LOCAL GOVERNMENT
So far in 2026 there have been quite a few comments about data centers at city council meetings in San Angelo; but on Tuesday members of after school group got together to make a comment in the chamber.
Youth Empowerment in Action is a nonprofit organization that meets as an after school program at the San Angelo YMCA. Their goal is to help teens feel empowered to speak out about the issues that matter to them.
Sierra Mullan, who runs the group, introduced the two teen speakers at city council during public comment, where they rose to give their impressions of the situation as future decision makers for San Angelo.
“I am a youth in concern of the data center being built here. I am very much aware that it supports technology that is absolutely necessary such as medical technology. What I am concerned about is building it in such a water scarce area as San Angelo,” said McKenna Ford.
“The water quality here is drinkable – but I think we can all agree that we avoid consuming the tap water here. It has been criticized many times by multiple people in the community…and it’s practically a desert here.”
They spoke calmly and meaningfully; and unlike many who rise for public comment, knew which district they belonged to and announced that before beginning their remarks.
They spoke for around the allotted time for each public comment, referencing some of the issues that towns in South Texas have had with companies like Meta, who’s data centers drew attention for their massive water consumption in 2025. Since then, San Angelo has stepped in to regulate potential incoming data centers.
But as the data center boom seems to be the only thing that might prevent some cities in Texas from becoming bankrupt, the teens who will one day have to rent and get jobs here have grave concerns both about the data centers themselves, and over-reliance on artificial intelligence.
Sierra Mullan said: “We had several teens who are interested in this topic – so I actually got a call from one of them who said: “we should go to city council and express our concerns.”
She runs Youth Empowerment in Action at the YMCA in San Angelo and wants to help teens speak out about what they feel is important.
“Our teens have been wanting to do a project on data centers, and AI use – and I said, let’s make it happen,” she said.
When asked about how the kids feel about AI and data centers, she said:
“I think that it depends. There are some teens that use it to write, just for ease of use in getting assignments done, but there is a large group of teens, I’m finding, an increasingly larger amount of teens are concerned about the environment, and intellectual property concerns. They have brought up an understanding that there are some beneficial uses, such as the medical field – but their concerns are more around water usage.
“Theres also a lot of talk about the recent concerns about AI safety…”
There are several recent stories about artificial intelligence development raising concerns; including AI agents being able to perform large tasks on their own, to their involvement in weapons systems and more.
Mullan continued: “Some of them refuse to take part in different programs if they can tell that the flyer was made by AI. I’m glad they’re thinking about that….I’ve been pretty proud of their abilities to not just take things at face value.”
