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Regular Council Meeting <br />8-18-08 <br />Page 7 <br />? <br /> <br /> <br />and that Mr. Hehr does not have to have the person who lives across from him or down from him <br />one space with a drill in their backyard and Mr. Hehr has to look at it just as much as they do <br />every morning. <br />Mayor Rinker stated that unfortunately geology dictates a certain amount of it. The market <br />dictates a certain amount as far as any kind of hard cost that someone is going to put into drilling. <br />We know that they can drill laterally to a certain extent. These things are pretty deep. We are <br />talking close to a mile in some instances as far as what you are doing. Apart from that, Mayor <br />Rinker's understanding of a consortium, without creating false hopes, would be in all likelihood <br />limiting the overall number of wells and to some extent their location. Somewhere, someone is <br />going to be near a well and they are not going to like it no matter what we do. <br />We have been very cautious to put it mildly in trying to discuss this. We began this right after <br />Thanksgiving. We had a couple of ineetings. There was that big blowout in Russell Townships <br />and a number of the companies simply backed off because they got understandably gun-shy. We <br />have tried to conduct a certain number of educational meetings. starting in May. We had a steady <br />number of those discussions. These leases benefit the community in terms of these are dollars <br />going to a general fund. This is a source of revenue. That is something we always have a <br />responsibility collectively to manage those dollars wisely. We don't always succeed but we try <br />to. In other words we are trying to negotiate something that in good faith will benefit the <br />community. <br />Everything has a cost. Everything has a certain amount of risk. The downside is these aren't <br />pretty. They can be managed better in some areas than not. In our lease negotiations, we want to <br />put in -there terms of landscaping, trying to bond to protect infrastructure. Unfortunately the <br />actual site is sometimes less of a problem than the preparation of it, the collateral damage and <br />then reparation of that. Whether in a consortium or whether we go into these kinds of lease <br />arrangements, Mayor Rinker doubts that there is going to be a huge difference in those. It is fair <br />to state that we are trying to see if there is a better way to build this mousetrap. <br />Mr. Hehr believes in what Mayor Rinker is saying as far as developing appropriately, as a <br />member of the community, if it was determined to be in the best interest of the community to <br />have his mineral rights mined. He is not arguing whether or not his mineral rights should be <br />contributed because if it is in the best interests of the community, he would certainly accept that. <br />Mayor Rinker said the question is how many people agree with you? How do we communicate <br />it, how do we set it up? That is a challenge and it is not appropriate for us to say that because it <br />is a challenge, we won't do it. It is a logistical challenge. <br />Mr. Hehr asked if getting it on a ballot is an appropriate response. Mayor Rinker candidly does <br />not know the answer to this. In one aspect these issues cannot be voted. If we were to create <br />some type of an entity voters would have a chance to. It's more property ownership than it is <br />suffrage.