Halifax County supervisors reject change to ordinance for solar

Small scale solar farms, broadband issues and concerning tax notifications were the hot-button topics at the Halifax County Board of Supervisors meeting on Monday night.

The main item on the agenda for the meeting was the decision to approve a zoning amendment to allow community/shared solar facilities in the county’s M-1 industrial, limited district and M-2 industrial, general district, by conditional use permit.

Following a motion from Stanley Brandon, vice chair who also represents Election District 6, the board took a roll call vote in which all eight supervisors voted to not allow small scale solar farms into the M-1 and M-2 districts.

This zoning amendment proposal came as a recommendation from the Halifax County Planning Commission due to requests from Dominion Energy to change the ordinance. Although Dominion has not submitted a formal application for solar facilities, the company was keeping its eyes on a plot of land in the district for a future solar energy site.

The supervisors opened the floor to discussion among the board before the vote as to whether or not to approve the amendment, where it was met with opposition.

“I feel they aren’t ready for solar yet in that industrial district,” said Election District 4 supervisor Dennis Witt. “We haven’t talked about it in the comprehensive plan, any plot you take from M-1, you reduce planning and development for other industries which is the purpose of M-1.”

Election District 2 supervisor Larry Roller agreed with Witt, adding that “with the district being for business and job development, solar would take away from that.”

Community/shared solar energy facilities are defined as having a rated capacity between 200 kilowatts and 5 megawatts. Currently, community/shared solar energy facilities are allowed in the county’s A-1 agricultural districts, with the issuance of a conditional use permit.

Election District 5 Supervisor Robbie Smart added his opinions to the discussion, stating that “we have spent a lot of time and money to make M-1 and M-2 ready for business development in the district. Solar takes up a lot of space that can be used for other industries.”

The board was initially slated to vote on small-scale data centers within the A-I agricultural district by conditional use permit only, however at the request of Election District 7 supervisor Keith McDowell, the vote was moved until the next meeting.

During the citizen comments period of the meeting, concerns were raised around the Halifax County Treasurer’s Office and handling of personal property taxes in the last few months.

Mattie Cowan, chair of the Halifax County Planning Commission, presented the supervisors with a letter on behalf of her daughter. In this letter, she stated her “profound disappointment with the service delivered by the treasurer’s office.”

She stated that she believes the office seems incapable of accurately informing taxpayers of the amounts necessary to pay. When her daughter went to the office to pay her taxes at the beginning of December, she was quoted an amount by the clerk and paid the amount in full, Cowan said in the open meeting. At the beginning of February, she stated that a notice was placed on her daughter’s door indicating that she had delinquent taxes.

“At the time of receiving the notice, my daughter was on the West Coast for work,” Cowan’s letter shared. At the request of her daughter, Cowan went to the treasurer’s office to see what the issue was, and she said that when she brought the situation to the clerk, she was informed her daughter did not pay all of her taxes.

“I inquired why, when a person asks to pay their taxes, the office does not provide the full amount due,” Cowan said. According to the clerk, it was because of the “commonality of names” that made it challenging to locate the full record of what a citizen owes.

Cowan stated that her daughter does not have a common last name, so it should not have been difficult to distinguish her from other taxpayers. After discussing the matter with Ruth Oaks, the treasurer for Halifax County, she urged the board to address the “inefficiency and lack of proper checks in the treasurer’s office,” and to adequately train their staff to handle the influx of taxpayers during the holiday.

Cowan was not the only resident with woes concerning the treasurer’s office.

Ronnie Duffey of Halifax asked the board to urge the treasurer’s office to send reminder notices for residents when they receive their taxes. He told the supervisors that “a lot of county members are on a fixed income, if they’re needing to pay late fees because they can’t remember the due date, it takes away from money for other necessities.”

Michael Wilkerson of Clover also shared that he went to pay personal property taxes on a vehicle on behalf of a disabled friend who was unable to come in person.

“This friend was told that their property would be seized if the taxes were not paid,” said Wilkerson. He went on to say that when he was sharing his complaints with the clerk, Oaks was “on her way out the door and turned around when she heard the word complaint.”

He said that Oaks asked him, “Don’t you think she ought to pay her taxes?” After asking Oaks why there was no other notification given that his friend was delinquent in her taxes aside from a note of repossession, he claimed she said, “Next time I’m going to put a boot on it.”

After hearing the comments from the residents, Election District 3 Supervisor Hubert Pannell said that he was “disturbed by the comments concerning taxes.” He stated that he has heard these concerns many times, and believes that the board should not be having this type of incident with the citizens of the county.

“It’s uncalled for and something has to be done,” he continued. “It has to be an answer as to why these things happen, not just ‘I do what I want to do.’”

Halifax County Board of Supervisors Chair Bryant Claiborne agreed with Pannell and requested that the treasurer and commissioner of revenue attend meetings in the future, so that they may address these issues in the future in front of the board.

The topic of broadband brought forth a passionate discussion from the supervisors as well, following an update from Halifax County Administrator Scott Simpson. Simpson shared that he and McDowell were working together on ongoing issues with Brightspeed’s service, but haven’t received any word about the solution.

There have been a number of reports from various parts of the county from Brightspeed customers that have had lengthy delays and outages in their broadband and home phone service.

McDowell shared information from a letter from one of his constituents that said their Brightspeed lines had been out for three weeks. When the resident attempted to contact Brightspeed about this issue, he was told that the technicians were told they are not allowed to fix the lines, for reasons not disclosed.

“I am not sure what we need to do, but citizens are fed up,” said Pannell. “Customers are not getting their services and it’s just getting to be messy.” He asked Simpson to put extra heat onto Brightspeed, sharing that he believed phone calls are not doing enough.

Brandon said that during the last broadband committee meeting, in the over 200 complaints received, only three were for the county’s other broadband provider Empower and the rest were about Brightspeed.

“My opinion, and strictly my opinion, is that if they won’t fix my line and my service is knocked out, they just want to act like they’re providing any help,” said Brandon. “Elderly people rely on broadband heavily, we are playing with fire here.”

Brandon asked the board and administrators to send someone to the State Corporation Commission to represent Halifax County and attempt to get the issues resolved.

Claiborne shared that he believed the county should go a step further and take the issue to the Federal Communications Commission, but that the board should leave it to the county attorneys to decide.

Other various updates around the county were also shared at the meeting, including the public safety committee’s recommendation to utilize the Active 911 mobile application to ease the traffic on the county’s emergency response pager system.

This app would allow dispatch to page first responders through the phone and even via SMS text messaging. A $27,000 annual contract would provide the service for up to 400 users, which is compared to the $750,000 required to update the pager system.

Simpson shared that it would be a “great first step” in easing the pager system, which is separate from the radio system utilized.

Simpson also shared that the county had received a grant to replace the fire department’s burn building behind the Halifax County Middle School. The grant for $480,000 would assist in the three-part process for the site, which includes demolishing the existing building, procuring the materials and the engineering plans, as well as going to a competitive bid to have a company come in and build the new building.