The Lake Trout hearing was more than the vote. It was downright odd at times.

Tuesday's Board of Zoning Appeals hearing on the Lake Trout Solar project ran about three and a half hours. The board denied the appeal 4-1.

But that wasn't all that happened. A lot of other notable events took place at the hearing, from a resident trying to call for a public vote to a Lake Trout representative openly questioning an attorney's record. Below are some of those moments that stuck out for us.

The project will not be finished until 2028

Development manager Jesse Laniak gave the board a construction schedule that extends well past what most residents have heard.

Cover crop goes in across the panel areas starting November 1. Most pile driving happens in January and February. Laniak said the project goes "full swing in January of 2027" and then runs "probably 12 to 14 months," which he acknowledged "maybe that's a little aggressive."

By August of 2028 is our expected final completion date.

He said the project has completed two rounds of road upgrades covering more than 20 miles, at a cost of $3.5 million, and that work on the project substation has begun.

Lake Trout brought a court reporter

Lake Trout's attorney, Rachel Connor, told the board she had hired a court reporter to produce a transcript of the hearing, and asked everyone to speak slowly.

I'm speaking a little bit slowly, because I have a [court] reporter here with me. This is Jackie. She came up and asked everybody for spelling of their name before we got started. She's also got some microphones around the room.

Connor also told the board she was noting objections for the record, "because the Indiana courts require us to preserve any issues or objections on the record."

The county's own record of the hearing is a video recording and the minutes the secretary keeps.

The developer told the board about the petitioners' attorney's record, falsely

Before turning the presentation over to Connor, Laniak told the board that the attorney representing the petitioners, Laureen White, had brought similar actions against local governments repeatedly, characterizing them as "frivolous claims" which is a formal legal finding, and that they had been denied or withdrawn. He put the number at roughly five or six.

White addressed it in her rebuttal.

I also wanted to address the information that was provided to you that I lose every time I come in front of the board. It's very interesting. You perhaps should go talk to Clark County or Putnam County or Madison County just last week. Jupiter Solar's petition was voted down, and I was there representing the petitioners on that board.

Two candidates backed the appeal. No sitting official weighed in.

Shane Smith, the Republican nominee for county commissioner in District 2, submitted a letter asking the board to grant the appeal. He wrote that he could not attend because of a conflicting event with his son.

If this was any other company wanting to build a major project in Blackford County, would we allow them to continue if their approval had expired and the permits were being challenged as void? If the answer is no, then why should this be any different?

Smith also recommended the county hire an attorney who specializes in this area to review all of its renewable energy approvals, writing that "most of it may be too far along to change, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't know if mistakes were made."

Deb Grider, a candidate for county council, submitted a letter and also spoke. She is not one of the seven petitioners, but her public records requests produced much of the documentation the appeal rests on, including the correspondence between the county and the developer and the two different versions of the 2022 meeting minutes.

It's not about wind or solar. It's did they follow the ordinance.

Grider told the board the permit application was incomplete under Section 1104.4(A) of the county ordinance, that the minutes the developer relied on had been altered, and that the recording which would settle the question no longer exists.

No sitting elected official spoke at the hearing or submitted a letter. The county commissioners approved both a road use agreement and an economic development agreement for this project.

Members turned their microphones off to confer

At several points during deliberation, board members can be seen on the county's recording switching off their microphones and talking among themselves. People in the room say the discussion could not be heard from the gallery.

Indiana's Open Door Law counts deliberating as official action and requires meetings to be open "at all times for the purpose of permitting members of the public to observe and record them."

A board member was asked twice to step aside, and voted

White opened the hearing by noting that board member Daniel Schriver was inside the notification area for the petition, and cited Indiana Code 36-7-4-909. Grider repeated the request during public comment and described the county's past practice.

In all our past hearings anybody who was in the notification area was not permitted to sit on the board and vote... So I'm respectfully requesting that your vote not count, that you do not vote.

The statute disqualifies a member who "is biased or prejudiced or otherwise unable to be impartial" or who "has a direct or indirect financial interest in the outcome." It does not address notification areas.

Schriver chaired the hearing and voted.

"The BZA can supersede the ordinance"

Asked why Lake Trout never went back to the planning office to clarify what "start of construction" meant, Connor explained which document her clients follow.

The BZA's order is the controlling document. The BZA can supersede the ordinance. That's why you have the ability to add a one-year extension that is not written into your ordinance.

Connor also told the board that the deadline Lake Trout worked to came from her firm rather than from the county. Former Executive Director Ann Owen's extension letter set December 2025. Lake Trout used June 28, 2025.

That, in part, is guidance that we gave to the client.

The developers are helping fund a county consultant

Explaining the administrative burden these projects place on county staff, Laniak said the energy projects have pooled money to pay for help.

Lake Trout [and] other projects have come together and are funding... a consultant to help with administrative [work in] zoning, with the assessor's department and others... We are adding more work to staff, but we're also funding a consultant that reports directly to Blackford County.

No one on the board asked a follow-up question. The commissioners are separately weighing roughly $20,000 for an outside firm to draft a data center ordinance. This opens a question of whose priorities are being built into the answers provided by the consultants.

Most of the speakers in support came from outside the county

Speakers supporting the project included a representative of Cupertino Electric, the contractor building it; a union official; a representative of Indiana Michigan Power, which has agreed to buy the project from EDF; and a representative of the Indiana Land and Liberty Coalition, a project of the national Conservative Energy Network. They gave addresses in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.

One longtime resident objected from the podium.

I'm really angry at these individuals in this room that are not part of Blackford County speaking for us... You serve us, Blackford County residents.

The union official said his local now has about 65 members in Blackford County, up from roughly 20 before the energy projects began.

A resident tried to call a vote of the room

During public comment, a Hartford City man moved "under the Roberts Rules of Order that the citizens of Blackford County vote yay or nay" on the appeal.

He was told the board is the only body at the hearing that can vote, and that while the board uses Roberts Rules, its own rules and procedures take precedence.

Nobody could explain the blank boxes

Two required items on Lake Trout's permit application — manufacturer's specifications and a revegetation plan — were not checked off. A board member asked what that meant for the permits.

Connor said the underlying documents were submitted as exhibits and that she could not account for the form: "I don't know why they weren't checked. I really don't."

Laniak described the form as Owen's own paperwork.

This is just her cover sheet for her own organizational materials... That was her administrative stuff.

Owen no longer works for the county.