The Marshall County Commissioners held a special meeting Thursday morning to address several issues held over from 2024.
With newly elected members Jesse Bohannon and Adam Faulstich in their first meeting joining Stan Klotz on the board, the subject of solar energy was addressed with the three voting unanimously to amend the current zoning ordinance to place a moratorium on the development of farm-scale solar facilities, utility-scale energy storage battery systems, data centers, and carbon capture projects.
The Marshall County Plan Department will now be tasked with holding public meetings on those issues and bringing a recommendation for each back to the Commissioners for action.
The Commissioners also voted unanimously to move forward with the process to purchase the Bowen building on Illinois Street for a new home for the Marshall County Health Department.
Klotz recommended the county make an offer of $450,000 for the facility with the health department paying $250,000 and taking on $100,000 worth of renovation and the county providing the balance. He said that the rent at the department’s current location would be rising.
Dave Douglass, one of the owners of the Community Resource Center, the current home for the department, addressed the Commissioners over the “transparency” of the rise in rent saying that the increase would be for the extra space that the department had requested, and was not for the size of their current space.
The Commissioners also addressed some personnel matters, re-appointing the current department heads to their positions for another year, hiring Sean Surrisi as the board’s legal counsel, and reorganizing the board with Klotz as President, and Bohannon as Vice President.
