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To the Editor:

I was truly shocked at the vote to reverse the conditional use permit denied in February for the Carver solar project, or reject the motion to approval, however you word it, by the Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors. Why can’t this board make a decision and stick to it?

I want to commend Supervisors Don Rosie and Joel Acree for sticking with their original vote to deny this project. Our community will be directly impacted. 

We came together in January to try to stop this project from surrounding our homes. During that meeting many residents expressed concerns and asked them to deny this project. We also provided over 400 signatures opposing this. In a rural area like ours, that is a significant number of signatures. There were also a number of emails sent to the board members. The board seemed to appreciate the information. After consideration, the board voted 3-2 to deny Carver the permit, however they now say it was not denied but put on hold.

The concerns of the citizens of Isle of Wight still exist, but now Supervisors Rudolph Jefferson and William McCarty think the poor farmers should be able to afford to live out their lives without having to worry, because their plans to pass the farms onto the next generation are not working out for them. I don’t understand why we have to provide a comfortable retirement for the farmers, when we as citizens have to be responsible for our individual retirement plans.

Supervisor Dick Grice, who isn’t seeking reelection, is looking out for the northern part of Isle of Wight, not the entire county. He took it upon himself to pick up the negotiations with Carver on his own. He boasted at the July meeting that he asked Carver for “the moon” and they responded with monetary incentives that Mr. Grice found it impossible to ignore. He also made a budgetary decision to allocate this money for new schools and new fire trucks. This will mainly benefit the northern section of our county. Smithfield is growing by leaps and bounds; a new hospital and, according to The Smithfield Times, over 1,500 new residential units are slated for the area. This will definitely increase the taxes being paid to the county.

Please stop dividing us as a county. We are all citizens of Isle of Wight and deserve to be heard.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank White

Zuni