Borough Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Welcome to the Columbia Borough Council meeting, May 26, 2026, 7 p.m. Some housekeeping notes. Restrooms are through those doors and to the right. Fire exits are that door there and that door right there. Roll call please.

Council person Byers.

Here.

Council person Zink. Here. Council person Cooper. Here. Council person Giese.

Here.

Council person Murphy.

Here.

Council person Ziegler.

Here.

Council president Coffman.

Here.

Mayor Lutz.

Here.

Thank you.

Is there anybody who'd like to give an invitation? May I rise for a moment of silence, please?

Thank you. Thank you.

I have executive sessions. There was an executive session Monday night to review the proposal. May 18th. May 18th, thank you. Addictions, deletions, re-organization of the agenda. Now, I have motion to approve the agenda as published. i have motion by councilman zinc second by councilman murphy to approve the agenda as published all in favor say aye aye aye citizens comments when you give your comments please state your name and spell it out for the record First person is Brad Chambers.

Hello, Columbia. So my name is Brad Chambers and I want to wish everybody here a good evening. I am a resident of and homeowner in Columbia. And I am here to voice my concern about the state of our borough. It is my understanding that tonight our borough council will be voting on whether or not to sell the McGinnis property to Savia Holding LLC, a New York-based holding company which owns several properties, including warehouses and data centers. Before we even get to this possible sale, let's be clear, our borough and our neighbors are struggling. As of earlier this month, It was reported in the local press that the Columbia Market House, which the borough owns and is responsible for operating, is running at a loss. Open only one day a week for a handful of hours, it was also reported that the original estimate for necessary structural repairs for the Columbia Crossing building, also owned by the borough, has Columbia taxpayers on the hook for a quarter of a million dollars. At the same time, municipal taxes, they continue to rise. including a second year in a row increase proposed by members of this council. Gas is approaching $5 a gallon. Utility rates are increasing again. Groceries are more expensive than ever. And many residents of the borough lost their health insurance when the health care marketplace subsidies ended earlier this year. My mom was one of those people. The situation is untenable. both for the borough and our community members without swift judicious action by this council i believe disaster looms the mcginnis property should not have been purchased by our council in the first place and many community members and many community members, myself included, objected to its purchase in 2021. Having said that, I understand that the borough is under immense financial pressure to sell this property. I also understand that this is the only bid that they received in the time period that was provided. But I have grave concerns over a sale that could lead to the development of a data center in a town that is already struggling to meet its financial obligations and at the expense of our struggling neighbors. We know from the experiences of other towns where data centers were built that they do not provide large numbers of local jobs. There are initial jobs to build the center, but after that, they taper off. And yeah, We can be in a situation where we are financially responsible for the water and energy costs of that center. I don't think we have money for that in Columbia. We are on the brink of serious financial danger as it is, and we could not, we should not be asked to absorb this kind of risk. If there is no way to confirm that there's a condition of the sale, that this is not a data center, I would ask counsel. to reject this bid and reopen a new period of bidding. What Columbia needs are good paying jobs where our residents can walk or take public transit to. What Columbia needs is a diversified development that can have vibrant growth over time. What Columbia does not need is more pollution, more costs, and more investment for people that don't live here. Yes. We need to diverse borough money from an ill-conceived plan from the start. But this sale without stipulations protecting our town would take us from a bad situation to a worse one. And I don't want to speak for everyone in the borough, but if it is a data center and if they are asking us to pay for their water and electricity costs, a lot of us don't have it. Where's it going to come from?

