Belleville to hold public meeting on controversial solar farm at cemetery
Belleville Mayor Jenny Gain Meyer has announced that the city will hold a public meeting next week on the controversial solar farm that’s being planned at Mount Hope Cemetery.
It will be the first meeting since one group of local residents launched a petition campaign opposing the project and another group launched a petition campaign supporting it.
“Let your voice be heard!” wrote Natalie Wilson in a post on the Facebook page for the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery group, encouraging people to attend the meeting.
Wilson, of Belleville, who co-administers the Facebook page, opposes a solar farm in that location. Friends group founder, E. Gayle Schneider, who lives in North Carolina, supports it.
The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 7, in the Welcome Center of the Southwestern Illinois Justice & Workforce Development Campus (formerly Lindenwood), 2300 W. Main St. in Belleville.
The agenda includes opening remarks by a representative of Shine Development Partners, a Texas company that owns Belleville Solar LLC, who will discuss the project schedule and plan changes.
That will be followed by public comments, with each speaker being allocated two minutes.
It’s believed that nearly 27,000 people are buried at Mount Hope, which dates back to the late 1800s. The most recent owner abandoned it about 20 years ago, leading to receivership and neglect.
Last year, the city bought the 132-acre property, including about 55 acres of burial grounds backed by woods, for $1 in a St. Clair County foreclosure auction. The public works department already was spending about $100,000 a year to mow and pick up trash.
Also last year, city officials signed an agreement to allow Belleville Solar LLC to clear-cut 25 acres of woods and build a 5-megawatt solar farm. The company would pay $50,000 to $55,000 a year in rent for 35 years.
Supporters say the revenue would help cover maintenance costs and badly needed repairs to roads, the chapel and mausoleum.
Opponents argue that such a large tract of green space and wildlife habitat in a heavily-developed urban area should be used for a community park or nature preserve and that a solar farm would destroy the sanctity and character of the historic cemetery.
Jesse Berger, who lives nearby, posted a “Save Mount Hope Cemetery” petition opposing the solar farm on the Change.org website in late May. As of Thursday, 632 people had signed it.
Belleville resident Alex Enyart posted another petition supporting the solar farm on the Change.org website in mid-July. It’s called “Support Solar in Belleville!” As of Thursday, 44 people had signed it.
