Commission approves more than 10 amendments to county solar ordinance

The Montgomery County Zoning Commission has taken the first steps towards modifying a hotly-contested ordinance for solar farms, which was approved by the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors at its Feb. 22 meeting.
The commission met in regular session March 30 to discuss the potential changes. Before proceeding with discussion, Commission Member Vicky Rossander asked for a point of personal privilege, as a member of good standing of the commission, to speak to a variety of issues before they started discussion.
The request was approved by Commission Chairman Bryant Amos. Rossander said she did not understand why the commission, at a meeting in January, deemed the ordinance that had errors and omissions, as good enough.
“As a retired high school business teacher, I cannot understand why any of you would believe a standard of good enough, on any level, is acceptable. I have assigned many research papers to my students in the past, and if they had turned in that paper with spelling and formatting errors, and inconsistent word usage, I would have given it back to them, and they would have been expected to fix those errors,” Rossander said.
Rossander felt the process used for the adoption of the ordinance was flawed from the start, and that it was her understanding several meetings would be held to discuss the new ordinance, allowing her to have ample opportunity to ask questions, seek clarification, and give input. She felt nothing could have been further from the truth.
“This body met exactly twice and spent less than two hours in total working on this ordinance before it was voted to send it forward to the Board of Supervisors. According to the assistant county attorney, this is the first ordinance the county has written from scratch in more than 30 years, and we spent two hours working on it,” stated Rossander.
Rossander added she had done her due diligence and was comfortable in her recommendations to amend the ordinance.
The commission then voted to ratify the vote on the ordinance. Amos said questions had been raised whether the initial approval vote on Oct. 13, 2021, with only three members present, was enough.
“The legal advice is, rather than to fight this, and have all the work that has been done go for naught, was to ratify the vote that was taken then. With a ratification, this issue is taken off the table,” Amos said.
The ratification was approved by a 5-1 vote, with Rossander voting no. Amos then opened the meeting to public comment, a final opportunity for the public to comment about the ordinance before discussions took place for amendments.
Barb Nelson of rural Stanton was first to speak. Nelson said she was a big proponent of solar energy, and wanted an ordinance that was clearly-delineated to protect the county, its residents, and the companies that wanted to build solar installations in the county.
“I am concerned that the current ordinance is not clear or specific enough to avoid the problems that Page County has had with its wind power ordinance. We have to be able to look at an ordinance as a document that leaves little question as to what it means, so there is a common understanding of the requirements, and so that our county attorney can defend it if it becomes necessary,” advised Nelson.
Next to speak was Tripp Narup of Villisca. Narup echoed sentiments that the solar ordinance was extremely important and needed to be correct.
“There is a possibility of contracts being written worth tens of millions of dollars, and it’s important that we get it right. I think what’s most important is having our county attorney sign off on whatever ordinance is presented,” Narup commented.
Jan Norris of rural Red Oak also spoke about the ordinance, and said she was looking to avoid any potential problems like those being faced in Page County in regards to their wind ordnance.
“As a county taxpayer, I would like to feel assured the members of the various county boards and commissions are doing all they could to protect the county from the extensive burden of litigation,” said Norris.
Maggie McQuown of rural Red Oak also spoke, and said she commended the Planning and Zoning Board for reconvening to review the ordinance.
“I encourage enhancements, revisions, and deletions to make the ordinance as concise, unambiguous, and enforceable as possible,” McQuown said.
Before the commission moved into discussion on amending the county’s ordinance, Rossander made a motion to amend Montgomery County’s ordinance by substitution.
“My suggestion is that we simply substitute the entire ordinance and use the Mills County ordinance. It’s cleaner, it’s faster, it’s well-written, and it will save us hours of trying to fix our own ordinance,” Rossander advised.
Rossander also had a copy of the Mills County ordinance that was given to other members of the commission for review. Rossander’s motion died for lack of a second. Commission Member Randy Pendleton clarified he wasn’t against the proposal, but since he was seeing the ordinance for the first time at the meeting, he declined to second.
“On such a short notice, and without having the opportunity to go through it and compare it with our existing ordinance, it’s a long process,” Pendleton said.
The commission then moved into discussion on amendments to the ordinance. Rossander lamented about action being taken on the ordinance at that meeting, rather than prior.
“We have stacks of information here that have been given to this body by other people. When I tried to share with you my concerns months ago about this ordinance, before it went to the supervisors, you folks refused to even let me have a discussion about it,” Rossander said.
Commission Member Naomi McCunn said they did not get the fixes done then, but they could now proceed with getting fixes and amendments in now.
The commission agreed that punctuation and spelling, would simply be edited by zoning administrator Barry Byers. All told, more than 10 amendments to the ordinance were unanimously approved by the commission members.
Several items were also discussed, but no formal action was taken until they could be further researched by Byers, such as noise abatement for property owners adjacent to the potential solar farms.
Rossander asked how long it would take for the next steps to proceed with finalizing the proposed amendments.
“I’ll have to research, and talk to county attorney Drew Swanson. I’m guessing at the earliest it will be four weeks before we can proceed with the amendments at a future meeting,” Byers explained.