photo by: Shutterstock

Solar panels are shown in this photo from Shutterstock.

Allegations that a Douglas County commissioner sought favors for her husband and a co-worker in connection with a proposed 600-acre solar farm project are false, a county attorney said via a legal filing.

County officials last week formally responded to a lawsuit challenging county approvals of the Kansas Sky Energy Center, a massive utility project that would place about 8 million square feet of solar panels on about 600 acres of farmland north of North Lawrence.

That lawsuit — filed by Grant Township, the North Lawrence Improvement Association and more than 20 other businesses and individuals in the area — alleges that Douglas County Commissioner Karen Willey worked behind the scenes to get a nonprofit organization that her husband worked for hired as a consultant on the solar project. Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that Willey tried to get one of her private-sector co-workers hired as a consultant on the project.

The county’s attorney denied those allegations in an 18-page filing with Douglas County District Court, saying the plaintiffs in the case are often taking texts or email messages out of context or using them to make inaccurate characterizations.

“Defendant denies all characterizations of cited text that are inconsistent with or differ from the express writings,” Terelle Mock, a Topeka-based attorney who is representing the county, said in the answer filed with the court.

The county’s legal filing did acknowledge that Willey sent an email to The Nature Conservancy of Kansas, stating an interest in exploring whether the nonprofit entity could serve as a consultant on the solar project. The email also stated that Willey would talk with other entities besides The Nature Conservancy, saying “I will start reaching out to the top few choices to learn more about the ones I don’t know well, but if there is a chance that TNC might consider a role here, I would be delighted to talk further.”

Mock said the email fails to “demonstrate any prohibited activities” on the part of Willey.

The county’s filing also acknowledged Willey’s husband did previously work for The Nature Conservancy, but Mock said it was immaterial to Willey’s conversation.

“Ms. Willey’s husband was a seasonal maintenance technician working on a remote research island in the Pacific owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas Fish and Wildlife, and in no way did or could have benefited from The Nature Conservancy’s potential involvement in this project,” Mock wrote in the filing.

Douglas County Commission Chair, Karen Willey

The filing also denies that Willey engaged one of her co-workers at Futureful, a communications company that works with nonprofits, to rewrite and strengthen a portion of the application that solar farm developers were submitting to the county. Specifically, the lawsuit alleges Willey was working behind the scenes to strengthen the project’s plans for agrivoltaics, which is a concept that combines agriculture uses with solar panels.

The county’s filing acknowledges that Willey in late November 2023 received an email from a co-worker at Futureful regarding agrivoltaics, the proposed solar project, and Evergy, the Kansas utility that is seeking to operate the solar farm. In that email, the employee states: “I am happy to sign on as a consultant to set everything up, develop the operating agreement, create the partnerships and get this running (3 to 4 year contract I think) and then transition operations over to whoever makes sense in the county. I have no preference on whether Evergy pays me or the county with Evergy’s money.”

Plaintiffs have alleged that email is evidence that Willey was working inappropriately behind the scenes — with a private co-worker — to strengthen the solar farm application. Mock argued that is a mischaracterization of the email, and also denied related allegations that Willey had guaranteed her vote to the developers, as long as the project met certain conditions related to agrivoltaics.

“Commissioner Willey did not set forth ‘requirements’ for the applicant,” Mock wrote. “Nor did she ever promise her vote in favor of the project.”

The county’s filing also flatly denies that at least one county employee had filed a whistleblower complaint against Willey regarding her “advocacy and involvement” in the solar project. The plaintiffs alleged that County Administrator Sarah Plinsky met with Willey after the complaint and instructed her to no longer meet with the developers. The county denied all aspects of that allegation in its filed response.

The Kansas Sky Energy Center project has received one round of key approvals from the Douglas County Commission, but does not yet have all of the approvals required to move forward. The project still must receive approval of a stormwater management plan and an agrivoltaics plan, among others.

It is unclear when the Douglas County Commission may consider those plans. A county spokeswoman declined to answer multiple questions about the status of those plans. She also declined to answer a question about whether the county believes it can move ahead with approval of those plans while this lawsuit is pending.

Also unclear is what standards the county may use to ultimately review those plans. A handful of brief statements in the county’s legal filing created questions about whether the county believes it has the ability to exempt the project from various county codes.

In their complaint, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit have argued that the county does not have the discretion to exempt the project from the county’s approved solar regulations. In its answer, however, the county denied that contention, suggesting that the county believes it does have the ability to exempt the project from portions of the solar regulations. The Journal-World asked the county for clarification, but a spokeswoman declined to elaborate.

Another question regarding the lawsuit is whether it will continue to take place in Douglas County District Court. The county has successfully made legal motions to move the case to federal court, citing the plaintiffs’ allegations that their 14th Amendment due process rights have been violated. Since that is a constitutional issue, the defendants can ask that the case be moved to federal court.

William Skepnek, a Lawrence attorney representing the plaintiffs, said he expects to file an amendment to the lawsuit that removes the 14th Amendment arguments from the case. At that point, he said he expects the case will be moved back to Douglas County District Court, which would ensure that any jury trial is heard by Douglas County residents.