RED WING, Minn. – In another setback for the expansion-minded Daley dairy farm of Lewiston, a judge upheld the ability of the Winona County Board to limit the size of large animal feedlots. Judge Douglas Bayley of Red Wing, who had been assigned to hear the appeal, wrote the decision. The Daleys have been frustrated since 2018 by the county’s refusal to grant an exception to the county lid of 1,500 animals on a feedlot. The Daleys have tried numerous legal and administrative avenues to, as they put it, “grow our business.” The latest Daley lawsuit argued that there was a conspiracy and conflict-of-interest between the Winona County Board and the independent environmentally conscious Land Stewardship Project. The Daleys point: The Count Board had stacked the membership of an advisory zoning agency with LSP people who favored the existing feedlot cap. The Daleys had no basis in facts or in the law for heir claim, Judge Bayley said in a 39-page opinion.
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Verbatim
Bayley: “There simply is no evidence of bias that would justify overturning the Board’s legally and factually supported decision to deny Daley Farm’s variance request.”