Just over a year ago, the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners appointed a 14-member body to advise the county on efficient, renewable energy. The board agreed that this group, called the Energy Futures Task Force (EFTF), should report back to them a year later.
EFTF Chairman Joe DeFors attended the board’s Tuesday regular session and presented the group’s one-year report, with the recommendation that the group be authorized to continue their work for another three years. Board Chairman Ty Wessell said the board will “take up the issue” at next month’s meeting along with other board and committee appointments.
In DeFor’s presentation, the EFTF’s accomplishments include preparing two grant applications for the county and one grant for electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure for Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indian properties, publishing four public education articles, and presenting two public education speaker programs.
DeFors summarized the group’s challenges as well, and the list included “some public resistance to task force initiatives.”
“On multiple occasions, by multiple people, facts have been shared which are inaccurate and misleading about the environmental implications of solar and wind, concerns about decommissioning — taking the projects apart at the end of their lifecycle …and so forth,” DeFors told the commissioners Tuesday.
DeFors took particular issue with Jim White, who is the Republican candidate for the District 4 commissioner seat, currently held by Chairman Wessell. White criticized the EFTF at the League of Women Voters candidate forums, uploaded Sept. 17, and the Oct. 1 Cherry Pie Debate.
In DeFors’s opinion, White has “launched a litany of falsehoods and environmental myths against the task force and his opponent.” DeFors named White and sitting County Commissioner Melinda Lautner as “super spreader(s) of misinformation” in a public comment submitted to the board.
At the Cherry Pie Debate, White claimed that the board is “trying to get a $1 million project grant … for the solar panel project, and they’re offering to spend at least $1 million of county money on EVs and charging infrastructure.”
White seems to be referencing an application for $1.5 million in state funds — not county money — to build solar arrays at the government center in Suttons Bay. Contrary to rumors, however, the project did not involve acquiring new EVs.
“Are these candidate’s misrepresentations intentional, or are they simply the result of lazy research and ignorance?” DeFors asked. “We can’t know, and actually it doesn’t matter – because either answer should be disqualifying for the serious role of a commissioner on this board.”
“Finally, I would call out this candidate as a hypocrite. He proudly cites his business bona fides from his employment with Pepsi — one of the largest polluters on earth … One must ask, did he challenge his employer with his environmental concerns, or did he come to the movement only after announcing his candidacy in Leelanau?” DeFors continued.
DeFors also singled out Commissioner Lautner who requested the task force be expanded from 12 to 14 members so she could also join it back in September 2023. Since then, Lautner has downplayed her continued involvement with the task force while claiming to be concerned about their activities.
Lautner also engaged in a lengthy argument with DeFors at the board’s February regular session, where DeFors presented the grant application for the solar panel project.
At this meeting, Lautner noted in passing that DeFors could be compensated if the county received state funding. Some residents later called on the board to investigate this as a potential ethical violation. But Lautner did not voice these objections in February. Instead, she focused on the panel’s alleged Chinese manufacture and their proposed siting on the government center campus.
A previously reported, Lautner declined to mention during the meeting that she is also on the Cherryland Electric Cooperative board of directors, which currently powers the government center campus and stands to lose an estimated $40,000 annually if these solar arrays were built.
“(Lautner also) owns three oil and gas wells on their property — two of which are orphaned — but has publicly stated in this very room that she feels fine the people of Michigan will be cleaning those up for her,” DeFors said. “This is the textbook definition of conflict of interest, and this commissioner should have recused on all votes related to energy before this board. But she did not.”
DeFors declined to read these comments in person during the first public comment period Tuesday evening, but White went on the counterattack.
“To be clear, I support clean energy. Solar energy as part of that portfolio has tremendous potential when implemented correctly. However, like any energy source, solar has limitations, and each project must be evaluated on its specific merits, its costs-benefits, and long-term viability,” White told the county board and the meeting audience.
“It is on these grounds that I oppose this solar project as currently planned. It is unnecessary, unreliable, inefficient, and above all, an enormous financial burden on the taxpayers of this county,” White said.
As DeFors noted, the solar panel project would require “zero financial obligation” to the county. White noted in a forum last month that there would be ongoing maintenance and repair costs for the solar panels, which may be the “enormous financial burden” he was referring to. White and several of his companions declined to speak to the newspaper at Tuesday’s meeting for clarification.
“Despite Mr. DeFors’s theatrics, the solar project will not deliver the promises he has made, it will not save money, it will not come without cost, or so-called ‘free money,’ and it will not come without environmental waste once these solar panels reach the end of their lifespan,” White said. “What it will be, unfortunately, is an eyesore, a public drain, and a misuse of public funds.”
Earlier in the meeting, during his presentation, DeFors claimed that the waste generated by solar energy was “infinitesimal compared to the waste streams being produced today” and claimed that the panels could be recycled at the end of their lifecycle to reduce waste.
White further lambasted DeFors for his “glaring” lack of expertise on energy or climate science and called on him to step down as chair of the EFTF because of his “hypocrisy” in identifying Lautner’s conflict of interest when he could have received money through the solar panel grant as outlined above.
Regarding these allegations, DeFors previously said that situations like these are relatively common in local government because committees or task forces are often made up of area residents. He also said that this potential conflict of interest did not benefit him “surreptitiously,” cause harm to the public body, or even guarantee he would be compensated.
The state agency administrating this program announced Sept. 26 that Leelanau County was not one of the organizations that received an award. The county board agreed in June that they would not investigate the allegations against DeFors further unless they received the grant.
