District 3 City Councilman Harry Thomas made a rare public comment at Tuesday’s regular meeting, defending the city’s interactions with developers of a proposed data center. Thomas said that he has never made a public comment as a council member and hoped that would emphasize his feelings on the matter.
A few citizens spoke during public comment to address the data center problem head-on, criticizing the nature of last month’s data center meeting. Notably, the petitioner for the recall of Mayor Tom Thompson, Richard Summers of the San Angelo Data Center Citizens Coalition, accused the city attorney of not comprehending the Texas Public Information Act.
Summers and others criticized officials for what they characterize as misconduct in the handling of Emergent Data Center’s development project, echoed in the recall petition, which charges the mayor with “Failure to disclose material facts, timelines, and supporting documentation related to the Skybox data center project that are of clear public interest and relevance.”
Thomas Seeks To Clarify City’s Role
In a prepared statement made from his seat on the dais, Councilman Thomas spoke briefly — but rather forcefully — on the matter.
“As senior council member both in age and tenure, I’d like to address some of the issues brought before this council over the last few months,” Thomas said.
“The passion displayed by some citizens these last few months on this one subject is amazing.
“If that same passion were displayed for the whole city of San Angelo, there would be no shortage of volunteers or funding for all the non-profits in town. There would be a waiting list to fill openings on our city boards and commissions
“There’s a process (inaudible) do business in San Angelo that may not be completely understood,” he continued, “If a business shows interest, then the senior leadership of the Chamber [of Commerce] will interact with those individuals – if any of those prospects decides to take the next steps, it will normally be discussed in the executive session for the city council.
“Those meetings are closed for a reason. And the members attending are required to not discuss what is talked about during that session. If any information leaves that session that individual may be censured.”
Recall Update (May 7)
After the meeting, a representative of the San Angelo Data Center Citizen’s Coalition told the Observer that the councilman’s statements left many with a bad taste.
“It seemed like the councilman was saying “We love that citizens are getting involved, but stop telling us how to do our job,'” they said.
The citizens coalition has been circulating the recall petition for close to two weeks now. The petition to hold a recall vote for Mayor Tom Thompson has a little over 200 signatures, according to their spokesperson. There will be number of signing events held by the group in the weeks to follow, including one at Producer’s Park in San Angelo on May 9.
“This is not going to stop the data center in its tracks,” they said “but to remind officials that we are the ones to answer to, not business.”
While the recall campaign and the local data center opposition have many of the same members in common, measures to oppose data center construction have been popping up across the political aisle.
Disclosure Roundup
On April 30, the citizen’s coalition stated that it had received a reply from the city and the attorney general’s office related to the disclosure of city documents about the data center, after which the respondent has 10 business days to reply with the ordered documents.
In a statement released by the City of San Angelo on April 28, “No sitting member of the San Angelo City Council has signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) related to the data center project,” and that claims to that effect were false.
The Nitty Gritty: First Reading of the Ordinances
Then, as the work of organizing the new ordinances came in, Planning Director Aaron Vannoy stated that regulations regarding water and sewer use were being moved to a formal presentation about utility ordinances and would not be addressed with this motion.
You can read more about the proposed water regulations here.
Vannoy began his presentation stating that this was the City of San Angelo’s move to regulate data centers.
Key sticking points for council members included noise regulations, setbacks from residential properties, fencing requirements, and other matters addressed in zoning ordinance.
The discussion quickly became a numbers game. Patrick Keely, representing District 4 where the proposed data center would be built, had concerns about low-frequency noise transmission, requesting that the ordinance be amended to change the maximum noise output at the property line from 65 decibels to 55 decibels.
Tommy Hiebert, SMD 1, stated he originally wanted the required buffer zone between data center developments and other properties be 500 feet, and Karen Hesse-Smith of SMD 5 wondered about adding notification zones.
Joe Self, SMD 2, pointed out that the city’s influence stops at the city limits, and beyond that, landowners in Texas can pretty much do whatever they want.
Ultimately, public comment about the ordinance changes still expressed displeasure, with those who remained after the lengthy conference talking about the long-term effects of data centers, beyond economic development.
Richard Summers, who spoke during general public comment, addressed the proposed ordinances requesting that as part of the conditional use, a clause be added prohibiting and artificial intelligence models (commonly referred to as generative A.I.) along with the already proposed ban on cryptocurrency mining.
Following public comment, Mayor Thompson stated that he felt confident in the proposed regulations before taking the first motion to move forward. The regulations will be heard again at council to address the changes to utility ordinance.
