What led to county council's vote?

Sometimes — every once in awhile — a local government meeting will conclude and the folks in the room will look at one another and wonder, “What the heck just happened?”

That feeling was inescapable last week when Jay County Council rejected a tax abatement request submitted by the company hoping to develop what would become the county’s second wind farm.

After all, here was a county council — largely Republican and generally pro-business and pro-development — looking at an outside investment of something like $150 million, a project that would bring with it about $1.5 million for economic development and that would generate about $700,000 in property taxes annually once the tax abatement had burned off. The county’s assessed valuation would get a boost, helping keep tax rates down, especially for those folks in the two townships affected.

And yet, the answer was — in no uncertain terms — “No.”

So, what the heck happened?

Several things came together at once, creating for Scout Clean Energy and Bitter Ridge Wind Farm something like the perfect storm.

Among the factors:

•Tax abatement fatigue. Abatement — the phasing in — of property taxes on new developments has been around for about 30 years. Over that time, voters and many public officials have grown skeptical about it.

Though it’s proved to be a success in most cases, there have been other times around the state that jobs have failed to materialize and deadlines have not been met. At the very least, it’s safe to say that the public and public officials are more wary about tax abatement than they were 30 years ago.

•The concrete vs. the theoretical. When NextEra began promoting its plans for the county’s first wind farm, it seemed the stuff of science fiction. It took a leap of imagination to envision the wind turbines that would stretch along Bluff Point. Today, those wind turbines are reality. And their very existence made it easier to form an opinion.

•There was no champion. When the NextEra project was in the works, Bob Lyons was its constant cheerleader. As a longtime farmer, retired vo-ag teacher, and township trustee, his opinion carried some weight. He believed in the project and was willing to stick his neck out. Scout had no one comparable on its side.

•Vulnerability. After more than two decades of growth in confined animal feeding operations, rural residents of this county have every reason to feel vulnerable. They never know when a CAFO will pop up just around the corner or just upwind. They’ve dealt with odor, with flies and worries about the environment.

Don’t even get them started on property values.

That brings us to.

•Proximity. While CAFO development has occurred over the years like individual pins stuck in a map, Bitter Ridge Wind Farm would have affected something like 45 square miles of contiguous rural property.

That made it easier for leaders of the opposition to form an effective campaign.

CAFO opponents often say they feel like a single voice. This group of wind farm opponents sounded like a chorus of opposition.

So, back to the question, what the heck happened?

Mostly, it seemed, that the county council listened.

Faron Parr acknowledged that he’d changed his mind during the meeting. Mike Rockwell tried to put himself in the opponents’ shoes. Cindy Newton and Bob Vance said they’d heard the voices that spoke out.

Ted Champ, whose district as a councilman includes the Bitter Ridge properties, had gone out to properties near the NextEra wind farm and listened.

Does last week’s vote mean this project is dead in the water?

That’s hard to say.

An attorney for Scout said last week it was unrealistic to think it could go forward without tax abatement, but stranger things have happened.

After all, who would have expected that vote by the county council last week?