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On 8 December 2015 the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald published an article titled Woodland rejects solar farm. The article was later aggregated to news outlets with a far larger reach, such as The Independent's 13 December 2015 piece US town rejects solar panels amid fears they 'suck up all the energy from the sun.' The original reported that three solar farms had previously been accepted by the town council, adding that a proposal to rezone part of the land north of town was subsequently rejected in the meeting: Notably, among concerns registered were those like Hobbs'; some residents simply worried that the burgeoning solar industry would further depress the local economy and tank the values of their homes (asserting that such damage had already been done.) Others expressed concerns unrelated to property value: Comments made by the Manns were widely reproduced across web sites in the United States and internationally. However, Jane Mann's concerns differed slightly from Bobby Mann's, who likened the transformation of the town to the one that occurred when Interstate 95 routed through the area and affected the flow of commerce. While both cited ambient fears about the panels' effect on the local ecosystem, the latter concern spoke more directly to general worries about large-scale changes to the local economy. We contacted the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald and spoke to author Keith Hoggard about the article and its unexpected reach. He confirmed that The Independent's take was mostly accurate, and that the residents didn't want another solar panel installation. However, it's worth mentioning that Hoggard's original article mainly addressed residents' concerns about the impact of multiple solar farms on property values and local commerce. Some residents expressed fears about solar panel safety, but they were not the sole voices of dissent at the council meeting. [article-meta]
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