Entenza wants to bring a wind turbine plant to your town
DFL gubernatorial candidate Matt Entenza says Duluth would be a great place to build a new wind turbine factory... and so would Bemidji... and so would St. Cloud.
"Clean energy jobs" are a cornerstone of Entenza's campaign. He promises to create 50,000 of them if he's elected governor.
In a July 10 Star Tribune op-ed, he blamed the Pawlenty administration and the Legislature for not attracting a German turbine manufacturer to Duluth:
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Though Minnesota has massive wind-power potential, wind-power manufacturing has gone elsewhere because of poor leadership at the Capitol. An infuriating example of this is the German wind-turbine company Fuhrlander's recent choice of Butte, Mont., over Duluth, costing Minnesota 1,300 well-paying jobs. Talk to Minnesotans up in Duluth, and they'll tell you it wasn't for lack of local effort that Fuhrlander skipped over Minnesota; it was disinterest at the Capitol.
At campaign whistle-stops he's told at least two other communities they would make perfect "hubs" for wind turbine manufacturing as well.
Entenza told the Bemidji Pioneer its home town was one of them:
"The Beltrami County area is the perfect area for that sort manufacturing because you're the transportation hub for the area," [Entenza said.]
And he made a similar comment to the St. Cloud Times on July 14th:
Minnesota should mimic Iowa's approach of state government, working with local communities to create jobs in wind-turbine manufacturing, Entenza said.
"St. Cloud is the right kind of hub for those kind of manufacturing jobs," Entenza said.
MPR News intern Rose Friedman contributed to this report.