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To the Editor:

The clock is ticking and the way of life for Charlotte County residents is in the balance. On Monday, Sept. 13, at 1 p.m. the citizens will get to tell the board of supervisors what they think and then the Board will vote on the Randolph Solar Project. That project will take away over 7,000 acres of timber and agricultural landscape, affect all the residents in the county with massive amounts of traffic on our backroads, decrease our property values, have a potential effect on the health and well-being of the adjourning property owners, potentially contaminate our land/water, have an adverse effect on our waterways and ecological environment, and the unknown costs to remaining taxpayers for decommissioning these gray slabs when their life or usefulness is over. There is another large project application pending for Tall Pines and there is no telling how many more will come. Do we want to industrialize our “Garden Spot of the World.” These gray slabs will cut the heart right out of our county and all for the promise of a few extra bucks in the county’s fund. I’m not real sure why the county will need all the extra money when all the citizens go away and move to a better place. For sure our grandchildren won’t have anything to come back to and would have to do all the cleanup of this mess if they did. They likely won’t even want to visit.

I hope the landowners directly impacted and all citizens will at least speak up about expanding the setbacks so we can at least get adequate buffers and try not to see the destruction and ugly slabs. Better yet — call for the board of supervisors to declare a moratorium or just vote no to any further applications being approved as other counties around us have done. We have four solar projects already approved which are: a 15 megawatt Twitty”s Creek project, a 150 megawatt Moody’s Creek project, a 5 megawatt Red House project and the 167 megawatt Court House project. Why wouldn’t it be prudent to wait and see what happens with these when they are up and running and see just what the returns are and what impacts they have upon us. Our board of supervisors have a responsibility to preserve our county and protect our way of life not destroy all that we love about our “Garden Spot of the World.”

Please speak up before Sept. 13 or come to the meeting if you can — don’t let our way of life go away.

Beverly Fitz

Drakes Branch