Dear Editor:
This week I bring you good news and then some bad. First the good news. On January 18 the Stephenville ISD School Board voted (5 -1) to discontinue negotiations with NextEra (Erath County Solar, LLC) a Florida solar company wanting to use about $8 million dollars of our state tax money, rather than pay it themselves. Must be nice not to have to pay your fair share. Most businesses in town don’t have that luxury and are probably struggling right now.
The bad news, on Jan 31, I attended a school board meeting in Comanche where they discussed going back into negations with Hecate Energy for the 11,000-acre reinvestment zone for an industrial solar and battery facility. This lies 3 miles south of town, between Hwy 16 and Hwy 36.
I got to speak from a community perspective and handed out some reading material on the Ch 313 tax abatement on which I have become somewhat knowledgeable over the last 6 months, as I have with all the other issues associated with the whole solar business. There will be some small group meetings early in February with the solar companies and their lawyers and consultants will all be pushing hard for this program. They are good salesmen, they want your $10 million tax dollars after all. The superintendent thought I should not get a seat at the table since I didn’t live in Comanche County. If that is the case, then why are they entertaining a company from Chicago? Well yes, they are the ones with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and I just live a few hundred yards for the county line!! I will however still get my 5 +/-minutes at the meeting, as will all of the Comanche community, for/or against the tax abatement, he can’t stop that. This is your time to speak up, this will be your only time.
The company is looking for about a $10+/-million-dollar tax abatement with the school district through the Ch 313 economic development tax act. Folks this is your state tax dollars handed out to a multimilliondollar corporation from Chicago. This is corporate welfare at it’s best and since the program is running out at the end of the year these companies want your money now!
The public hearing will be at the next school board meeting at the end of February, I urge any adjacent landowners to attend. You will not be able to sell your land once this is built. It will bring many risk factors with it, including fire hazards, eight times the runoff factor and toxic environmental issues.
3,000 acres will be covered with 956,080 solar panels and about 80-90 inverters and substations, just imagine that for a minute. Good agricultural land will be destroyed for many lifetimes. There is no bringing the land back after this is installed. Then there will be the decommissioning problems. Who will take this down when they are done with it? It will cost 1.5 times what it cost to put it up just to take it down, in 20 years the bond they put up will not cover that. They can walk away at any time, they are an LLC, who has no assets and can go bankrupt at any time. Too many risks for the school, the county and community. Come to the school board meeting in Comanche and speak your mind.
Joanna Friebele,
Concerned Citizen, Erath County Resident, Landowner and Taxpayer.