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Floyd County approves indefinite moratorium on utility-scale solar projects

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County supervisors passed an indefinite moratorium on commercial solar energy projects at their meeting Monday morning, after spending several weeks refining the wording.

The resolution, passed on a 3-0 vote, calls for “a temporary moratorium on the installation of utility-scale solar energy projects in the unincorporated areas of Floyd County, Iowa, to allow for the consideration of certain amendments to Floyd County’s Zoning Ordinance that would establish regular procedures for the issuance of permits for utility-scale solar energy projects.”

The permits would be issued to balance objectives, “including especially protecting the health and general welfare of the people of Floyd County, and the promotion of reasonable access to solar energy,” the resolution continues.

The resolution says that no applications for conditional use permits or other permits for the installation of utility-scale solar energy projects shall be accepted until the county zoning rules are amended or until the moratorium is lifted.

All the supervisors have said that the moratorium does not apply to personal solar energy projects used to provide power for individual properties.

The three supervisors have been in agreement that the county needs to establish rules before commercial solar projects are considered.

Supervisors Dennis Keifer and Boyd Campbell have cautioned that the county should do considerable work on gathering information about utility solar energy projects from multiple sources before changing its zoning rules.

Campbell, especially, has said he thinks the county rushed into a proposal for amending county zoning regarding commercial wind energy projects.

That wind energy proposal last year was crafted by the county’s Planning and Zoning Commission over a several-month process and recommended unanimously to the supervisors.

But it was then heavily amended by Keifer and a previous supervisor, and is now the subject of a mediation process trying to come up with a compromise proposal.

Campbell was not a supervisor when the board took up the wind energy proposal, and he is now a member of the wind energy ordinance mediation group, meeting in private to discuss the matter.

Supervisor Gloria Carr said again at the board meeting Monday morning that she didn’t think the solar moratorium resolution was necessary, because there isn’t anything in the existing county zoning ordinance about utility solar project permits or utility solar being a conditional use, so no one can apply for something that doesn’t exist.

But Carr also said she didn’t see any harm in passing the resolution, and voted to support it.

Also at the meeting Monday morning, the board:

• Approved action regarding signing two road resurfacing projects in the county this year to allow the county’s new engineer, Alan Miller, to sign the Iowa Department of Transportation bid-letting documents.

The projects are a 4½ mile resurfacing project with milling on County Road T26, north from the intersection with B45; and a 12.7 mile hot mix asphalt and cold-in-place recycling project on County Road B60 from Highway 14 east 7 miles to T64, and T64 east 5.7 miles to the Nashua city limits.

• Discussed the fiscal year 2025-26 county elected officials salary recommendations from the Floyd County Compensation Board, and agreed to ask the board to show its work how it came up with the recommendations.

The Compensation Board recommended 4.66% salary increases for the county auditor, recorder, treasurer and supervisors, and 9.33% increases for the county attorney and sheriff.

A new state law dissolved previous compensation boards then gave county supervisors the option of either creating a new compensation board – which Floyd County did – or coming up with their own salary increases for county elected officials.

The state law mandates that whichever group starts the process, that it compares county elected officials salaries to similar positions “in other counties of this state, other states, private enterprise, and the federal government.”

It also requires that, regarding the county sheriff salary, the board looks at police chief salaries in cities of similar population to the county’s population, and at salaries paid to professional law enforcement administrators and command officers of the State Patrol and the Division of Criminal Investigation of the Department of Public Safety.

Carr said there was no evidence that the Compensation Board had looked at comparable salaries for each position.

“I’m struggling trying to see how they got to where they are with their recommendations, so I’d like to see their work,” Carr said. “That’s the requirement of the new law is to show your work.”

Supervisor Keifer said he would contact Compensation Board Chair Kalen Schlager and ask him for that documentation.

During the final Compensation Board meeting in December, board member Lisa Garden had voted against the final recommendations, which had been suggested by Kalen, arguing that the board had not done the work with comparable salaries for each office as the Iowa Code required.

• Continued work on the Fiscal Year 2025-26 county budget, which will take effect July 1.

 

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