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Page County board to review MidAmerican's suggested edits as utility meeting draws local concern over ordinance bypass
Summary
Board members said MidAmerican provided a marked-up version of the county's solar ordinance and will hold a June 30 informational meeting; members voiced concern the Iowa Utilities Board could bypass local ordinances and raised farmland-conversion and governance questions.
Board members discussed suggested revisions submitted by MidAmerican to the Page County solar ordinance and noted a MidAmerican informational meeting scheduled for June 30 at the Clarinda Country Club.
A board member summarized the MidAmerican document as a marked-up copy of the county ordinance and said the company planned landowner outreach and an application available through the Iowa Utilities Commission's electronic filing system. "They were just sent to us," the member said, and the board agreed to review the suggestions before making them public.
Several members said they were concerned that a certificate or approval before the Iowa Utilities Board could effectively bypass county ordinance provisions. One board member warned, "they're probably going to do whatever they want, bypass the ordinance," and urged caution about abandoning local protections that were originally included after constituent input.
Other comments focused on farmland conversion and cumulative land-use impacts; one member described the risk as "death by a thousand cuts," saying successive projects could gradually remove significant productive farmland. Board members said they would read the MidAmerican suggestions, consider which ordinance provisions remain important to residents, and schedule further discussion at a future meeting; MidAmerican's informational meeting was noted as June 30 at 4 p.m.
No formal changes to the ordinance were made at the meeting; the board planned to circulate MidAmerican's suggestions for public review before further action.
