Editor, The Era-Leader:
The Sept. 14th parish council meeting resulted in an end to the moratorium on utility scale solar plant permitting. I was never given a reason why the moratorium could not have been allowed to run to it's end date of Oct. 9th. That would have been just 25 more days.
There has been some confusion as to what the, Stop The Solar Farm, activist group was trying to achieve through the moratorium. It wasn't stopping anything. It was to have time to review and adopt an updated revised version of the original solar ordinance. A updated version that would have greatly reduced the liability of the parish government and enhance the protection of the parish citizens. And, the council voted against that.
And, the reasons given were varied depending on which councilperson you listened to but, none of them addressed why it was necessary to lift the moratorium with only 25 days left.
Council members spoke of private property owner's rights, and yet they, in their meeting on May 18th, denied a private land owner the right to lease his property for a cell tower.
There were about 5 or 6 people at that meeting who complained about having a cell tower in their community. The council voted no to a conditional use permit for the cell tower effectively telling the land owner what he could not do with his property.
There were 6 times that number of people in the council meeting room protesting lifting the moratorium and yet, despite the Quality-of-Life issues and the weakness of the current ordinance, they voted to lift that moratorium.
Anyone see the hypocrisy in this? Deny one land owner his right to use his property because of the impact on his neighbors and approve another land owner, Weyerhauser, the permit to allow Entergy to build a potentially hazardous waste site on his.
IMHO, the difference is “money”.
The Home Rule Charter gives the parish council broad authority. It also gives a clear boundary. Every action taken by the council must be justified as protecting the “health, safety, and general welfare of Washington Parish.” That standard is not optional.
Resolution 26-1506 stated that the moratorium was enacted “because the general welfare, safety, health, peace, and good order of the Parish are served by temporarily halting new solar and battery storage permits while our ordinances are reviewed and modernized.” This has not been done.
Ben M Sarro, Franklinton