how are you rachel

Hello, my name is Ali Rachel, and I am here to speak on behalf of the 1487 people who signed the petition against an AI data center in Columbia, Pennsylvania. I am also one of 3,000 members of the Hamburn Social Club, a place where six months out of the year, hundreds of guests sit outside enjoying live music, fresh air, and community. The revenue from this social club goes directly towards our fire station. If a data center is built, the temperatures on the deck and surrounding areas could rise an average of 19 degrees. Between the hot temperatures, the noise, and the air pollution, the social club will take a huge hit. Bands will no longer agree to play, people won't be able to relax, and all that money that goes towards our acquired company will be gone. In addition to the already high temperatures rising, we are looking at a 24-7 humming noise of 75 to 85 dBA. which could peak at 90 DBA, 97 DBA. According to Chapter 149, Table 1 of the Columbia Borough Code, manufacturing sound limit is 77 DBA. Again, the average sound level created by data centers is 75 to 85 DBA, peaking at 97 DBA, meaning this data center could very easily go above borough regulation. do you think the loud noise hot temperatures and damage to our ecosystem will attract new buyers to this town how could this issue the issues i listed above have any positivity towards our housing market they're trying to sell the idea of new jobs without telling you the only local jobs data centers are promised is a bi-weekly cleaner the whole point of a data center is to be self-sufficient and as possible and employing remote workers. To summarize, this data center ensures minimal long-term jobs. Our schools desperately need funding. Instead of investing into our future generations, the same people who started this utterly mismanaged debacle are trying to distract us with a pretty bid and no transparency. If a data center is in the people's best interest, why all the secrecy? Is it because they know how undesirable the noise, air, and environmental damage could make this town? Is it because they don't understand or don't care about destroying the river that this community cares so much about? This town is strong because of the people in it, the small local businesses, the social clubs, and our volunteer firefighters. Why is it that you have more faith in this potential buyer who has at least four current lawsuits against them for not paying?

than you do in your own people.

This town deserves a lasting ecosystem and a serene community. My daughter and my students deserve the same town that my grandparents grew up in. We deserve council members who vote in our best interest instead of trying to save their own ass.

We, the people of Columbia, vote no to data centers.

Thank you.

IF YOU HAVE OPEN SEATS AT YOUR TABLE, PLEASE POINT THEM OUT TO THE PEOPLE STANDING OUTSIDE.

I think that's one of the first thing I've heard.

ALL RIGHT.

PHILLIPS, ARE YOU THERE?

ALL RIGHT, PHILLIPS. CAN YOU COME UP HERE FOR A SECOND? um Yes. Hello.

um

THE FACTORY OF THE FIRE HALL.

CAN I HOLD THIS MEETING HERE?

um um

Thank you. One minute, guys.

I just asked them, I know it's a big ask. I know you all want to be here. I used to do a lot of this stuff when the pipeline came through like 10 years ago. A lot of you might remember that. I know y'all want to be here. If 300 of us leave, they can continue the meeting. I know, I know, I know. But I know how this process works. And if they shut this down, we're not going to be able to say our piece. So please consider it. If you're willing to leave with me and let the citizens stand and say their piece, I'm going to go outside. You can rally outside. That's where I'm headed.

Okay, go. I wanted to. Thank you. I don't think you can go in there. um um what do you think of that mr attorney you really got your ass in a sling now don't you uh

Dennis Whipper, 1019 Manor Street. I live across the street from the McGinnis property. 27 years. I retired 10 years ago and I started having more time. I came to Borough Council meetings on a regular basis and Kelly Murphy and Clee Barntizer were on the Borough Council at that time. and this property was not bought yet and it was just in the stage of being talked about and i asked questions about it because i was concerned about what was going to go in there when they sold the property there was no idea of anything being discussed uh mark stivers who was the borough manager at the time when i asked a question leaned back in his seat and said we don't have to tell you anything. And I was at the podium and I told him, you should have been an effing used car salesman. Give me an answer like that. And I left, walked right out the door and left and hadn't been back to another council meeting since, except for once when I had rats in my neighborhood. So my question is, Zink said that she would not buy this property. She wouldn't sign off on it and buy this property down here unless there was a playground. Do you think an AI center or anybody that's going to put an AI center in down here is going to put a playground in there for us? Is that still on the table? Yes. So there's a piece of ground down there that doesn't matter what goes in there, there's going to be a playground?

Yes.

