The agenda for the Greene County board of supervisors’ July 5 meeting was scant. The only items of new business were approving the June 30, 2022 cash count (end of Fiscal Year 2022); hearing the recorder’s quarterly report of fees and the auditor’s quarterly passport report; and approving hiring Christopher Anderson as PRN (as needed) EMT for Greene County Ambulance. Anderson will be paid $4 per hour when on-call and $17 an hour while in the ambulance.
The “meat” of the meeting was in the Reports portion. Supervisor Mick Burkett and county zoning official Chuck Wenthold reported attending a public meeting June 27 held by Grand Junction Solar concerning the proposed solar project there. Wenthold asked the supervisors to be ready next week to discuss what should be included in a new county ordinance regarding solar energy installations, as several comments at the public meeting were concerning setbacks from dwellings and screens to decrease the view of the solar panels.
County attorney Thomas Laehn said a new ordinance could be included in the recodification of ordinances he’s already working on. The supervisors enacted a 6-month moratorium on utility-scale solar projects in March, and revising or deleting it will be part of the recodification.
Laehn hopes to have a first draft completed in early August. He reminded the supervisors a public hearing on the recodification is a necessary step in enacting it.
Wenthold later told GreeneCountyNewsOnline that 15-20 counties have solar ordinances that range in length and complexity from one page to several pages.
County engineer Wade Weiss reported the secondary roads department is putting in a new driveway at the Horan Cemetery in Kendrick Township. That pioneer cemetery was a cause of concern in the spring when it was discovered the boundaries had been encroached and there was worry graves had been disturbed.
Weiss also told the supervisors he plans to attend a meeting of the Highway 30 Coalition later this week. He hopes to learn the status of a study the coalition hired Snyder and Associates to complete of the economic impact and traffic loads of a Super-2 highway through Boone, Greene and Carroll counties.
The Clinton County supervisors passed a resolution against changing Highway 30 in that county to a Super-2 rather than a full four-lane highway, Weiss said. He suggested the supervisors talk with Laehn at a future meeting about the legality of a similar resolution in the case of Greene County.
