By Bob Neal of the Maine Monitor

Opponents say they will launch a petition drive to force a November vote on a six‑month freeze for the proposed 800‑ to 900‑acre solar farm.
JAY — The Select Board turned down a request Monday to ask voters to weigh in on a 180‑day moratorium on solar power developments.
The board took no vote on the request, and no member offered a motion, leaving opponents of the large solar farm with one option: petitioning to place a moratorium question on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Discussion at Monday’s board meeting centered on a proposal for what could become Maine’s largest solar farm — 800 to 900 acres of solar panels on roughly 2,500 acres, including about 550 acres at the former Androscoggin Mill site.
The proposal was presented to the Select Board on Feb. 9 by Walden Renewables of Portland, which has developed solar farms in Leeds and Wells in Maine and in Antrim and Farmington, New Hampshire.
Public opposition to the solar farm did not surface until the board’s meeting Aug. 10, when 37 people — mostly opponents — attended and about half a dozen spoke.
On Monday night, 94 people turned out, most asking the board to place a six‑month freeze on the November ballot.
Clint Brooks, who has long been active in town and school affairs, asked the board Aug. 10 to slow the project and look for compromises that would not tie up so much land in Jay.
On Monday, he asked the board to place a moratorium on the November ballot.
Brooks told Monitor Local on Tuesday morning that he is “following through on the petition process.” He said he expects “to have the petition ready by tomorrow night in order to start circulating on Thursday.”
“We will be attempting to meet the timeline established by the Select Board,” Brooks said.
Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere told the audience Monday that if the board did not act, state law allows only the petition process to take the issue to a town‑wide vote.
LaFreniere said petitions filed with the Town Office by Monday, Aug. 31, would allow the board to hold a special meeting Tuesday, Sept. 1, to place the moratorium on the ballot.
The state’s deadline for adding questions to the Nov. 3 ballot is Thursday, Sept. 3.
LaFreniere said petition circulators need 226 valid signatures, or 10 percent of the number of votes cast in Jay in the most recent gubernatorial election — 2,251 votes in 2022.
Of the 94 people in the cafeteria at Spruce Mountain Middle School, nearly all stayed through the first 90 minutes of public comments. Many said they were unhappy with the board’s decision to take no action, and several people leaving as the board moved to the next agenda item said loudly, “We’re just wasting our time here.”
During the meeting, Board Chair Terry Bergeron gaveled the audience to silence several times.
Most of those who spoke opposed the project, citing concerns about its size, its effect on property values and its impact on the environment and public health. The audience applauded most of those speakers.
Susan Theberge, who has lived in Jay for 21 years, summed up the dilemma facing the town as “getting money into the town or keeping its rural nature.”
Boone Burgess, whose property in Canton abuts the old Androscoggin Mill site, said, “It’s a bad thing all around.”
He said the project “is a future Superfund site.”
A Superfund site is a contaminated location identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for cleanup. More than 1,300 sites were on the list in May, according to the agency.
Brooks said the projected output of 150 megawatts “could mean 250,000 solar panels or more.” He asked the board to fulfill five requests: freeze solar array projects for 180 days; have the Planning Board review town regulations that might affect solar development; have the Planning Board evaluate whether the town needs stronger standards for solar farms; determine whether Jay’s regulations for land use need amending; and begin the process as quickly as possible. The board, which had copies of Brooks’s presentation, took no action on the five points.
Jenny Boivin, a member of the Jay Recreation Committee, told the developers, “You’re devaluing our homes.”
Several other speakers said they feared the project would lower their property values.
Adam Mitchell, who lives on Crash Road and recently built a house there, said: “We don’t know what this will be in 25 years. It could be OK, it could be a mess.”
Brooks had earlier raised concerns about property values and environmental safety. Years ago, he told the board, spreading paper mill sludge was considered environmentally safe.
Maine then learned about PFAS — per‑ and polyfluoroalkyl substances, often called “forever chemicals.”
Now, hundreds of acres of Maine farmland are nearly valueless because PFAS contamination spread through sludge that was once thought safe, he said.
“Let’s not be guilty of not knowing the downside about solar panels,” Brooks said. “There are not a lot of do‑overs in life.”
Boivin and several others raised environmental concerns and said they feared the solar farm would scare off wildlife.
Alicia Jones, who lives on Canton Mountain Road, raised health concerns.
“What would be the effect of this electromagnetic field on people’s health?” she asked.
Jones mentioned emissions sources, such as transformers, converters and underground electrical lines.
Dale Knapp, head of development in New England for Walden Renewables, told her, “That phone in your hand emits more electromagnetic field than a solar panel.”
Responding to another question, Knapp said the project employs about 50 people in research and “due diligence.” He said a 20‑megawatt project Walden is developing in Sanford employs about 110 people in construction. Construction could take two to three years, he has said, and almost all the jobs are local.
Walden has said the Jay solar farm could have 80 to 100 permanent employees.
“The big issue is revenue for Jay,” James Boltway told the board. “The mill is gone, the data center project is gone, the police collaboration (with Wilton) is gone. All would have saved us money on our taxes.”
The alternative, he said, “is for our taxes to go through the roof.”
Knapp told the board that Walden would pay about $45 million over 40 years in taxes, starting at $750,000 and increasing by 2 percent a year.
Boltway added, “I’d rather have Spalding come in here and build a tennis racket factory, but that’s not gonna happen.”
When a speaker, without stepping to the microphone, asked the Select Board which members might benefit from the solar farm, Selectman Tim DeMillo said, “We have been in discussion with some people about it on my property.”
No agreement has been reached, he said. He then pushed his chair back about a yard from the table, demonstrating his intention to abstain from voting.
When Bergeron asked for the fourth time whether any board member would move to put a moratorium on the November ballot, none responded.
Selectwoman Lee Ann Dalessandro said she was “not comfortable putting a moratorium on (the ballot) on such a short time.”
She suggested that if people in the audience felt strongly enough, they should start a petition drive.
“Bring it (the petition) to us and we will do our best to get it done,” Selectman Gary McGrane told the audience.
He suggested that the Maine Municipal Association might be able to help Jay speed the process.
“But I don’t think we have time to make it happen,” McGrane said. “If we rush this, we will be sued. I guarantee it.”
After two hours of public discussion, the board moved on to its next item of business without taking action.
Before the solar discussion, the board voted 3‑2 to ask voters to limit how much mobile home park owners can raise lot rents. The proposed ordinance, set for a Nov. 3 vote, would cap annual rent increases at the federal cost‑of‑living index for the previous year.
Bergeron, DeMillo and McGrane voted in favor. Dalessandro and Tom Goding voted against.
Dalessandro said she needed to learn more about the process and enforcement of the ordinance and suggested delaying the proposal until town meeting in April.
Since the process began in October, Goding has opposed any action that would limit a landlord’s ability to profit from his or her property.
Tanya Dwyer, a resident of the Hidden Circle Mobile Home Park, expressed appreciation to the board and the people of Jay for supporting the rent ordinance.
Through a new resident-owned cooperative, Hidden Circle residents bought their park last week, exempting it from the proposed ordinance.
“Thank you to everyone for supporting us,” Dwyer said. “This (rent cap) is good for the people who live in mobile home parks, and it is good for the town of Jay.”
Dwyer was among the residents who began working in October to limit rent increases, which had topped 50 percent in some cases.
 
This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from The Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.
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