Author's Note:  I tried my best to make sure all Speaker's names were correct, however, If I misspelled, please let us know so I may make the correction.  

Data Centers were front and center again at the Highway, Building, Grounds, Environmental, Zoning, and Welfare Committee Meeting in Christian County on Monday night.  The meeting was moved to Courtroom A due to the large number of people who appeared.  During public comments, each person was given 3 minutes and it was not a question/answer session.

The first speaker, John Paul, said he went to DeKalb and said that the concerns over water, emissions, and noise are real and that if people don’t believe him to go to DeKalb. Debbie Webber spoke and urged the county to consider the homes that just got built concerning the property value. She also warned that after the Neoblastoma issues that went through the county, she didn’t want Christian County to go through that again.  Marlane Ladley spoke and asked if a comprehensive impact study was being done and whether or not they would provide fire suppression systems, as she was concerned that the area fire departments would not be able to handle lithium fires.  Bill Corvall urged the issue to be a ballot issue, not a county board issue.

Debbie Daniels asked that if the county goes and sees the site, that they also come and see her farm which is near the proposed site.  She warned that the noise levels would cause problems at a consistent level. 

Aaron Rimes urged the county to think of the highest values and where they lie. Paula Wiseman says she is concerned about the water. After recovering from a drought, Wiseman says that with the data center using more water, will there be enough water available should there be another drought.  Another speaker from Bear Creek Township, whose name I couldn’t catch, said that the noise levels from generators would be consistently loud even inside homes. Pat Norvell says that heat load from the data center would be at atomic levels. Kerri Rahar urged everyone to do their own research warning that Eagle Rock has never built a data center before, so why should we trust them to do one in Christian County.

Kayla Shoemaker also urged the county to look into the property taxes, especially the numbers that will come in from the data center concerning the assessed value.  She says the misinformation coming in from that has been wrong.  

Al Dwight urged the county that if they go to a site to see a data center, that they don’t just go to a tour; they go see regular people and ask.  He said the salespeople will try to sell stuff, but it’s the people who live in the county who the board needs to be asking and talking to about the data center.

The county board is still a long way away from getting to a point where they even are going to be discussing it and are just in the beginning stages of the process.  The county would have to have an ordinance, then an application, but right now there would need to be a temporary restriction on the moratorium to allow research into the proposed ordinance. The process has NOT begun yet. Public hearings for the ZBA along with informational sessions and question-and-answer sessions with members from the public are still going to happen in the future and are still part of the process. County Board Chair Bryan Sharp spoke to Committee Chair Ken Franklin and said, as a board, they are at the very infant stages of this. 

The zoning and welfare committee approved a 2-day trip for board members to take a trip to Altoona to visit a data center there using county funds.

Sharp says that they would like to see it during the day and at night. Board member Clint Gabriel says he is skeptical of a trip, as there was potential for gag orders and he was concerned that people wouldn’t be able to say how they really feel about the data center.  He stated that it should be the ZBA members that delve deeper into the data center rather than the board members.  Sharp said that they were more than welcome to come.  The motion passed 4-1 to go to the Finance Committee, with Ken Franklin, David Buckles, Ray Koonce, and Mark Wolfe voting yes and Clint Gabriel voting no. The Finance Committee Meeting is set for Wednesday. To hear the full comments from the public, see below.