Southtowns Record

Town Board minutes — May 14, 2026

Government
Town of Marilla
Board
Town Board
Meeting
May 14, 2026
Kind
Minutes
Topics
Zoning and land use, Moratoriums, Public safety, Water, sewer and drainage, Budget and taxes

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Regular Meeting  26
  May 14, 2026

I know there has been a lot of concern regarding Solar and I want to address the gentleman
in the back and everyone on social media. I want everyone to have the facts. I know the
frustration and as a farmer with the Solar Projects going up all over Western New York.
When Solar was first talked about the Town put in reasonable control and ordinances in
places to allow Solar with reasonable restrictions because at the time we had no one really
coming in more in the Commercial sense. We already had residential. I put in residential
back in 2012 to experiment with it and believe me I would never do it again. It’s not
practical.
When the first project went in on Bullis Road, I will openly admit, it was a mistake. We
have a hard time keeping them in compliance. Fortunately, it is hidden from most places, so
we rewrote the ordinances again. Which you have got to understand we can’t just put our
ordinances No Solar, we have to allow it somewhere, somehow. So, we rewrote the
ordinances to make the strict enough to hopefully encourage not anymore. Actually, when
we re-wrote them many people said to me, you don’t want them because it is going to be a
big financial company to come in. It seem to hold it off for a while. Councilman Reichert
was involved when we re-wrote it along with our Town Attorney. We put in a provision that
they are going to pay 3% of the total project. Plus, what would have to be paid for the
Special Use Permit. When they came in with the project it surprised us but we will deal with
it. There were several meetings and about two years to deal with it. We did everything in the
law to slow it down and restrict it and under the SEQRA (State Environment Quality
Review Act) process we declared it a positive declaration on both projects stating visual and
Agricultural impacts and they would have to meet certain criteria. We didn’t hear from for
several months. We thought that was enough, it is a very costly process. They put the
preliminary in and our Engineers review it and said certain things they had to do, options
and the final one came in. They met the criteria what we could allow, and we approved of
the SEQRA, now we get into the Special Use Permit process the restrictions that we can put
in place and a lot of them were the same and some were added. One, I hear horror stories
about these companies right in there with the landowners saying certain things or changing
LLC’s going Bankrupt, so we wanted to make sure we had the money up front. A lot of
projects you get the money after the project it done. We weren’t going to let that happen
here. Every dollar counts for your survival, that’s why the town is run the way it is. So, we
put in the Special Use Application that since you are heavily subsidized, New York State
subsidized through your electric bills and other ways. It is heavily subsidized; it would never
go if it wasn’t subsidized because it can’t stand on it’s own it is not feasible and way or
form. I proved that on my own property, it was subsidized by 2/3, and I had to pay the other
1/3 and it still didn’t pay for itself. So, some of the things in there are one since it is New
York State taxpayers’ money everything would be from New York State unless they could
prove otherwise that they couldn’t get it in New York State. So as far as the construction
part they met everything and stated what they met. Now with the materials we know they
can’t get the Solar Panels in New York State, but we said they had to prove they couldn’t
get them here. The other criteria’s in there was that they have Sheep grazing showing proof
of contract agreements to help with the Agricultural on both projects and that they had to be
grazed several times a year, certain visuals to be put in place as far as trees, etc. in which we
are in arguments with because they were going to put these real tiny trees there to get big
enough over time. We also put in a few other restrictions in place. Now with the Solar, I
don’t trust them or Attorneys. They lied to us twice. They listed everything they needed for
Solar stating they couldn’t get any of them and where they could get them from. It wasn’t
out of the Country like the last one. They named the different states they could get them
from, I held it up saying our Engineers have to review it. Our Engineers found a company
right in Clarence, New York (Zane Agency) that could provide most of the materials. We
provided that information to them, the Solar Company then contacted them and never to
them the truth size of the Developments. Something was wrong so I contacted them directly
and they said they thought it was just a small project at the corner of Two Rod and Stolle
Road, the Solar company never sent the plans to Zane Agency, I sent it to them and they
were like oh my god we can supply the vast majority of the supplies we are definitely
interested. Then the come back through Hodson & Ross stated they contacted Zane Agency
but there not interested which is false, I was talking to the owner and employees directly,
they were highly interested. Now we came up against the fact that even though we had it in
and they accepted it back in May the Special Use Permit and never objected to anything that
was in there and we stalled and did everything we could you’re going to have to meet this.
They threatened us with a Lawsuit because there is a Interstate Commerce Law and I think
we were on a solid ground but I with the advice of the Attorney and this Town Board
couldn’t take that chance even though they agreed to it, that if we went in front of a Judge in