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NORTH LIBERTY, Ind. — REAL News Michiana has learned the newly appointed Vice Chair of the St. Joseph County Republican Party has been pushing a secret solar farm on his property in North Liberty for the past several years. Documents obtained by REAL News Michiana show a contract between solar developer Hexagon and a company by the name of Cornerstone Liberty Group LLC. It turns out, Cornerstone Liberty Group LLC is owned by the wife of GOP Vice Chair Joe Layne.
According to property records, Cornerstone Liberty Group currently owns two large parcels of land in the North Liberty area off of State Road 4, just south of Potato Creek State Park. Those parcels total approximately 100 acres of farmland directly east of Layne’s home.
Solar projects have been a major point of contention within conservative circles, with the majority of the county’s elected officials and members of the GOP being staunchly against the expansion of solar farms in the area. One of the biggest opponents has been Republican County Council Member Amy Drake.
ATTACKS AGAINST LAYNE FOR SOLAR PROJECT
Joe Layne ran for the State Senate District 8 seat this year, but lost in a crowded primary race to incumbent Mike Bohacek. According to sources close to Drake, Drake had been using Layne’s contract with Hexagon to subvert his political aspirations, by using surrogates to spread the contract around conservative circles before and after his failed State Senate primary campaign this spring. However, since Layne became the Vice Chair of the county GOP last month, both Layne and Drake have been pushing a message of “unity.” In fact, Layne has recently told RNM he saw no attacks levied against him from Drake and instead blamed one of Layne’s primary opponents, Spencer England. To be fair, England has also been involved in spreading the information regarding Layne’s solar ventures.
According to sources, Layne, Drake and other Republican members of the County Council have come to some sort of a “quid pro quo” agreement, allegedly involving his solar project and Drake’s political aspirations.
SOLAR GETS THE GREEN LIGHT
On July 9th, the St. Joseph County Council passed an amendment to force developers to get a permit for solar farms, something that had not existed previously. There’s only one caveat, current projects are unaffected by the change as long as applications had already been submitted to the county. It just so happens, Hexagon, the company that has a contract with Layne, filed applications for projects in St. Joseph County on July 8th, the day before the council vote. This means ALL of those projects are now grandfathered in with no permit needed. RNM is working to confirm if Layne’s project was included in the applications submitted by Hexagon.
Currently, many opposed to the projects are calling the applications “rushed” and have been concerned Hexagon may have received inside information prior to the July 9th Council meeting.
Layne has been mired in controversy since he started his stint as the GOP Vice Chair position earlier this month. An RNM investigation uncovered he is currently pushing for party leadership to sign Non-Disclosure-Agreements and limit their ability to be critical of any GOP official on social media. According to sources, the NDA push has been supported by Drake who has been attempting to stop criticism aimed toward her and those she supports.
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