament to Linn County’s strong support of environmentally-friendly goals and systems, in 2017, the Linn County Board of Supervi- sors unanimously approved a resolution supporting the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement and approved Linn County’s registration in the “We Are Still In”Coalition. Signing the resolution signals Linn County’s commitment to continue honoring the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the prin- ciples of energy efficiency and energy conservation. For that stance, Linn County received a 2017“Sunny Award” from Iowa-350, a grassroots organization focused on sustainability campaigns to preserve a livable planet. PREFERREDVENDOR Rabe Hardware, Inc. Rabe Hardware, Eastern Iowa’s leader for com- fort and energy savings, has seen a steady shift in customer attitudes towards energy efficiency since they opened their doors back in 1979. As the demand for energy continues to grow each year, it’s no surprise that energy consumption and ef-