Commissioner Bohannon presents and answers questions at legislative committee hearing on home rule

Last week multiple county commissioners attended the Utilities, Energy & Telecommunications conference hearing in Indianapolis.   Marshall County Commissioner Jesse Bohannon spoke during the meeting and presented the committee with a letter of opposition unanimously approved by the Commissioners opposed to HB 1628.

Bohannon told them, “I’m here for one reason and that is because in 2024 the people of Marshall County turned things upside down in county government and they did that because they knew the rules.  They knew that the office of the County Commissioner and the offices of the County Council were the people that would affect this issue that matters a lot to them. They trusted me and my colleagues in local government to protect them and they trust in the protections of home rule.”

Commissioner Bohannon told the committee that the county takes it seriously and enacted moratoriums on solar, battery, data centers, and carbon capture.  He said the county doesn’t want to ban those projects, but they want to make sure the county has the protections in place to take care of the citizens. 

Bohannon said the commissioners see the trend that the General Assembly is continuing to ask local government to do more. He said, “You want us to raise our own taxes which is absolutely fair.”  He mentioned including the possibility of overseeing EMS and fire at the county level and said, “We ask you to be consistent.  If you are going to place additional responsibilities on us, you also continue to trust us to continue to have the authority we have traditionally had.   Don’t change the rules on my constituents, please. Please reject this bill.”

Following his statement, a committee member asked if the county had compromised, and Bohannon said they had by putting in place reasonable regulations at the local level.  Another member asked what was wrong with data centers and Bohannon said, “I don’t think there is anything wrong with them.  We just want to make sure there are appropriate regulations in place. We don’t have any regulations currently and we’ve formed a task force to look at battery storage right now.  That’s the first one we are going to knock out. As soon as those regulations are in place we will remove the moratorium and take each issue on one at a time.”

Another committee member asked if Marshall County had a moratorium on steel mills or chip factories. Commissioner Bohannon was asked what reasonable regulations look like and how long is the moratorium and he said the moratoriums are for 2 years and that he wasn’t the expert that the “good folks” on the Plan Commission are working on them.

When asked if the county had any wind or solar ordinances he said a solar ordinance was put in place last year under the previous administration and the public was not very happy with the protections in the ordinance.  Bohannon claimed that was why there was a large turnover in local government last year.

Representative Pressel felt that 2 years for a moratorium was excessive and Bohannon said the battery ordinance is about 2/3s done.  Once the ordinance is approved the moratorium will be lifted.  Pressel asked what the battery ordinance looked like since the state has already set minimum standards and Bohannon said he is not on the committee, but the Plan Commission has heard from specialists including those for fire issues to assist in its development.