People may not want them in their backyard, but some of us would love some closure on the wind turbine debate.

This just in: Don't hold your breath.

I'm reliably informed not to expect a public meeting about the turbines before the end of January.

And that's in spite of pressure late last week from the Governor's Office in Tallahassee, no less.

County Administrator Doug Anderson said this week that, while the timing of any such public hearing "is up to the Board of County Commissioners, staff is recommending to the board that we wait until after the November elections."

And then, of course, there's the holiday season, Anderson noted, so don't look for anything concrete until late January at the earliest.

Some people feel the County Commission has been dragging its feet on this for months.

Part of the reason is the Nov. 4 election. Commissioner Joe Smith is running for the Clerk to the Court job and there's one other contested race (Chris Craft and Susan Caron).

Come Nov. 5, we could have one or two new county commissioners. Bringing that person (or those persons) up to speed on the turbines issue will take some time, Anderson said.

That's right, confirmed County Commissioner Chris Craft - at one time a big booster of Florida Power & Light Co.'s plans to site turbines on public land. Craft later did a 180, saying the project would fail to be a positive energy gain for the county.

"I've been looking at all the studies FPL did on nesting turtles and migratory bird patterns, and I have serious doubts about whether the project should go ahead at all, but they could come before us tomorrow, as far as I'm concerned," Craft said Monday.

And then there's the money.

Unhappy that the only studies done on the wind turbines' effects on wildlife were done by FPL subsidiary companies, the county began looking for its own consultant back in July.

That could be an expensive proposition. A contract with Jacksonville-based Taylor Engineering Inc. to do those studies could cost in the neighborhood of $500,000.

Obviously, the county doesn't have that sort of pocket change, so "we sent it to FPL" in mid-September asking for a contribution, Anderson said. No response so far from Juno Beach.

But perhaps someone from FPL's head office has been trying to hurry things up.

Anderson and Commissioner Doug Coward took a conference call from the Governor's Office late last week.

They were urged to "to expedite the public meeting process and to get this item before the Board of County Commissioners quickly," Anderson said.

"I explained that January was the most realistic time frame. They made it clear they'd prefer it came to the board before that.

"In the meantime, did you hear about Bill Clinton?"