This township in Ohio didn’t talk politics until solar panels started showing up. Then it

TATE TOWNSHIP, Ohio — In Tate Township, where families can trace their farming roots back to before Ohio’s statehood, they usually don’t talk local politics at the dinner table, or anywhere else for that matter.

But this year is different.

“It’s been a long time since there’s been … this much heat in the race,” said Shelby Baird, a sixth-generation township resident. “Putting a sign in your yard is a risky venture. Because you will be judged by the signs that are in your yard here. That’s just the way it is.”

Farmer and tree service owner Rusty Durbin is challenging sitting township trustee Bob Redden, in a race that has turned surprisingly negative.

Baird, who supports Durbin, said this election isn’t just a battle between two candidates. It’s also a referendum on the future of solar farms, the current power structure, and how 9,100 residents want their land to look for the next generation.

Ray Pfeffer

“Solar was the spark. Solar was the inspiration that got people involved,” Baird said. “I think this is the battle between growth in the future and loss of identity.”

In October 2022, crews broke ground on Clermont County’s first large-scale solar project, Nestlewood, on 610 acres of farmland in Tate Township that stretches into Brown County.

It caught many residents by surprise, who didn’t know about the project until they saw crews pounding stakes into what had been corn and soybean fields.

“My wife and I came home from Bible study and there were stakes out there, benchmark stakes,” Durbin said. “She’s ready to sell the farm, and I’m like, ‘I’m not selling the farm. We’re going to stand up.’”

Ray Pfeffer

That prompted Durbin to attend his first trustee meeting in January and encourage his neighbors to go with him.

“Approximately 200 people showed up. They had to take the fire trucks out so we could sit out in the fire house,” said Durbin, who now regularly attends the monthly meetings with his wife, Mary, and 50 to 70 others who have been known to quote the Ohio Revised Code back to the trustees during the public comment portion of the meeting.

At age 65 this wasn’t how Durbin anticipated spending his later years, but he said he feels compelled to run for township trustee.

“I’m not a politician,” Durbin said. “But I know if I don’t stand up for the people in the community out here, what’s going to happen?”

Ray Pfeffer

WCPO reached out to Redden at least six times for an interview, contacting him by phone, text message, email and on social media. He did not respond. Voters elected Redden in November 2019, and his four-year term ends in January.

WCPO received an email with a screenshot of an anonymous post on a Bethel neighborhood social media site. It contained a copy of Durbin’s 1988 discharge from the Pierce Township Police Department.

“The charges against you are incompetency to perform your duties as a police officer and malfeasance,” according to the June 23, 1988 letter signed by three township trustees.

“This happened 30 years ago,” said Durbin, who was never criminally charged.

He said he was fired over a conversation he had with another police officer about how a trustee should be ‘horsewhipped.’

Several years later, Durbin said the township asked him to serve on the zoning appeals board which he did for seven years.

“It’s a local race and it’s neighbors. It doesn’t make any sense to me why it has been so negative,” Baird said. “When people are willing to go that far to dig up something … just to try to keep the existing power structure, that to me is a signal the power structure needs to change,”

The future of solar farms is front of mind in this election for Durbin.

“I don’t know how Bob feels. What I feel is … it’s really no good for the township. It’s no good for the environment, it’s no good for the wildlife,” said Durbin, who supports zoning restrictions on solar projects from 49 megawatts down to six megawatts.

Ohio is attractive to solar companies because it is part of a 14-state transmission network, the PJM Interconnection, that has open circuits for solar farms to generate more power. The network coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in the mid-Atlantic, from Illinois to New Jersey.

Ray Pfeffer

Most solar companies want to lease land within two miles of transmission lines, which cut through Tate Township, with one line cutting through East Fork Lake, which makes some residents worry because it is a major county drinking water source.

Clermont County Commissioners voted to ban large solar and wind projects in unincorporated areas of seven townships, including Tate Township, at a contentious public hearing in June. Some residents criticized solar and described the Nestlewood project as “almost 700 acres of pure hell.”

But that ban doesn’t apply to smaller solar projects.

While the Ohio Power Siting Board oversees solar projects over 50 megawatts, each township’s zoning rules govern smaller facilities. That suddenly makes township trustees in Ohio much more powerful.

Ray Pfeffer

“It sounds like the community (Tate Township) is super interested,” said Dale Arnold, director of energy, utility, and local government at the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.

For 30 years Arnold has traveled the state advising local governments and farmers. He’s repeatedly seen how new energy projects – whether it be wind turbines, gas pipelines, transmission lines, or solar farms – frequently turn regular citizens into political activists.

“People need to understand that an election is not necessarily a popularity contest where we’re done at the end,” said Arnold, who has seen candidates who ran on a key issue become very good long-term leaders, and others who resigned once they saw the complexities of the job.

“So having folks ask those critical questions, making sure they take a look at a number of things, instead of just one issue,” Arnold said.

Ray Pfeffer

Durbin said he would like trustees to videotape monthly meetings for additional transparency. He’d also like the three trustees to work together with professionalism and treat all residents fairly and respectfully.

“People are asking serious questions about governance. They’re asking more serious questions about open meetings and record keeping,” Baird said. “I think that has really made a lot of people start paying closer attention to decisions that are being made on our behalf.”

Baird predicts that residents will continue to attend monthly meetings long past Tuesday’s election, because public activism has caught on here.

“When they’re actually showing up – it’s a next-level kind of event for a community where people just usually mind their own business,” Baird said.