A meeting was held on the evening of March 28 at the VFW 4436 building to allow Montgomery County landowners to share their concerns about a private power line that could threaten their land, homes and legacy.

Over 100 people attended the two-hour Montgomery-Callaway Connector Educational and Community Concerns meeting. Among the people in attendance were Montgomery County Presiding Commissioner Ryan Poston, county assessor-elect Jeff Porter, State Rep. Bruce Sassmann, Mike Deering of the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association and Ernst Uthlaut of the Montgomery County Farm Bureau.

Guest speakers were Kayden Guymon of the Missouri Farm Bureau, attorney Brent Hayden and Dan Engemann, who is the director of policy of the Office of Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

The meeting focused on how the Grain Belt Express will affect the lives of landowners. The Grain Belt Express is a high-voltage power line that is planned to stretch hundreds of miles throughout the Midwest and cut through private farmland using eminent domain.

The Montgomery-Callaway Connector is part of the Grain Belt Express. Ameren is proposing the Montgomery-Callaway Connector Project, which includes about 30 miles of double circuit, 345 kilovolt transmission line in Montgomery and Callaway counties.

“This is proposed to be constructed between the Burns Substation of Callaway County and the Montgomery County Substation,” Guymon said. “So with that said, right now, Ameren is in the middle of the public engagement process. They had open houses in February, one in Callaway County and one here in Montgomery City. They had maps and a lot of them had proposed lines.”

Bailey, who lives in Rhineland, is against this project. He wrote to the White House on March 6 that adding transmission lines to farmland will be devastating to rural communities, especially Montgomery County.

“Attorney General Bailey has your back on these things,” Engemann said. “He’s a very strong supporter of private property rights. He hates eminent domain. He wants to see reform.”

Marilyn O’Bannon of the Eastern Missouri Landowners Alliance has been fighting the Grain Belt Express issue for 12 years. She commended the Montgomery County Commission for not supporting eminent domain – which gives governments the power to take private land for public use – for the project.

“It’s very helpless,” O’Bannon said. “You go out there and I know how most of you must feel that it doesn’t matter what money they shake at you, you don’t want that money. You just want them not to be on your land.”

Montgomery City resident Bill Dreyer shared a letter about his opposition of the connector project.

“The deeds that we hold as landowners are constitutional guarantees that we as individuals determine the highest use of our own property,” Dreyer said in his letter. “According to the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, no one should be deprived of life, liberty and property without due process. This is the highest law of the land because it guarantees individual liberty.”

Butch Clark and his family created a Facebook page called Save Our Land: Montgomery – Callaway Connector Opposition, which allows anyone to post opinions about the connector project. Clark suggested to anyone who is interested to join the page, then like it and share it.

“Everyone has hundreds of people that they’re connected with,” Clark said. “That’s one of the fastest ways to start a wildfire, shape that public opinion and get a little more political support there, hopefully.”