New Washington—To begin the Buckeye Central Board of Education, members of the public addressed the board on a pressing, upcoming matter.
Nick Faeth, who has children who are coming up in the district, was the first to speak to the board of education regarding the Apex wind turbine project.
“I’m here to talk to you guys about the wind turbines that are proposed for the area. I just kind of wanted to give you guys the information and get a feel, just kind of spread good information so people can start looking into it,” Faeth said.
Faeth gave board members the information that the Seneca East board of education put together to send to the Ohio Power Siting Board after they did their research and decided that it was a bad fit for their community. He also gave them handouts on how the turbines would affect children with autism.
“One of my big concerns is—I have always been proud of the area and have worked hard so we can have a nice community—the turbines tend to drive people away, and I know we want to have better student numbers in the future, and I’m afraid this would cause a decline for people leaving for health reasons, annoyance of the turbines reasons, and property values going down. If people would move, I don’t think anyone is going to find buyers because I don’t think anyone is going to want to come live in an industrial wind farm,” Faeth said.
The proposed wind turbines are up to 650′ tall, with one blade being longer than Wynford’s whole turbine from the base to the tip. It is estimated that Apex is looking to put up between 80 to 144 turbines.
“If you come to a conclusion, it would be good to communicate that with the commissioners if the district decides that these would be a bad fit for our community due to all the negative impacts,” Faeth said. “There is no known timeline, but the quicker we move, the better off we are, because it’s already been going on for a long time, and it has been kept so hush hush because the wind company knows that it wrecks communities, it tears people apart, makes people fight for no reason, and it’s just bad, so they keep it hush hush until it’s close to the end when it about has to get out and then we have to step in and try to fight for our homes.”
Roger Weisenauer, who resides in the Wynford district but is big on going around and advocating against the turbines, also addressed the board.
“There is no public vote, it’s the three commissioners, and that’s our vote. There will be a public meeting where you can voice your displeasure,” Weisenauer said. “The deadline is like a clock, once Apex files, let’s say they file tomorrow, then you have fourteen days from that point to have a public meeting with the township trustees that are affected and the county commissioners, and once they do that, then from that point the clock starts and they have ninety days, and the commissioners have two choices — they can approve it or disapprove it. By disapproving it, they would declare all or parts of Crawford County an exclusion area, which is what Seneca County did in November, or they can sit back and do nothing, and if they do nothing, it counts as approval for the project.”
Per Senate Bill 52, the decision is solely on the shoulders of the commissioners once Apex files with the OPS.
“If they do nothing, then they are okaying it — you can say you don’t like them, but if you don’t take any action, you are approving them, so it is definitely misleading. You can have all three commissioners say they are against them, but if they take no action to declare Crawford County a restricted area, then they approved them,” Weisenauer said.
Weisenauer went on to talk about how aside from Seneca East” s board of education publicly stating their disapproval of the wind turbines that were proposed there a few months ago, but the Seneca County Parks District, Seneca County LifeFlight, the EMS, and the Seneca County Airport all publicly stated their disapproval of the turbines.
After the public discussion section of the meeting was over, the board got on to business as usual.
One of the items the board approved was to send staff members to the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 19 and 20 for a professional development program.
According to its website, “The Ron Clark Academy (RCA) is a highly-acclaimed, nonprofit middle school located in Southeast Atlanta. The Academy has received both national and international recognition for its success for creating a loving, dynamic learning environment that promotes academic excellence and fosters leadership. Our 4th – 8th-grade students represent various socio-economic and academic backgrounds and communities from across the metro region.”
A few of the RCA’s founding principles include Foster an atmosphere where students, parents, staff, and community members work together to create a family environment for our learners; teach in ways that promote creativity, innovation, wonder, joy, and a passion for learning; strive to find the best, brightest, most passionate educators from across the country to teach in our classrooms; and ensure that we have classes that are composed of students with varied academic, social, emotional, and economic backgrounds.
Staff members will be going to learn ways to find ways to “catch a little bit of that passion” and to further better the Buckeye Central School District.
The remaining late start days for the district are February 22, March 28, and April 25.
The next meeting is March 10 at 7 p.m.