LETTER: This is not and will not be OK

Hartford and Jeanne Jackson

Union County

I thought today I would restate how this all started with the moratorium request.

A group of local residents were able to attain 942 signatures from landowners and residents for a moratorium. Our goal has been, and always will be, to protect the residents of Adams County. We have brought these names to this board and have received no merit or even acknowledging the requests of 942 residents who vote here in Adams County for you, this Board of Supervisors. This was a request to pause the county permits coming in for wind turbines until an appropriate ordinance could be put together by you, our board of supervisors. We came before the board of supervisors Feb. 21, 2023, and requested this moratorium with a packet of information, a jump drive to inform and help bring new information to this board. No positive progress has been on this request at this time.

Every Monday our group has sat in on the meetings to learn how the process of developing a wind turbine ordinance was to be done. Every week we were told contradicting statements of how the whole process should work.

Next, the Adams County supervisors were told about the Adams County Comprehensive Plan which was written in 1966. This plan states that Adams County is to be developed as a quiet, conservational, agricultural community. The comprehensive plan is to be used by the supervisors to develop proper ordinances according to this plan. However, now the board of supervisors have realized that putting in industrial turbines in agricultural zoned areas is in contradiction of this plan. The supervisors are realizing this is a legal problem and are attempting to find a firm to help rewrite this to make Adams County an industrial zoned and agricultural zoned area throughout our county. Do we as a county want our county to be an industrial zoned county?

Next, we learned about the Southern Hills Wind Farm Urban Renewal Plan. This urban renewal plan is written with the present comprehensive plan in it. This does not support of our current comprehensive plan. It proposes to have the whole county using wind turbines, in an industrial commercial plan. To offset this huge error the supervisors want to change our comprehensive plan to an industrial zoned plan at a proposed cost of about $30,000 to $100,000, depending on how they vote. Where does the money come from?

Then a draft for the new wind turbine ordinance began to be worked on with our board. This draft was taken from a Chickasaw County ordinance that was written promoting wind turbines. Why can’t our county develop our own ordinance? Here came an another attorney, David Levy, from Omaha to help us write our wind turbine ordinance and the solar farm ordinance for another $10,000 plus?

Meanwhile, our local county attorney declined to assist in developing ordinances and that any “conflict of interest” by a board of supervisor which looked like a financial gain for them or their family meant they should probably recuse. So, we have one recusal so far.

We discovered during all these last eight months that you could borrow from future income from the wind turbines, this is called TIF. This is a shaky thing because we do not know when the wind turbines could be obsolete and all monies borrowed on them would still need to be repaid.

I say all this because we have seen so much money spent for new machinery and new employees and many new people to help us with the whole ordinance procedure.

Our group of constituents have invited in several residents who actually lived by the turbines. An interesting note is that several of the families moved away because of health issues.

My question to the board of supervisors, how much wind turbine finances do we need, when there are currently 108 turbines now? With the cap of maybe 250 total turbines, this will make our county look like Adair? Is that enough money for this county?

The correct process of having the Zoning Commission putting together the wind turbine ordinance and the solar farm ordinance needs to be done by them and not by the supervisors. This is suppose to include public meetings with our input. Again, the zoning commission should not be allowed to make an ordinance when they currently own or intend on getting turbines. Recusal requirements should be the same for the zoning commission and the supervisors.

The reason I review all these facts is because 90% of the voters in Adams County do not want wind turbines. Why should people who do not want turbines be adversely affected by people who do? It looks like we could be bankrupt and borrowing too much. It looks like the wind turbines developers are invited to come in and have free access to do whatever they want and you actually agree with this.

My last statement is that we as landowners have the full Constitutional right to protect our own land and to enjoy it freely as we desire. Yet, some of the board of supervisors still want to measure from the middle of our homes to locate the turbines instead of measuring from our property lines. This is not and will not be OK with any of us who do not desire to have turbines by our properties.