Okay. All right, hold it down. Hold it down. We only get five minutes. You didn't, in 10 years, while the old Borough Council with Mr. Murphy and Mr. Berthauser won, nobody ever came around to my neighborhood or any other neighborhood around this whole area and knocked on our doors and asked us what we thought. Nobody. and don't tell me that you did nothing okay nobody included us as taxpayers and residents of this town about our opinion whether we should buy that property down there and everybody was against it but yet you still bought that property okay now here we are 10 years later and you still aren't listening to these people you're not listening to these people they don't want it They don't want what the outcome is going to be. I think it's already decided. I think we're going to get it. But the thing is, I think the townspeople own that property down there. I think you ought to deed it back to every eligible voter in this town, and we have a special election, and we'll tell you what we want to know. I lived in this town for 76 years. Nowhere else in this town, 76 years. I've owned two homes, paid my taxes, sent my kids to your schools. I volunteer. Now I volunteer and donate money to every organization in this town, including this fire company, including the bird, whatever they do. I donate a lot of money every year. And people think I'm crazy. I don't have any kids that I have to defend, that I have to have as defendants. I think it's my way of giving back to the community. But I don't like what you're doing to me and all these other citizens. Not at all. I have one last thing. If this thing goes in down here, do you have a plan that if this thing catches fire or if it blows up, The evacuation, are we all going to evacuate this end of town? But Mayor Lutz lives up at the other end of town, and Zink lives at the other end of town. Are you people going to evacuate with us, or is it just going to be this neighborhood? Is this fire company adequate and capable of putting out fire at an AI center? I haven't seen any plans for anything of a disaster. Do you have a plan? No, you don't. I think you're putting the park before the horse. I think you ought to slow down a little bit. But I'm also going to make one prediction. This place is going to be sold and an AI center is going to go in there because they can't leave this property and reject that bid. They cannot reject the bid and leave that property and sit down there because they have no other buyers for that property. So I think you ought to give it back to the citizens of this town and we'll decide what we want.

Good afternoon.

Hold on a second. Taylor. She's outside. She's outside.

My name's Raylene Nuttermacher. My address is 1037 Manor Street. I live right across from McGinnis property. Last evening, my husband and I saw seven deer. I'm a nature lover. Okay? A year before that, There was 13 turkeys, wild turkeys, that came up from that property, went up 11th Street to the alley, turned around, went down 11th Street, and went across the street to McGinnis property. Three years ago, there was a red fox that had triplets down at the one island. I have pictures. of the mama red fox with her three little cubs out there playing. Yes, I'm a nature lover. I do not want to see this property go to what these guys say. How about our vets, our veterans? I'm a veteran. MAYBE WE CAN GET SOME HOUSING DOWN THERE FOR SOME VECTORIES. 25-year veterans volunteer to go down there and take their blood pressures and their temperatures every single morning.

TAYLOR ENTERLINE, I LIVE ON SOUTH 5TH STREET HERE IN COLUMBIA.

I ATTENDED THE BID REVEAL LAST MONDAY WHEN THE COMPANY NAME AND BID AMOUNT WERE REVEALED. since moving to columbia and talking with residents i have learned the history of the mcginnis property and the town's reprehension uh reprehension of council purchasing the property with that it's unsettling that council went with an rfp meaning that we the public are not afforded the transparency needed to understand what is expected to be in our backyard unaware to know the plans impact and decisions being made with a bid of this amount and potential impact there should be more transparency beyond just a name and a dollar amount at monday's meeting it was said a community benefits agreement was listed in the bid proposal but how is there a community benefits agreement with no community input or community discussion before you on council vote yes if this is a data center what are the accountability and measures in place to protect the public and the people in this community exactly in august of 2025 columbia did a zoning modification that states data centers are used permitted by right in light business like industrial and general industrial zones therefore data centers are permitted by right no public hearings are required then again lack of transparency here The lack of transparency and the lack of wanting or inviting community input or holding a community hearing around this issue is beyond harmful. Transparency in these dealings are the bare minimum and are beneficial to both the community and to you. There's an opportunity here for Council and the community to be collaborative together where council brings people together in partnership and celebration rather than opposition and where we can set a new precedent when it comes to these dealings around data centers rather than backroom deals and secrecy there's open communication collaboration and transparency you cannot kick 300 people out to continue this meeting when everyone has a say it needs to be in here there are decisions being made on behalf of the people and they all need to hear what y'all have to say and need to be in this room and transparency

Power to the people, thank you.

Let's go.

Callie Thompson. I'm Callie Thompson.

