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For the fifth time in less than two years, elected leadership last week approved a highly contentious project by a one-vote margin, this time Isle of Wight County supervisors’ blessing of a sprawling warehouse complex abutting the tranquil Lovers Lane residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Windsor.

The 3-2 green light for the Tidewater Logistics Center in the face of intense opposition from the town of Windsor and its citizens continues a disturbing pattern of Isle of Wight and Smithfield elected leaders ramming through unpopular projects rather than working to build consensus among themselves and, more important, the citizens they serve.

In the summer of 2023, then-Supervisor Dick Grice, who wasn’t even the board’s chairman, went rogue and negotiated a fatter payment for county coffers from the developer of the controversial Carver solar farm along Route 460 between Windsor and Zuni — the gateway to central Isle of Wight County, whose first impression for visitors will now be unsightly solar panels thanks to a Grice-engineered 3-2 vote over the objection of the two supervisors who represent the southern half of the county.

Then, in December of the same year, a shorthanded Smithfield Town Council, with just five voting members, voted 3-2 for a version of the Grange at 10Main mixed-use development that would have doubled the population of the town’s Historic District. A significantly scaled-back version is now on the table and has been warmly received by citizens and elected leaders alike, showing what is possible when the goal is consensus rather than expedited approval.

In 2024, two more projects were greenlighted by a single-vote margin on the Board of Supervisors: the Sweetgrass residential and commercial development on Benns Church Boulevard and the Sycamore Cross solar farm on the Isle of Wight-Surry county line. In both cases, the county Planning Commission had recommended rejection.

Don’t get us wrong. A simple majority of elected officials is sufficient under town and county bylaws, and there’s no reason to question the legitimacy of the votes we’ve outlined here. An elected leader is free to vote as he or she wishes, regardless of public opinion. 

Yet, elected leaders shouldn’t feel good about simply finding the minimum number of votes when the citizens they serve have said repeatedly — at the ballot box and in one public forum after another — that they’re tired of watching their small-town, idyllic way of life overrun by subdivisions, solar panels and now warehouses. 

The dejected faces of Windsor residents filing out of the Board of Supervisors meeting room last week encapsulated a broader mood among the Isle of Wight electorate. They’re tired of paternalistic elected leaders who act like they’re smarter than the citizens they serve.