It may be that Elon’s town council hasn’t been getting enough sun lately. Or perhaps, with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time, its members have begun to exceed their daily allowance of salubrious rays.
Yet, whatever the case, the town’s typically convivial leaders found themselves in a distinctly fractious spirit last week over Elon’s potential pursuit of solar technology.
This rare moment of discord arose at the tail end of a 140-minute meeting on Tuesday when each member of the council traditionally has a chance to share individual remarks.
Steve Exum, the newest member of the council, used his turn in the limelight to deliver a lengthy disquisition on his brief tenure that culminated in a declaration that he would like to make the promotion of green energy his personal focus. Exum went on to urge the rest of the council to introduce solar power to a building that the town recently acquired from LabCorp to house its police force and other municipal services.
As benign as this proposal may seem, Exum’s harangue set off the equivalent of a fusion reaction in Elon’s mayor Emily Sharpe.
When her turn came to address the group, Sharpe shared a general admonition with her colleagues that they shouldn’t continuously raise issues that have been voted down by the council’s majority. Sharpe went on to suggest that this guiding principle has been bucked in the case of solar energy, which she recalled had failed to catch on with most of the council when its members laid out their fiscal priorities at their latest budget retreat in February.
“At that meeting, solar was on the list, but it did not rise to a priority,” the town’s mayor insisted. “I feel disrespected because we collectively made a decision and conversations have taken place that have tried to derail that.”
In response to Sharpe’s reprimand, Exum argued that his continued focus on solar energy stems from a potential financial incentive that’s set to expire this summer. He added that the town has a “limited window of opportunity” to seize on this deal if it plans to incorporate solar power into the former LabCorp facility – a prospect that he insisted should change the council’s prioritizations from the retreat.
Sharpe, however, would have none of it.
“This can’t monopolize our entire conversation, Steve,” she shot back with atypical ire. “We are already looking to reduce $2 million from our budget. Do we want solar energy or do we want to get new weapons for our police?”
Exum’s plea to the council received some additional backing from councilman Randy Orwig, who serves as the council’s liaison to a “sustainability committee” that weighs in on things like solar power and energy conservation. Orwig agreed with his junior colleague’s contention that the town’s purchase of the former LabCorp facility has been a real game changer for the potential implementation of solar technology.
“It’s not some kind of usurping of the priorities,” he argued. “It’s simply an opportunity that opened up.”
Orwig and Exum proceeded to spar with the mayor over the potential resurrection of the council’s debate about solar technology. Sharpe conceded that this issue could be woven into their forthcoming discussions about the renovation of the former LabCorp facility. She nevertheless took issue with the pair’s sense of urgency as well as the heightened importance they ascribed to this item.
“It needs to be strategic, and it needs to be aligned with our priorities,” she went on to contend.
Meanwhile, Monti Allison, the town’s mayor pro tem, said that the dire appeals on behalf of solar energy sounded, to him, like a “timeshare salesman” plugging a supposedly limited-time deal.
The badinage between the mayor and the council’s solar power enthusiasts ultimately ran out of juice as Tuesday’s meeting passed the two-hour mark. In the end, Orwig and Exum remained undeterred in their support for solar technology. At the same time, the council was just as emphatic that the council ought to refrain from disinterring debates whose last gasps had already been heard.
“I don’t publicly go against you when you make decisions,” she said. “I’m just asking you for the same level of respect.”
GET MORE ELON NEWS – EVERY WEEK IN PRINT, AND EVERY DAY ONLINE
