The Curious Case of a Solar-Power-Hating North Carolina Town

"The Woodland Town Council rejected a proposal to rezone a section of land north of town to M2 (manufacturing) from RA (residential/agricultural), essentially denying approval of a solar farm," reports Keith Hoggard for the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald.

The decision ignored the recommendation of the town's Planning Board to allow the rezoning and reversed a trend that allowed three solar energy facilities to gain approval in the area surrounding an electrical substation in the area.

That all seems like a run-of-the-mill example of politicians splitting from the advisory role provided by planning bodies, yet this story got picked up by international and national news sources. That's because testimony by Bobby and Jane Mann inspired an international deluge of trolling. An article by Samuel Osborne focuses especially on the comments of Bobby Mann, who "said the solar farms would suck up all the energy from the sun."

The public response to the media response to the local zoning controversy even inspired fact-checking website Snopes to chime in whether the story is factual or not. Kim LaPria's verdict: the story is mostly true. The town did reject the solar facility and Bobby Mann did give that testimony, but the city rejected the zoning change for reasons having more to do with property values and the local economy than with such a fundamental underestimation of the sun's power.