City of Geneseo, Illinois

Mayor

Answering the Questions From Citizens

Citizens ask about the wind turbines.  I went to Superintendent Opsal with the question and these were some of his responses. Here are some reasons why the turbines are not turning.

1)                       No wind, it takes 7mph wind to start the turbines. Remember this is at 200 feet not ground level and 1000 feet apart so at low winds one my try to start and not the other.

2)                      High winds, the turbines will shut down at 52mph and will restart automatically once winds die down.

3)                       We try to climb the turbines every 2 weeks and visual check all components we have to schedule this 24 hours in advance and we only shut down 1 turbine at a time.

4)                       We do shut down every 6 months for a 6 month service and a 1 year annually maintenance on each turbine this can take up to a week each time per turbine.

5)                       Vensys has control of these turbines from Germany so they can do upgrades to the system. They will shut down the turbines to do software upgrades and restart them when they are done.

6)                       Everything mechanical or electrical will eventually fail. We had loose wire, set screw come loose on a coupling, blown fuse on FAA light; bad switch on a pitch motor.

If you have more questions, please contact me at mayor@cityofgeneseo.com or contact your alderman.  Their contact information is on the City of Geneseo website http://cityofgeneseo.com/  I will select the most asked question and report back to the citizens.

Friday July 23, 2010

Good news about rail service in Geneseo.  The Iowa DOT has asked the City of Geneseo for letters of support for the IA/IL DOT's joint application to the Federal Rail Administration to fund the implementation of passenger rail service between Chicago, Quad Cities and Iowa City.  Please join the City in support of the rail service.   Geneseo will be one of the stops on the route and this will be and outstanding outlet to invite guests to our city and the downtown area as well as offer transportation alternatives for our citizens to Iowa City, Chicago and all stops in between.

Tuesday night while I was at the ice cream social, I was able to meet some visitors from Moline.  They shared with me they have made the trip to Geneseo for years just to attend the ice cream socials.  I know organizing these events takes a lot of time and lots of hours spent baking.  While the socials support each of the non-for-profit organization sponsors, I want to Thank each of them for holding this Geneseo tradition in such high regard.