Bear with me. I do not like talking in front of this many people, but what an incredible turnout tonight. I've been a resident of the borough for 11 years. And I'm actually going to talk about something adjacent to what everyone here is excited about, but something that I do feel is very important to the community and the families. I get emotional when I'm stressed out. One of the things that led us to purchase our home here is seeing how cozy the community is. It's a tight-knit footprint, the attractiveness of the riverfront, the investment that we had already seen from the community planning forward to revitalize the neighborhoods, to invest in the history and the culture of the community. So tonight, I'm here to talk about walkability, and I want to speak about our kids. At six years old, they are legally allowed to walk to school by themselves without having a grown-up present. I don't know how many of you walk around our town. It's not safe as a grown-up to walk across the street. You have to be aggressive as a pedestrian because our drivers are aggressive. And I'm here to... share that not every family has the luxury of walking their child to school. People are single parents. People work more than one job. People don't have family support locally. So the community has good bones. And every day in the 30 minutes at pick up and drop off, I witness at least one near miss where vehicle goes into the crosswalk, talk to our crossing guards, they live it daily, it's terrifying. And we are being louder about it to ask the community as drivers, residents, business owners, council members to do better. I feel very strongly that it takes all of us to drive a change. There's a big audience here tonight, so thank you for letting me take five minutes to talk about something a little different. Columbia is not safely walkable today, but it can be. More feet in the street is the very first bold idea in the comprehensive plan for the borough. our council already knows it's important but i also feel they can't change it by themselves our borough police have shown up to support the lack of crossing guards and speaking up for the need for more enforcement they also have limited resources they cannot drive the change themselves it will take all of us We want to see more economic development. That starts with people walking into your business and knowing that they can safely cross the street, the curb of appeal. Excuse me. So now it's May 2026. I'm a member of the community. I'm a mother. I have a first grader soon to be second. He will tell you and a very excited soon to be kindergartner. And we do have the luxury of walking our boys to and from school. And they're very independent. I grew up in the country. It's strange to me to teach them about this is a curb cut. That's a driveway. You need to learn to navigate these things in an urban environment. So I want to do my part. I have started a community initiative called Columbia Walks. You may see it starting to post. in all of the different community organizations it includes resources from the state transportation groups and community initiatives on driving a walkable community and i've I'm working with a growing group of parents and citizens on resources and tools. We are piloting a citizen observation tool. It is anonymous, but you can call out drivers. You can call out highlights for local businesses, recognizing, I think Halo's Eatery does the pay it forward wall, which is incredible. Highlighting those things so people know where to go in the community and where they can walk. And it's about respect and the safety of people walking versus the protection of being in a car. I'm sure we all enjoyed video games, but this is not real life Grand Theft Auto where you can run people down and jump out of your cars. It's about building something we can all enjoy and be proud of and letting our kids have the ability to safely walk to school, to the Boys and Girls Club, which is an incredible program, to the park the newly refurbished jansen playground it's great it's right next to school it's beautiful and to teach them that we can be the change when it's needed but it will take all of us to change the attitude at every stoplight crosswalk and street corner to stop being complacent or self-important and to establish a new culture that is pedestrian forward to show care for your neighbor and the future of the borough. Do we have other problems to address?

Sure.

But this one, I think it's pretty simple. Columbia wants to walk. Will you help us?

good evening my name is scott frederick i too like taylor live on southwest street and i have spoken at prior meetings on a range of different subjects and i just want to get back to the main subject that we are all here to voice our opinions on, talk to council about, and get back on task, if you will. I've spoken at many meetings, especially recently as a prior spokesman said that he spoke at some and was slighted and he didn't show up for years. That was me. That was me. I was slighted, my wife was slighted, my family was slighted. Number of years I wasn't at any meetings. I've just recently started coming back and speaking about some things. A couple months ago, there was a big stink as far as single trash haulers. I bring this up not to rehash it. I'm not about to rehash it here tonight. It's not the time nor the place. And it's done as far as this year goes. What I am about to do is bring that into the conversation because they're all tied together at the very end. The single trash haulers had a meeting approximately a month and a half, two months ago. Mary Boninger spoke. gave all kinds of reasons why a single trash hauler might not work. Those are you problems, meaning the trash hauler. Those aren't our problems. If we put out what we wanted, they can either decide if they want to put a bid in or not. Again, you problem versus me problem. I'm a big believer in that. The McGinnis property, again, as somebody several people actually have spoken to about should have never been purchased there's a few members sitting on this current council that were on that council that approved that sale there are other council members from that council that are that are here tonight but not up front one of the worst decisions this borough has ever made i've always been an outspoken uh proponent that no municipality should be in the business of owning properties that they make the ordinances to oversee as a conflict of interest and all i can say is that was a you problem don't compound the you problem by turning around because we are financially strapped as a borough and make this a we problem we don't want it we think it is foolish and the people that live down this end of town their property values are going to be nil You're going to see them tank if an AI is put in here. Now, if it's a general warehousing, that's a whole other animal. But it needs to have language and ordinance. It needs to be in the sale contract that there will not be an AI facility here at all, ever. i have two or three major concerns about an ai center one is the power that it takes to run it electricity most likely our grid cannot handle such stuff right if it does you will see each and every person's electricity bill go up near double to supplement their lack of paying for it. Now, if they do pay it, there's only so much on the grid that we can pull from. So our rates are still going up. And in this time, in this country, with all the other BS that's going on, citizens are being squeezed and we cannot be squeezed anymore. The second thing is the use of the water. Yes, we're right by a river. But a standard AI center uses between 100,000 and a million gallons of water per day, of which 1,000 is evaporated just pulling their equipment. sure we could do that initially but over time what's going to happen to the people that use the river is their recreation their quality of life is going to go down and that's what i spoke about just the last meeting when it affects my quality of life you're damn skippy i'm gonna have something to say about it also as was stated 19 degrees increase let's say conservatively 10 to 15. 10 to 15 degrees i'm 67 years old i don't like the heat anymore i hate it i keep my butt inside air conditioning unless i'm working outside and i'll be damned if i want to be around another 10 or 15 degrees jacking up our temperatures in town here this is a huge opportunity for each one of you council members, and I'm looking at y'all that are looking at me in the eye right now, to do the right thing. Don't.

