Cerro Gordo County hires outside law firm to represent county against Ranger Power solar farm proposal

MASON CITY — The Cerro Gordo County Board of Supervisors today hired the law firm Ahlers & Cooney of Des Moines to represent the county in the Iowa Utilities Commission proceedings regarding a Chicago-based company’s proposal to construct a solar farm in the county, despite the recently-approved zoning ordinance banning large-scale development of wind, solar and battery storage in the county.

Ranger Power wants to build a solar panel array on 2250 acres of land stretching through the Bath, Lake, and Mount Vernon townships south of Mason City and Clear Lake.

The Iowa Utilities Commission held a public information meeting earlier this month about Ranger Power’s proposal. That meeting was one of the first steps Ranger Power had to take in their effort to get state-level regulatory approval for the project while they try to convince county officials to reverse their decision on the zoning ordinance. 

County administrative officer Tom Meyer says the hiring of an outside law firm allows the county to better intervene in the IUC process.  “This would allow us to submit ourselves, it’s called intervene, in the process, as a party to their application process. It would allow us to, for lack of a better term, present our ordinance how Cerro Gordo County wants to deal with large-scale renewable energy. I did talk to the county attorney, he concurs with hiring outside counsel for this.”

Meyer says the IUC is taking public comment about the project proposal.  “The public can submit comments through the IUC website, case specific to this case if the citizens want to submit any comments to this. This is hiring Ahlers & Cooney to represent the county in the process.”

Ranger Power’s goal is to get through the state permitting process by 2027 and start construction then, with the solar farm being on-line in 2029.