Bid underway to remove supervisor

Malcolm Roach is spearheading a drive to remove Doug Perry, vice-chairman of the Patrick County Board of Supervisors, from office.

Roach, who also is the chairman of the county’s Electoral Board, said his appointment “has nothing to do with the problems I’m having with the board of supervisors and the solar farms.

“In no way, shape, or form should they be connected, they’re not,” Roach said, adding that he does not see his Electoral Board position and his petition as a conflict of interest, and he is not acting in his capacity on the board or on its behalf.

“I volunteer at the Election Board. I don’t draw a salary like they offer, I don’t turn in a log for my mileage or anything like that. The county is in bad shape, and it needs all the money it can get, so I volunteer,” he said.

Roach started the petition about a week ago, and brought it with him to a community meeting hosted by Perry Friday. As of February 26, Roach estimated he has collected more than 100 signatures.

The petition came after a solar farm was proposed for a property situated in the Smith River District, which Perry represents. Roach currently owns property in that district, but has listed it for sale.

“If the board of supervisors would talk to people instead of trying to shove things down their throat, it may not even have gone this far,” he said.

Perry has hosted two community meetings with Walter Scott, who represents the same district on the Patrick County School Board. The meetings were intended to update residents on various happenings in the district – not as hearings on the proposed solar farm.

The Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors have held multiple meetings and hearings on the solar proposals – both from Moscato, LLC and Fairy Stone Solar, LLC, subsidiaries of Energix US, LLC, a renewables company based in Arlington, VA. 

At the beginning of the process, Roach said the Planning Commission held public meetings on the proposal, “and they turned a deaf ear to what the people wanted in the ordinance. The people asked for certain things, and actually none of it was put in there.”

At the February 20 Planning Commission meeting, Roach said the paperwork for Moscato, LLC, a subsidiary of Energix Solar, was approved for the Woolwine project.

“Even though it doesn’t meet the requirements of the solar ordinance. So now, it’s being pushed to the board of supervisors and at that meeting with the Planning Committee the room was jammed at the college,” he said.

“At that meeting,” several speakers expressed opposition to the proposal, and “told the board of supervisors they didn’t want that, that what they wanted in the ordinance wasn’t in there.”

Roach alleged the board turned a deaf ear and passed the ordinance anyway.

The commission considered the proposal only as it relates to the county’s Comprehensive Plan. A majority determined that it was in line with the plan, with two of the five-member commission voting against the proposal.

“The Planning Committee pushed that ordinance to the board of supervisors for approval,” Roach said.

The Board of Supervisors will consider the Fairy Stone proposal on March 11.

It has 45 days after approval by the Planning Commission to consider the Moscato project.

“Everything that’s happened so far tells me that the board of supervisors is going to hide behind the ordinance and push this through. If it takes a petition to get a supervisor removed to actually get their attention and have them pay attention to the people, then I guess that’s what we’ll have to do,” Roach said.

“If they had just sat down and talked to the people like they had some intelligence instead of trying to jam this down their throat, it would have never gone this far,” Roach said, adding that he’s not sure if he’ll submit the petition.

Roach moved here about seven years ago from Philadelphia, attracted by the pristine environment. He listed his property for sale about a month ago.

“We’re not sure where we’re going to move to yet. We actually might move to another property in Patrick County, or we may buy two or three properties in Patrick County. Or, at 70 years old, I just might retire to Florida,” he said.

Roach began his three-year term on the Electoral Board on Jan. 1, after his name was submitted by the chairman of the local Republican committee. Members are appointed by the chief judge of the judicial circuit for the locality or the judge’s designee. 

Neither Martinsville Circuit Court Judge Carter Greer, who is the Chief Justice, nor Patrick County Circuit Court Judge Marcus Brinks, returned calls for comment Monday.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Benjamin “Ed” Pool, vice-chairman of the Electoral Board, and Warren Rodgers, its secretary, also did not return calls for comment.