Leave. Don't. Stop it.

So this, unless there is legal, unless there are legal safeties in place that it can be used for standard warehousing, but never, ever, ever an AI safe. Never.

I don't think I'm going to be speaking with the passion some people have here. I have more of a business perspective. My key is to the council here. This is a key decision for our community. And as you've heard, and you've heard in many other meetings, transparency is key and important to all of us. So from my perspective, I would like to know and understand What independent studies or data have all of you reviewed comparing a data center versus a warehouse versus any other option for this community in terms of total tax relief for residents, environmental impacts, number and quality of permanent jobs created, infrastructure demands, and the long-term economic benefits each would bring to our community over the next 10 to 20 years? I recommend committee be formed, provide an analysis, getting feedback from the community, assuming one of our goals is tax relief, as well as a community that continues to build upon each other. Transparency, again, is key. this is my ask i'd be happy to be part of that that committee but i think it's very important and i think you would have a lot more community support if there was transparency and justification for why and what you decide to do with this property we all realize we need tax relief here but we need to do it the right way and for the right reasons

I'm very used to hearing it that way.

wow so uh i'm probably gonna get the applause that everybody's getting um i understand i i really have nothing to say about why if the town should have bought the property or whatever the town owns the property the town uh town's people do need tax relief and there's a company called sedia holdings which is looking to buy the property it sounds like it's the only option um Satya does both data centers and warehouse slash distribution centers. So it sounds to me like there's going to be a decision. The real decision is going to be, is it a data center? Is it a warehouse? Before I go on, the one lady who mentioned housing for vets, that wasn't part of my prepared remarks, but that's an idea that I think a lot of people get behind. I don't know if the townspeople get involved and stuff. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty cool idea. I'll go back to my prepared remarks here, though. So as we consider the future of the McInnes property, we need to look beyond short-term gains and focus on what delivers the greatest long-term benefits to Columbia. A warehouse of distribution. I may not be popular, admittedly. A warehouse distribution center would bring jobs, but it also will bring substantial permanent impacts. It would significantly increase truck traffic, place immediate strain on our roads, increase congestion, noise, and long-term maintenance costs. Over time, that means higher infrastructure spending and more disruption to daily life. In contrast, a data center generally generates very little traffic. just a small number of employees and occasional service vehicles allowing us to preserve the conditions of our roads and avoid costly upgrades equally important is the impact on our community services a warehouse development would drive population growth increase demand for housing schools police ems for a borough decide for a borough our size even a modest growth uh means an increase in classrooms additional staffing and extended public services costs that can quickly offset the financial benefits our data center however provides very different model that brings substantial tax revenue without significant population growth meaning we gain funding without placing additional burden on our schools and our first responders So my own back-to-the-nap estimates suggest the following could be the case. We could increase the population by five to seven percent, require approximately 300 new housing units. Also, the school enrollment could increase by seven to 12 percent, requiring more classrooms, more teachers. This also would require increased road maintenance, increased fire and ems personnel increased police in case people are wondering about the napkin i have a print out of my back of the napkin which i'll provide to the board because those are maybe bold statements um and critically the data center a data center generates high property tax revenue per acre because of the high value of infrastructure equipment and power systems concentrated on a relatively small footprint the property value density is much greater than a warehouse that translates directly to us to a stronger more effective tax base and more for the borough and over a long over the long term From a housing perspective, a warehouse would require hundreds of new units and could drive the housing cost. A data center would provide entirely, I'm sorry, a data center avoids that pressure entirely, helping maintain affordability to the current residents. Ultimately, this is about balance. A data center allows Columbia to maximize tax revenue, minimize infrastructure strains, uh and preserve and preserve the community character whereas a warehouse introduces growth and comes at a real real and lasting cost so obviously i support the idea of a data center over a warehouse

you didn't interrupt anyone else when they were speaking but yet everyone's interrupting you so thank you i somewhat expected it but um

