WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is telling voters in Ohio, already wracked by high unemployment, that investments in clean-energy technologies will help boost the nation's economy.


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Obama planned to use his visit Friday to test-drive an aggressive populist push on jobs, a top concern for voters across the country as the White House begins a message shift heading into fall elections expected to be difficult for Democrats.

Obama was meeting with voters in the northeast part of Ohio, where steel mills have given way to rust. Statewide, unemployment stands at 10.6 percent.

A town hall session was on Obama's public schedule at Lorain County Community College, near Cleveland. He was last in the county ahead of the state's March 2008 presidential primary, when he delivered a speech on the economy at a drywall factory that closed two months later.

Obama was expected to note such challenges as he spends a day in the state that delivered him a victory in his 2008 campaign but is shaping up to be a tough haul heading into elections for an open Senate seat and the governor's office as well as the House delegation.

Officials are tinkering with a revamped Obama message in the face of a potentially disastrous political shift that, on Tuesday, elected Massachusetts Republican state Sen. Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate in a seat long occupied by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Obama looked to Ohio to reset his record with a campaign-style day, complete with a tour of a wind turbine plant and visits with local leaders. He also sought to harness the energy of the campaign trail that he mastered during a two-year campaign for president.

At the White House on Thursday, he stridently challenged Wall Street and urged Congress to limit banks' size and practices.

"If these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have," Obama said.

His reaction to a Supreme Court decision rolling back limits on campaign donations by big business was stern. He charged that the decision would allow wealthy special interests to "drown out the voices of everyday Americans" and promised a "forceful response."

Obama then went before dozens of mayors to trumpet his efforts to alleviate economic pain.

"You can expect a continued, sustained and relentless effort to create good jobs for the American people," he declared.

It wasn't the way Obama wanted to mark this week's first anniversary of his presidency. Nonetheless, a chastened but determined White House team, populated with campaign-seasoned aides accustomed to near-death moments, began to grapple with the implications and chart a path forward after the Brown victory.

(Copyright ©2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Steel Winds project will add six windmills
By Barbara O’Brien and Robert J. McCarthy
NEWS STAFF REPORTERS

Six new windmills will be built on the old Bethlehem Steel site this year, and the state is announcing plans to study construction of other windmills — although smaller — at local Thruway interchanges.

First Wind, the company behind the Steel Winds project at the former Bethlehem Steel site, plans to build four new turbines on the Hamburg side of the site and two more in Lackawanna, according to First Wind spokesman John Lamontagne.

“We hope to build sometime this year, I couldn’t tell you when,” Lamontagne said.

The new towers will be about 240 feet tall, and with the blades, the windmills will be about 400 feet tall, Lamontagne said. They are the same as the eight turbines that the company operates along the Lackawanna shoreline. Problems encountered two years ago with the gearboxes and blades have been addressed, he said.

“They’re running fine and operating well,” Lamontagne.

Frontier Central School District and the Town of Hamburg will split most of the payments for the turbines.

While the project is tax exempt, First Wind agreed to a payment in lieu of taxes of $10,000 for each megawatt generated by the turbines, Hamburg Supervisor Steven J. Walters said.

“We don’t know the figures of what we’re going to get because nothing’s been built yet,” he said.

First Wind’s payment in lieu of taxes will be divided among Erie County, the town and the school district. Walters said he expects the county to receive between 5 percent and 10 percent.

“It’s now our responsibility to reach out to the county and work out with the county what their percentage will be,” Walters said.

After the county takes its share, the town will receive 51.5 percent, and Frontier schools will get 48.5 percent of the remainder under an agreement between Hamburg and the school district.

He said the town will receive the largest percentage because most of the regulation and monitoring of the turbines will fall to the town.

Meanwhile, the Thruway Authority announced Friday it will seek proposals from the wind turbine industry to assess the feasibility of constructing “medium-sized” windmills at six Thruway sites in Western New York.

The idea is to determine if the authority could generate power from the machines to sustain many of its own operations and possibly sell excess power back to the grid, spokeswoman Betsy Graham said.

“We think this goes a long way to offset our utility costs, and in turn, protect and enhance the environment,” she said.

The interchanges under study for turbines are Batavia, Eden-Angola, Silver Creek, Dunkirk, Westfield and Ripley.

Graham said the proposed turbines are not as big as those n the Bethlehem Steel site and will be appropriately sized for the Thruway properties at the exits. She said the studies will also determine if wind velocity at the six sites is strong enough to sustain the proposed turbines. It is expected the authority will make a final decision on the idea this summer, Graham added.

