Mahoning County commissioners ban solar and wind farms in ten townships 

After holding a Feb. 15 public hearing, the Mahoning County commissioners on Thursday approved adding 10 more townships to the places in Mahoning County where “economically significant wind farm, large wind farm and large solar facility” cannot be constructed.

The commissioners approved their first ban Nov. 9 affecting Green Township after trustees there requested it. The commissioners held two public hearings before approving the resolution, which was made possible by an Ohio law called Senate Bill 52 that went into effect in October 2021.

More recently, the townships of Austintown, Beaver, Berlin, Canfield, Coitsville, Goshen, Jackson, Milton, Poland and Springfield passed resolutions asking for the ban. The commissioners held one hearing Feb. 15 at the Mill Creek MetroParks Farm in Canfield, where opinions for and against were heard.

The commissioners passed the resolution approving the 10 additional bans 3-0 Thursday morning during their regular meeting. No members of the public spoke on the issue, though it’s possible few people knew they were going to have that item on their agenda Thursday. The commissioners release their agenda for each week’s meeting the afternoon before the meeting.

The commissioners did not offer any comments on the ban before the vote or at any other part of their meeting, which took place in the regular meeting space in the basement of the Mahoning County Courthouse.

But after the meeting, Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said each of the townships passed its own resolution and held its own public hearing on the issue.

“Based on what the townships have asked us to do, we have done that.”

He said he let everyone speak at the county hearing who wanted to, even those who did not sign up to speak.

“Nobody was shut out. Everybody’s opinion was taken,” he said.

Commissioner David Ditzler said, “The process of approving the bans involved getting input from township officials on what they felt their communities wanted, and we followed through with it.”

The townships that didn’t express interest in banning the projects were Boardman, Ellsworth and Smith.

Gina DeGenova, Mahoning County prosecutor, said the resolution the commissioners approved Thursday goes into effect in 30 days.

If residents want to appeal it, they have to file a referendum petition within 30 days from Thursday, and it has to be signed by a number of registered electors residing in the county equal to not less than 8% of the total votes cast for candidates for governor in Mahoning County in the most recent election, she said.

Ditzler said the commissioners had three options concerning the proposals to ban large solar or wind-generating facilities in the various Townships: Do nothing, ban it or not ban it.

“Really, in my opinion, the proper thing to do was to do nothing, because each one would have had a hearing on a specific construction that they wanted to do,” not a ban or non-ban in each township, Ditzler said.

Traficanti said a township that has a restriction on solar and wind projects and changes its mind, can reverse it.

“Let’s say the trustees change,” Traficanti said. “You get two new trustees and they say ‘We’re for solar.’ They can pass a resolution and modify,” he said.