A couple of quick points. I'm actually an IT architect. Modern data centers aren't air-cooled. They're not water-cooled. They don't make the same noise as an older data center. And it's not a nuclear power plant. It's not going to blow up and require an evacuation plant. But anyway. Anyway, so my back end is right here. I'll test it on soon.

Let's go.

It diminishes. Hello to my wonderful neighbors and good evening to the council.

My name is Colette Shaw. I've lived here since 2018. I am the former dean of students from Franklin and Marshall College and I'm married to a retired scientist and we live directly behind the McInnis field. It's our backyard. I retired two years ago and we made a very intentional decision not to return to western New York. You can hear that accent But we darn you all fell in love with Columbia and our wonderful neighbors. And we want to stay here and live our life. And you are our representatives. You represent me. And all I want to know tonight is that you care. We live on that land and it's beautiful and green and we know that it's going to become something else. And I'm smart and I'm thoughtful and I welcome a conversation with you all. I believe that if we're creative, we could come up with solutions to the problems that Columbia has together. And it's hard. Governance is hard. And you may see us as rabble, but we are humans. We are individuals with lots of needs that are complex. And I think there is power in this room. Maybe it's anger fueled, but people care about this place. I love this place. I don't know you all. I don't know what to assume some of you have been on devices and folks have been sharing what they care about. Some of you have not made eye contact with the speakers. Believe in us and you are part of us. And I would work with you. I think people would work with you. But tonight, maybe you could just start with some care and compassion and creativity. Thank you all.

Laura Vonset.

a little off topic to start but this is a strip show and you should be embarrassed we had opportunity to hold this meeting at another venue a venue that would have seats that faced council so that we could see who we were speaking to who we were listening to um it could have held this amount of people there's a parking lot but for whatever reason your pride got in the way and here we are crowded in the space where people don't have seats they can't see and they can't hear shane so but i love columbia i love columbia and i love all the nuances that only those who live here in this small town can understand i wasn't born and raised here however i chose to make columbia my home over 20 years ago with no plans to ever leave just a year ago i bought a new house on central avenue a house that i intend on being my forever home i have spent years serving my community through my involvement with various programs such as cbaa and chs booster clubs and through my time serving as school director on the columbia borough school district school board I wasn't going to attend this meeting tonight, let alone speak, mainly because my interactions and relationships with more than a couple of you have historically not been positive. We generally do not agree on the topics at hand, and I have felt a large amount of resistance when trying to work together to better our community. However, there are two items up for approval on the agenda tonight that create a grave threat to our community. Item 9C, the addition of data centers to the zoning ordinance and item 10B to award the bid of the McGinnis property to Sadia Holdings LLC. And so here I am because I love this town and I care deeply about its future. i am frustrated and honestly embarrassed by the fact that the only piece of information shared by the borough regarding the guidance around data centers in lancaster county was shared by a council person on a facebook page titled columbia piss and moat the purchase The purchase and sale of the McGinnis property have been a hot topic from the beginning. I was not in support of the borough purchasing the property, but honestly, I understood why the decision was made. Our limited tax base with very little room for expansion poses a hardship, and this purchase offered an opportunity. I know data centers are the big tagline for tonight, and I'm only briefly going to touch on that subject because what I really want to talk about is opportunity. Data centers are nothing more than large concrete boxes that consume excessive resources, causing stress on the local water supply and electric grid, which results in residents' utility costs skyrocketing. Poor air quality, noise pollution, rising ambient temperatures, depletion of water supply, the list of negative impact goes on and on. There are more than a few bills, including a three-year moratorium on development floating around Harrisburg regarding data centers. While typically I don't favor state involvement in local matters, I do see the importance of guidance when it comes to allowing data centers in our communities. House Bill 2151 offers model ordinances for municipalities And there is residents first legislative package that includes requirements for water analysis and impact studies, letters from utility providers demonstrating sufficient infrastructure and other residential protections. I do not feel confident that as a borough without some larger scale legislation, we are prepared to properly assess and manage the myriad of concerns in relation to a data center in our community. There are not enough safeguards in place to protect residents and local resources or enough data to support the benefits of data centers to our local communities. It isn't easy to find much information about Sadia Holdings online. A quick search tells you that they are a New York-based holding company whose website has been defunct for years, whose Stony Battery Road facility is operating well below capacity and has faced severe cutbacks and financial difficulties. Ask yourselves how an out-of-state zombie retail business could possibly care about the impact they will have on our small river town so full of pride and history. Your proposal evaluation included criteria for a demonstrated track record and community benefit in alignment with goals. I would be curious to know the score Sadia Holdings received on these standards. Back to opportunity. I and my property taxes recognize the urgency in selling the property and recouping some of the money that you have thrown at this endeavor in the real estate business, but you only get one chance to make this decision. Do not let the current financial strain of the borough cause you to decide in haste. In February, just three short months ago, this council stated they were looking for a buyer with a vision to transform the land into a community benefiting project. And that the council would not likely approve a data center. Yet here we are with council on the verge of approving a zoning amendment that would allow just that. I had a recent conversation with a borough council person who stated that he would like Columbia to be more like Lititz. I don't share that sentiment, but I can all but guarantee that Lititz Borough is not allowing a data center in its backyard. This community deserves for this land to be used in a way that will provide long-term momentum towards the revitalization efforts already happening. Admittedly, I don't know the process, what it looks like for starting over, but please go back to the drawing board and find a way to provide amenities to this community. Amenities that will result in the creation of jobs and tax revenues and find a way to incorporate recreational opportunities and public green spaces. You only have one opportunity to get this right. I urge you to reconsider and to vote no on items nine C and 10.

