April 10, 2011
Ohio

Lordstown councilman arrested over turbine dispute

www.wytv.com 8 April 2011www.wytv.com 8 April 2011

A Lordstown Village Councilman was arrested Friday afternoon because of controversy over two wind turbines that went up about two weeks ago outside the Lordstown Administration Building.

Village Council on Monday found out that although the turbines are working, they haven’t yet passed a final electrical inspection. That raised concern from Councilman Stanley Zoldan.

“I received a call Tuesday morning from our parks buildings and grounds superintendent, informing me that Mr. Zoldan was ordering him to turn off the wind turbines. I told him, until we talked to or heard from an inspector we want to keep it up and running. Because again, we don’t know the technology there,” said Mayor Michael Chaffee.

Zoldan decided to shut down the turbines himself.

“I did shut down the windmills because I thought that they were unsafe,” Zoldan said.

Shortly after, the Village turned the power switches back on.

Zoldan’s decision has gotten him in trouble. He was arrested Friday and charged with disrupting public services.

But not before he put in a phone call to Ohio Edison. Their crews shut down the turbines again.

“Then they agreed until that’s inspected they’re going to put a padlock on that so the windmills cannot operate,” Zoldan said.

Zoldan and Chaffee both think the situation could have been handled better.

“It could have been avoided. If Mr. Zoldan had chosen just to kind of follow the process and not make a publicity stunt out of it, it would have been handled a lot differently,” Chaffee said.

“I should have maybe used a little better judgement. But I was so nervous about somebody getting electrocuted, that their safety came first. And I’m here to protect the village, the residents,” Zoldan said.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/04/10/lordstown-councilman-arrested-over-turbine-dispute/