Nottoway Supervisor John Roark says debate about solar farms here is showing national politics at its worst.
“You’ve got conservatives telling me, ‘Keep my taxes low and don’t tell me what to do with my property.’ But because the Democratic Party said, ‘Go green,’ now they’re willing to tell their fellow conservatives what they can and can’t do with their land. It’s ripping at the moral fabric of people here locally. It’s ugly and it makes no sense…If you’re not going to buy the land from these farmers who want to develop it, and develop it yourself into something, I don’t know that you’ve got a dog in the fight. It’s their property — their property.”
Roark made those comments during a Sept. 30th Facebook Live address. He also said there are legitimate questions about long-term impact on land from industrial solar sites.
On another topic, Roark said he doesn’t fear judges who are requiring Nottoway to upgrade its courthouse and perhaps build a new one. “I cannot for the life of me vote to tax people for a courthouse when we can hardly get damn convictions…so why are we going to build a courthouse that’s FAILING US?”
Roark said that some of his critics claim to “have all the answers… so why didn’t the ‘subject matter experts’ apply for the County Administrator’s job?”
Roark said the County should look harder at reducing its budget. “Until you cut government to the skeleton core, you don’t raise taxes on your people. You do NOT do that!”
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