Residents urge Bastrop council to revoke solar project licenses as injunction stalls action

Public commenters on Feb. 4 urged the Bastrop City Council to revoke occupational licenses connected to a large solar and data-center project, alleging the developer changed business names and has not paid taxes to the city. Council members and city staff said the scope of local authority is limited while a court challenge is pending.

Several residents named Perfect Land Development, Sunbeam (Sunbeam Power LLC), Golden Beam and Green Data Center as entities tied to the project and asked the council to rescind licenses and investigate past permitting. “They paid not one tax to the city,” Rose T. Thompson said during public comment, adding that she believed the entities were changing names to avoid obligations.

Willie Whitmore, another resident, urged the council to pursue legal remedies and said his group planned to file a complaint with the Louisiana attorney general. “Get your ducks in order,” he told the council, warning against being intimidated by outside attorneys.

City staff and the city attorney cautioned that a temporary restraining order and related court filings have been submitted in district court and that the city has received notice of litigation. Staff said a properly signed court order is required before the city can be enjoined from acting or, depending on service, before individual council members might be affected. A member of the public emphasized the importance of confirming whether the city had been served with a judge-signed order before taking action.

City attorneys and staff explained the legal difference between occupational licenses, zoning approvals and occupancy certificates. An occupational license, staff said, registers a business for sales-tax purposes; zoning and special-use permits determine whether a use is allowed on a parcel; an occupancy certificate (issued by the fire marshal) determines whether a building can be used. City staff traced a permitting timeline stretching back to 2022 and said planning and zoning records show a special-use permit vote on Jan. 27, 2025, and occupational-license applications filed March 14, 2025. That timeline, they said, complicates immediate enforcement.

Council members said they were hearing strong public concern over the project’s history and asked staff to collect records and consider legal options. Several speakers urged the council to obtain outside counsel to respond to lawsuits and restraining orders; some residents said the city’s current legal team had been surprised by filings served at short notice.

The council did not take final enforcement action on the solar-related licenses during the meeting; staff recommended confirming service of court documents and consulting counsel before attempting to revoke licenses that are the subject of active litigation. The council signaled interest in reviewing the records, auditing sales-tax filings tied to construction materials and coordinating with planning and zoning to clarify whether project-name changes affected approvals.

The dispute centers on whether past planning actions and subsequent name changes affected the companies’ legal right to operate and whether an injunction temporarily prevents the council from revoking licenses. The contested entities include Perfect Land Development (listed on occupational-license paperwork), with project names such as Sunbeam Power and Green Data Center appearing in planning documents. City officials said some project names predate moratoriums on solar permits and noted gaps and ambiguities in the record that staff will continue to investigate.

Next steps: the council asked staff to assemble the permitting timeline and legal paperwork and to advise on service-of-process and litigation strategy; no vote on license revocation occurred at the meeting.