lauren lauren lauren do you have a pen handy okay um write these down since you quoted since you pulled out um house bill 2151 also check out house bill 1834 house bill 2246 house bill 2150 um and house bill 2515 and 2516 to see what all is happening at the state you're interested in legislation

regulations related to data centers.

it's all what's been proposed you listen yeah there's there's a whole bunch okay i i read the numbers but we're in public comment right now so i'd like to let

They have not passed those house bills to be fair.

Because we have to follow state law. Michael Byrne.

Thank you, Council. Thank you everybody for coming out tonight. I'm gonna remove a little bit of the emotion out of it.

just strictly facts. I share the same passion as the other speakers, maybe not the enthusiasm that the gentleman in favor of the AI data center, but regardless, my career gives me an opportunity to travel the world and actually maintain data centers around the world. An AI data center is a data center on steroids. everyone spoke about the electricity usage the water usage but i guarantee you if there is an ai data center out here you will have a power plant out there it'll be a combined heat and power plant of some sort with absorption chillers the water situation uh it's columbia so the the rumor mill runs as you know uh there was talk about the quarry water there's no way that the aquifer feeding that quarry could maintain that amount of water which the reserve is the river the river temperature will increase it will affect the vegetation and the wildlife there's no doubt about it it's it's fact um also in those data centers the servers You'll have some type of micro grid system, which has multiple batteries. Every two to three years, servers will be changed out, batteries will be changed out. It's all hazardous materials. It's right in your backyard. I sincerely hope that I'm just making everyone aware, everyone hears about electricity and water, but there's more important... Well, then, you know, you know, the noise, you know.

Yes.

Yeah. So there's multiple ways to cool the data center, but the heat rejection is great. And someone mentioned before our grid system. It won't be off our grid system. There'll be a power plant. And most of these data centers require N plus two redundancy. So you'll have more equipment than necessary because these data centers, they can't go down. So there'll be redundant systems in place So which means more equipment, more heat load, and more water usage. So I just like everyone to make sure that you understand of the impact on the environment, the impact on, I'm sure everyone in this town has been at the river or is taking a child to the river, swam in the river. That river will change. and i i hope we all you know can can make sure we make the right decision thank you mike plenary

Hi, Mike Flannery, 1246 Manor Street. I've been coming to these for a little while. I work in the field. I work in tech. And when I hear you guys talk about tech, the word that comes to mind is embarrassing. You have no understanding of any of this, yet you're making these decisions. Second, I just want to talk about why we moved here, which was for the nature of trails the river we had other places we could have moved even knowing the high taxes we moved here because of that so that's that's the one thing that's drawing people here nobody wants to listen to a 24 7 electrical hum they don't want their water supply ruined and they don't want their environment degraded And really, we're not getting any payback for this. We're getting some tax money, but we could do a lot better. We were promised an industrial park of some sort. Instead, we're going to get one giant, ugly box that hums. And it's going to ruin what brings people to Columbia, I think. That's it.

