Bourbon County finds itself in the singular position of having every county commissioner joined with a few landowners as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the county commissioners. Like most people in Bourbon County, I want to see more industries come to the county. Also, like most people, I want my county representatives to be fully engaged in carefully understanding any potential side effects, finding ways to address concerns, balancing risks, and working hard to facilitate healthy growth without throwing up unnecessary roadblocks.

The lawsuit creates an extraordinary state of affairs that has made me question whether the concerns of people like me were being represented fairly. I reached out to my commissioner, asking how he felt they could fairly represent all their constituents as a whole while actively joining a few citizens in a lawsuit against the county. I explained that this seemed like a pretty significant conflict of interest, but I wanted to have an open mind and hear what he had to say before fully forming an opinion.

I’d encourage you to ask your commissioner the same question. After carefully reading my commissioner’s position and re-reading the lawsuit a few times, I now have no doubt that the commissioners have positioned themselves such that it is impossible for them to make decisions for the best of the county as a whole—especially when it comes to working with solar companies. Whether the commissioners win or lose in their lawsuit against the county, the citizens lose by being deprived of commissioners who can ethically execute their duties.

I recognize that in their capacity as individuals on the lawsuit, they think they are doing something good for the county, but they are no longer merely private individuals. Their activities that may have started as individuals ruin their ability to function as commissioners for the county in this matter. Citizens should want commissioners who are sympathetic and will listen to the claims of the landowners who want to bar their neighbors from renting land to solar companies. However, remaining party to a lawsuit suing the county creates conflicts that prevent them from fairly executing their duties.

As plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the commissioners are making a bet that they can sue themselves to undo their predecessors’ decisions. Should they succeed as plaintiffs, it would catastrophically undermine the ability of this and future commissions to make agreements with any business that wants to expand into the county. It would likely expose the county and taxpayers to much larger lawsuits from landowners who have signed contracts to lease their land. It is hard to imagine any way for the commissioners to work with their defense lawyer and try to bring the lawsuit to an end to preserve taxpayers’ money while simultaneously funding and participating in the lawsuit as plaintiffs who are trying to take the lawsuit all the way to trial. Even for people who oppose industrial solar in any form, a win for the plaintiffs could hardly be seen as a net positive once the collateral damage is accounted for.

It appears to me that the most likely outcome is for the county to win the defense against the lawsuit, even with the commissioners’ best efforts as plaintiffs to make the county lose. In the scenario where the county wins the lawsuit, the commissioners will have squandered their ability to work with solar companies to address citizens’ concerns during the time that those concerns have the best chance of being addressed.

This isn’t hypothetical. Advance Power tried to have a meeting with the public on March 19th. This is precisely the sort of meeting that constituents would want the commissioners to attend. They could hear citizens’ concerns along with the solar company’s responses and information. However, the commissioners let everyone know they were refusing to attend, saying, “With everything that’s going on and things that we’re working on, we’re not going to associate ourselves with them at this point in time.”

Their response makes perfect sense from the standpoint of an individual who is suing both the solar companies and the county commissioners, but it is the exact opposite of the type of leadership we need from our commissioners. The commissioners are spending their personal money to sue the county and spending your taxpayer money to defend against their lawsuit.

As citizens of the county, we all have a vested interest in seeing our county commissioners remove themselves from this lawsuit as soon as possible so they can fully function in their capacity as our elected representatives, free of the ethical conflicts with which they are currently encumbered.

Based on all of this, I have asked my commissioner to drop himself from the lawsuit so he can function as a representative of all his constituents. I would encourage you to do the same.

Mark Shead

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