More on solar panel farms

Solar panel farms continued to be a topic of discussion at last week’s meeting of the Jeff Davis County Commissioners.
During citizens comments, David Desousa asked if the solar farms actions would include an additional bond issue.
Commission Chairman Hank Hobbs answered, “No,” that the commission was revising the existing agreement to which DeSousa said the Jeff Davis County taxpayers were backing up $160,000,000 in bond issuances.
Hobbs explained that the county in no way is backing up those bond issues.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: In the bond issue legal advertisement published in the Ledger and approved by the court some months back, it is stated that, “The Bond shall not constitute a debt of the Issuer (The Joint Development Authority of Jeff Davis County, Hazlehurst and Denton), or a pledge of the faith and credit of the Issuer, the County, the State or any municipality of political subdivision thereof. No holder of the Bond shall ever have the right to compel any exercise of the taxing power of the County, the State or of any municipality or political subdivision thereof to pay the Bond or the debt service thereon, or to enforce payment thereof against any funds or property of the Issuer (other than the Bond Security) or of the County, of the State or of any municipality or political subdivision thereof nor shall the Bond constitute a charge, lien or encumbrance, legal or equitable, upon any funds or property of the issuer (other than the Bond Security) or of the County, of the State or of any municipality or political subdivision thereof.” In a nutshell, the county taxpayers are not backing the bonds issued to raise money for the solar projects in Jeff Davis County. The only funds that can be accessed by any claimant are the funds generated by the sale of the bonds.]
Luke Wilson, representing Silicon Ranch solar farms company, spoke to the commissioners about an amendment to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Silicon and the Joint Development Authority which drew comments from Commissioner Vann Wooten. Wooten said, in the past, when the commissioners approved the MOU, the commission voted on three tracts of land and lots were subsequently added to the project.
“I wasn’t aware of it,” Wooten said, “And I’m not in favor of it.”
Wilson explained that Silicon Ranch couldn’t get all the solar panels in the original tracts of land they purchased, so they had to purchase more land to expand (to get in all the solar panels called for in the MOU).
Wooten said he was still concerned about the number of parcels of land. “If they are going to add those parcels, they need to pay 100% taxes on that,” Wooten said. “There have been several parcels of land that we were not aware of.”
When Wilson explained about the need to expand the parcels of land, Wooten replied, “We should have known what we were voting on. I had in mind we were voting on 2,000 acres and it turned out to be 4,500 acres. Our lawyers should have come back and spoke to us about that, but they didn’t and I have a problem with that.”
Chairman Hobbs reminded Wooten that the tax abatements are not on the acres of land but rather on the equipment being installed on the land. “So the number of tracts of land doesn’t change anything (in the MOU),” he said. “That’s why we didn’t catch it.”
Put a different way, Silicon Ranch is already paying 100% taxes on the tracts of land as Wooten said they should. The tax abatement is not for the land, it is for the solar panel equipment being installed on the land, whether that agreed upon number of panels is on 3,4 or more tracts of land, the abatement amount doesn’t change.
Finally the commissioners agreed unanimously to the change in the MOU.
In other action, the commissioners ….
…. reappointed Jessica Medders to the County Elections Board and reappointed her to serve as chair of the board..
…. appointed Walt Swain as vice-chair of the election board.
…. appointed Charles K. King to the Aging Advisory Board.
…. approved the annual renewal of the County’s contract with Jeff Davis Hospital.
…. heard an update on the Joint Development Authority from Executive Director Laura Bloom.
…. heard from County Administrator Heather Scott who shared the county’s financial position and gave the commissioners an update on the Timber Harvest Notification System. She said the county now has a notification website, requiring anyone harvesting timber to notify the county where and when they will be in the county working. She recommended the commissioners ament the current Timber Ordinance to follow requirements of notification of harvesting. The commissioners approved her recommendation.
…. agreed to have Scott and County Attorney Andy Ramay to look over and amend the Intergovernmental agreement with the City on the Baxley Highway property and to bring it back to the Commissioners and City Council for another review.
…. heard an update from Ramay regarding the event lease used to rent the Jeff Davis County Fairgrounds Tractor Pull Track.
…. heard from Commissioner Ricky Crosby who asked for an update on the ownership of the buildings and equipment at the 1890s Homestead at the fairgrounds. Chairman Hobbs suggested running an ad be run in the newspaper asking those who donated items to contact the commissioners office.
…. heard from Crosby who asked if Wilford Logging had sent a check to cover the damage to Herschel Cravey Road. Scott said no check had been received. Crosby said the road is continuing to be “torn apart.”
In the second round of public comments, Becky Hutto asked which roads would be fixed with the $800,000 given by Silicon Ranch for road repairs. Wooten replied that only Jack Wooten Road and McCall Road would be fixed. Repairing all the damaged roads, he said, was a $2.5 million project.
DeSousa again brought up the Silicon Ranch saying when the ad ran in the paper in 2021, he believed it said it was guaranteed by the taxpayers of Jeff Davis County (see Editor’s Note above).