“The Thruway Authority is eager to hear from the wind power development industry as to how it can work towards a more sustainable environment and making New York a greener state, benefiting all New Yorkers,” said Thruway Executive Director Michael R. Fleischer.

The plan is also part of Gov. David A. Paterson’s objective of meeting 45 percent of the state’s electricity needs through energy efficiency and renewable energy.

“Last month, I accepted the State Energy Plan which provides a detailed road map for achieving this clean energy target, and one of the recommendations is to inventory state-owned land that is suitable for renewable energy development,” Paterson said. “I commend the Thruway Authority for acting so swiftly to help us implement this piece of the State Energy Plan.”

bobrien@buffnews.com and rmccarthy@buffnews.com

Wind money keeps Cohocton above state economic crisis

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By Justin Head
The Evening Tribune
Fri Jan 08, 2010, 12:30 PM EST

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Cohocton, N.Y. -
According to town Supervisor Jack Zigenfus, the Town of Cohocton accepted a $837,500 community host payment from the wind energy developer First Wind Monday.

The funds, the supervisor said, will keep Cohocton stable as the state’s economic crisis worsens.

“It’s really a blessing in disguise for the town’s economy. When we started this project so many years ago we didn’t know this financial disaster would occur and I think we’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg. The real disaster is below the water ... We’re just very fortunate that we have this revenue stream. We are going to be well prepared in the next two to three years to weather this storm,” said Zigenfus Thursday.

First Wind has operated a 50-turbine wind farm on top of Pine, Lent, Dutch and Brown hills in Cohocton since 2008.

In addition to the host payment, — the third Cohocton has received to date — the town will also be provided with $100,000 by April 1 to fix roads damaged by cranes and other equipment, according to Zigenfus.

“Through our due diligence to taxpayers we said we wanted some guarantee they were going to repair the roads they used,” he said, adding the majority of the money will be used to fix Davis Hollow and Dutch Hill roads.

Zigenfus said First Wind paid the town $315,000 and the Village of Cohocton $20,000 for road repairs in 2009 through a negotiated agreement.

According to the supervisor, the amount the Town of Cohocton has raised by taxes has dropped 60 percent in the past two years. Zigenfus said in 2007 residents were paying $4.18 per thousand dollars of assessed property value and now they are paying $2.90 per thousand dollars of assessed property value.

The First Wind payments make up about half of the town’s roughly $1.8 million budget, according to Zigenfus.

The surplus of money has allowed the town to budget $220,000 for the purchase of a new highway department truck and plow and pickup truck, as well as money for improvements to the Lawrence Parks recreation area and development plans for highway department facility improvement.

“There really isn’t as much controversy in the area as one would think. There is not more than a handful of these anti-wind people. When we were up for election we won by huge margins ... if people don’t like the decisions you make they let you know at the polls,” said Zigenfus.

PRESS RELEASE
January 6, 2010

ON JANUARY 4TH 2009 THE TOWN OF COHOCTON RECEIVED ITS COMMUNITY HOST PAYMENT FROM THE TOWNS WIND ENERGY COMPANY, FIRST WIND.

THIS PAYMENT OF $837,500.00 WAS THE 3RD PAYMENT TO THE TOWN. THIS IS THE ONLY WIND FARM IN STEUBEN COUNTY AND HAS TURNED OUT TO BE A BLESSING IN DISGUISE FOR THE TOWNS ECONOMY.

THE TOWNS BUDGET WAS ADPOTED BASED ON THE ANTICIPATED REVENUE FROM THE WIND FARM AND UNDER THE BUDGET THE MONIES:
• MAINTAIN THE 60% DECREASE IN THE AMOUNT OF TAXES IT RAISES FROM LANDOWNERS.
• ALLOWS FOR $220,000.00 FOR PURCHASE OF NEW HIGHWAY EQUIPMENT.
• CONTINUE IMPROVEMENTS AT THE LAWRENCE PARKS RECREATIONAL AREA.
• DEVELOP PLANS FOR FUTURE HIGHWAY FACILITES IMPROVEMENTS.

IN ADDITION TO THE HOST PAYMENT THE TOWN WILL ALSO RECEIVE $100,000.00 FOR THE IMPROVEMENT AND RECONSTRUCTION OF ROADS IN THE TOWN.

THE TOWN OF COHOCTON IS IN VERY GOOD FINANCIAL CONDITION AND HAS PREPARED ITSELF FOR THE NEXT 2 TO 3 YEARS OF FEDERAL, STATE AND COUNTY FISCAL DISASTER.