Wise County officials will hold a public webinar this week about a referendum on whether the county could participate in a potential local electric authority as some residents say officials have not provided enough information to voters.
County voters are being asked during this year’s election whether to allow the county to participate in the proposed authority. County Administrator Mike Hatfield has said the authority would not handle residential electric service but rather would focus on large businesses that need new power generation.
Wednesday’s webinar will “help residents better understand the purpose of the proposed referendum, the key priorities of a potential local Electric Authority, and how those priorities support Wise County’s long-term economic development and infrastructure goals,” Natalie Chapman, the county’s economic development supervisor, said in an email.
“The presentation will include factual information about what the referendum means, including the implications of a vote for or against it,” Chapman said.
Registration is available here.
Hatfield has said the authority would ensure that when a business comes to the county needing lots of electricity, residents wouldn’t pay for any new power generation such as a natural gas-fired plant. He has called the authority “important for future economic development in the county.”
While Hatfield has not specified what types of businesses the authority could help attract, recent conversations in Virginia about building new power plants to serve large electricity users have focused on data centers.
Wise County’s consideration of an electric authority to work with large businesses and its use of county resources to support a referendum committee are unusual in Virginia, if not unprecedented, according to a review of state elections data.
Some residents of Wise County are pushing back on the proposal, saying the county has not provided sufficient details. They also say the county has used public resources to promote a “yes” vote when it should present information impartially.
“The question I have is, rather than tell us, ‘Oh, if you let us have this electric authority, we will be able to do all of this economic development,’ why don’t you start out by telling us how is the electric authority going to operate? What is its structure? Who are going to be members?” asked Sharon Fisher, a county resident and coordinator of the grassroots movement Southwest Virginia Nuclear Watch.
Southwest Virginia Nuclear Watch is a partnership among five groups, including the environmental nonprofit The Clinch Coalition, of which Fisher is president. Southwest Virginia Nuclear Watch has previously pushed for more transparency about efforts to develop small modular nuclear reactors in the region.
Now, the group is using resources such as its Facebook page with 2,400 followers to encourage residents to vote “no” on the electric authority referendum. A digital flyer posted on that page argues that the authority is for big businesses and is “not about you, us, who live here and pay taxes.”
Fisher said the county should have held public hearings about the proposal at meetings of the county board of supervisors. Board meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month, so the next one would be slated for Nov. 13, after Election Day.
Hatfield noted that the board of supervisors petitioned the circuit court to put the referendum on the ballot, and the Virginia statute authorizing that does not require a public hearing. He said that each board meeting has a public expression period where residents can speak on topics, including the referendum.
“If, in the future, a decision is made to proceed with the creation of an authority, then a public hearing would be held prior to any vote on the ordinance,” he said in an email.
Fisher said she and other residents also have concerns about flyers that have been distributed and which can be found on the county’s website.
One version of the flyer offers “key facts” about the referendum, such as that the authority would not raise taxes or electric rates. It says the authority “could bring jobs, infrastructure, and new business investment” to Wise County.
A different version of the flyer, which was previously presented on the county’s website and is still accessible online, calls the referendum an “extraordinary opportunity” and urges residents to “vote yes.”
Fisher said that goes against a section of Virginia code that says that when a governing body distributes information about a referendum, such information “shall be limited to a neutral explanation, and shall not present arguments by either proponents or opponents of the proposal.”
The flyers were paid for by the Wise County Electric Authority Referendum Committee, which was created Aug. 27, according to state elections records.
Hatfield said the referendum committee “was organized in accordance with Virginia law and in consultation with the Virginia Department of Elections.”
He is the committee’s principal custodian of the books — the person responsible for its records. The committee’s treasurer is Brian Falin, executive director of the IDA.
The board of supervisors on Sept. 11 voted to appoint one of its members, John Schoolcraft, to the referendum committee, and to provide up to $10,000 to the committee from its general fund.
The committee also has received $10,000 each from the IDA and the county public service authority, for a total of $30,000, according to campaign finance reports.
Hatfield said the county general fund money was only used for “factual and neutral” mailers that lack the “vote yes” language. The “vote yes” flyers were prepared by the IDA and public service authority without using taxpayer dollars, he said.
Voting began Sept. 19 and runs through Nov. 4. Voters in Wise County and elsewhere in Virginia will be asked to choose the commonwealth’s next governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. All 100 seats in the House of Delegates are up for grabs.
To see who’s on the ballot in Wise County and where they stand, see the Wise County page on our Voter Guide.