Wortel said self-sufficiency should be the goal — she called it “re-localizing our economy” — by making our own energy and selling it to ourselves.

“Just in general, renewable energy brings a lot of local jobs for those engineering graduates as well as highly skilled trade jobs,” she said.

She called the financial crisis a “a failure of the free-market system.”

Piepho answered right after Wortel, and his position demonstrated a clear difference.

“We are in a global economy though, despite rumors to the contrary,” he said.

Renewable energy growth is good, Piepho said, but those windmills in southwest Minnesota are manufactured by an Indian company, and the county’s goal should be to entice employers with low tax rates.

There was a question about the social host ordinance recently passed by the city that makes it a crime to provide a venue for underage drinking.

Frederick jumped on the issue, calling it “a prime example of where the city of Mankato kinda didn’t do all of its homework and didn’t talk to all the constituent groups in Mankato.”

He repeated the concern, often expressed by students, that innocent people would be held responsible for roommates who hold parties and invite minors.

Laven countered that “a lot of people weighed in on that issue ... landlords did, renters did, the business community did, the bars did.”

He went on to say that the council listened but can’t expect to please everyone.

Wortel said the County Board didn’t act because there was a “mixture of opinion” among commissioners, but she supported it.

Piepho stressed personal responsibility, saying “we have to treat young people as adults.”

Mattick said he wouldn’t have supported it for reasons similar to Piepho’s, and Hurd said he was absent during that vote but would have opposed it because he wanted it to be tested elsewhere.

The next question was about improving relations between students and other city residents, and most responded that more communication would help.