Two anti-solar farm Republicans won their primaries for Knox County Commissioner seats.
Seven Republican candidates were in the running for nominations to two seats, and several ran their campaigns on solar energy.
Drenda Keesee will go unopposed in November unless she faces a write-in candidate. She secured roughly 40% of the vote for a win in Tuesday’s primary election, according to unofficial results from the Knox County Board of Elections.
Bill Phillips, who also decried farmland solar, got about 33% of the vote in that race, while comparatively solar-friendly incumbent Thom Collier took about 27%.
Keesee said she was “humbled” by the voters' faith in her. "It's no secret I'm opposed to industrial solar on farmland, and I believe that resonated with people,” she said.
Keesee declined to list her priorities upon her likely election in November, but said she will do her "very best" to speak with members of the community, hear their concerns and represent them.
In a four-horse race for a nomination to a second commissioner’s seat, Barry Lester managed a narrow win with about 27% of the vote. Scott Zimmerman took about 26%, Jennifer Snow almost 24% and Jeffrey Harmer about 22%.
Lester will face Democrat Chuck Rogers in November.
Like Keesee, Lester made his stance on solar farms clear to voters.
"I have opposed solar since the beginning of my campaign in October," Lester said at a candidates' forum before the primary election.
Lester's campaign signs were often displayed alongside Phillips' signs, and both sometimes included a strip tacked to the bottom reading, "no industrial solar." Both men's names appear on the website for the anti-solar group Knox Smart Development.
Solar power has been a hot topic in Knox County since the announcement of the roughly 800-acre Frasier Solar project. The project would bring about 250,000 solar panels to a spattering of disconnected farm fields in Clinton and Miller townships, just south of Mount Vernon.
The project sparked debates about land use, property rights, the environment and money, leaving much of the county divided.
Frasier Solar is awaiting approval from the Ohio Power Siting Board, or OPSB. The state agency takes the opinions of the community, and its elected officials, into consideration in making its decision.
It’s unclear how much sway Keesee and Lester will have, though, as the OPSB may make the call this fall before new commissioners take their oaths in January.
A public hearing on Frasier Solar is set for 5 p.m. on April 4 at Knox Memorial Theater on East High Street in Mount Vernon.
