This election day, Ohio voters will darken bubbles next to names for gubernatorial and senate seats. They’ll narrow the fields in races for county commissioners and the secretary of state.
And in Richland County – tucked between Columbus and Cleveland – they’ll decide on the future of large-scale wind and solar developments.
Last summer, Richland County commissioners took a step that has become increasingly common across rural Ohio: they voted to ban large-scale wind and solar projects in 11 of the county’s 18 townships.
That’s allowed because of a law passed five years ago: Ohio Senate Bill 52. Among other provisions, it gives commissioners the authority to restrict big renewable energy developments in a county’s unincorporated areas.
“So we requested from all 18 of our townships, what would you like us to do?” said Darrell Banks, one of Richland County’s commissioners. “Eleven townships sent us back the resolution asking us to ban large wind and solar in the unincorporated areas of their townships, and seven did not. So we did that.”
A citizen-led movement for property rights
The decision left residents like Dorinda Strang feeling disempowered and frustrated. She lives in Mifflin Township, whose officials asked for a ban, but she felt like those leaders weren’t listening to her.
“Having been a lifelong resident here, and my parents and my grandparents and my great-grandparents, we've seen a lot of industry go away here and we need jobs,” she said. “I felt that it was like hammering a nail in the coffin.”
While Senate Bill 52 gives county commissioners the power to restrict large renewable energy projects in unincorporated areas, it also gives citizens the right to petition for a referendum if commissioners do, preventing a ban from taking effect until citizens have the chance to vote on it.
Strang’s group, which organized into the Richland County Citizens for Property Rights and Job Development, had 30 days to collect more than 3,300 signatures – that’s 8% of the votes cast in the county in the last governor’s race.
“We went to the Richland County Fair and had a table there. We sat outside headquarters here downtown in Mansfield and collected signatures. We went door to door,” Strang said.
In the end, they succeeded. And Richland County voters have the rare opportunity to decide on the 11-township ban this election.
Another Ohio county secured enough signatures for a referendum like this in 2022. At that time, residents of Crawford County voted to uphold the area’s 10-year ban on industrial wind energy overwhelmingly – by nearly 75%.
But in Richland County, opponents of the ban still hope they can get it overturned.
In the lead up to the election, people of all ages have been knocking on doors and going to pop-up rallies.
“Recently, I wrote a letter to the editor supporting Vote No on the Ban, and then I went out and did a pop-up. I did not realize those two things were on my bucket list,” said Jeff Strang. “I'm into my 70s and oh my goodness, I didn't know this. But I am so glad that we've been involved and proud of it.”
Meanwhile, on the corner of Lexington-Springmill and 4th Street, 26-year-old Addie Goodwin waved a sign beside a kid blowing into a kazoo. They showed up to the pop-up event despite rain to advocate for property rights.
“The idea of losing such a fundamental thing is so sad to me, and I think it can be kind of a slippery slope,” Goodwin said.
Defending the ban
Commissioner Banks says voices like these aren’t representative of everyone, and he believes a lot of the people – and funders – arguing against the ban don’t actually live in the places where it would take effect.
After all, the current ban would only apply to the townships where leaders asked for it. The whole county gets to vote on the repeal.
“It's like the big cities and the villages are dictating to the rural people what they want to do will still be protected by their zoning ordinances,” Banks said. “If we could put a solar field in the large cities, I doubt as many people would agree that it's a good idea.”
Township trustees in favor of a ban on large-scale renewable energy developments listed a number of concerns.
“What happens to the solar farm after its useful life is over?” questioned Weller Township Trustee Dale Hulit. "We all know how these games are played. And very likely the company that runs the solar farm will figure out one way or another to go bankrupt and not be obligated to clean up the mess.”
“Being a farmer, I look at these and it just, I guess it breaks my heart when you see farmland being created into a large solar facility,” he said.
John Jaholnycky, a Mifflin Township trustee, cares about preserving farmland too. He’s also worried about what renewable energy developments could lead to.
“Sometimes you put these large solar farms in and there's a potential that you're just asking for data centers to invite them in,” he said. “And right now we're currently looking to ban data centers also in Mifflin Township.”
If Richland County voters side with these trustees tomorrow, the county will join roughly a third of Ohio’s other counties to put some sort of renewable energy ban on the books.
If they don’t, Richland County will be the first in the state to overturn such a decision.
“Regardless, the people will be the ones making that decision,” said Morgan Carroll, a lifelong Richland County resident opposed to the ban. “I think that's important for the county to understand that people need to be heard and they need to be seen.”