Todd Burghardt. We have no idea.

NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS.

NEW SPEAKERS.

NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS.

NEW SPEAKERS.

WE CAN TALK AFTERWARDS, IF YOU LIKE, IN YOUR GARAGE AS WE USED TO DO.

NEW SPEAKER BE RESPECTFUL. BE RESPECTFUL WHEN PEOPLE ARE TALKING. NEW SPEAKER COUNSEL, I URGE YOU TO APPROVE THE $6.35 MILLION BID. NEW SPEAKER THANKS FOR THAT.

Just go on thank you.

now remediated former airport property has sat idle for decades producing virtually no tax revenue and serving as a frequent source of resident complaints. Approving the sale is a practical and crucial step to solving a tax generation problem for our landlocked borough.

NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS.

NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. This bid brings millions in immediate revenue and will generate substantial ongoing property tax revenue once developed, along with earned income tax from higher wage technical and operational jobs. Columbia faces an immediate general fund budget deficit of approximately $1 million annually that will only grow worse over time. this project represents one of the only realistic opportunities we have to begin addressing these pressures talking to you no other major development options are currently available not approving this sold qualified bid or delaying action will virtually guarantee near-term property tax increases and place an even higher burden on all residents and businesses in columbia I acknowledge the concerns raised by Lancaster stands up. Issues such as noise, energy use, water consumption, and quality of life are important and deserve serious attention. However, these concerns should be managed by our local elected council, our zoning ordinances, our city center, and our permitting processes. not an outside political advocacy group i reviewed their petition and campaign materials while they raised some legitimate concerns their position is entirely one-sided they make no mention of any potential benefits to columbia such as tax relief for residents brownfield redevelopment construction jobs or long-term economic gains instead they rely on broad warnings and generalizations that do not reflect the specifics of this particular project or our ability to oversee it locally we already updated our zoning to allow this type of development with appropriate standards if the sale is approved council can require noise studies, environmental reviews, traffic impact assessments, and a strong community benefits agreement with clear mitigation measures. That is welcome, it is expected, and it is responsible. Again, voting yes tonight allows us to secure the sale and then negotiate strong conditions under local control. rejecting this one and only bid leaves a prime site empty and threatens additional costs and tax increases to our residents i respectfully ask it's all true i respectfully ask council to vote yes when the city of holdings did commit to rigorous commit to rigorous borough led oversight and balances economic needs with WITH QUALITY OF LIFE AT ITS POINT. COLUMBIA DESERVES DEVELOPMENT THAT WORKS FOR COLUMBIA. NEW SPEAKER.

NEW SPEAKER.

good evening my name is susan worvey i was born on central avenue i moved away for several years and moved back and i live on central avenue it is our home um i did send this letter to council last night we were away i'm sorry um but i will read it because i think some of those things need to be said um i know you as council may only be concerned with finally being done with this property but this potential buyer has questionable business history let's hope let's hope they don't begin to build whatever it is and later become unable to finish as now we have a vacant QVC building sitting in Landesfeld. Will they be permitted to apply for tax deferments after they build? so that means no tax revenue all that big tax revenue they're talking about we're not going to get it it's going to be deferred for many years before we see any relief from that no um if they build a distribution center i would prefer that i suppose even though i know the gentleman extended a lot of things but that traffic should be all done from 441 where the highway is not up here in the residential area and i know i

And I know that's for zoning and planning.

A proposed data center built on this site will forever destroy the beautiful and peaceful neighborhood in which my husband and I live, and many of you, and would likely cause the area's electrical grid and water supply to be highly impacted. The noise of a constant humming 24 hours a day, seven days a week, will terribly impact our normally peaceful neighborhood. Listening to the birds, hearing that, people walking their dogs and you can hear each other. Our property values will definitely drop and it would be a shame. This is one of the nicest areas in Columbia with families who are born, who return, As a lot of my residents, a lot of the neighbors on Central, they grew up there and came back and bought on that block, in the blocks, the many blocks of Central Avenue, because it's such a desirable place to live. And they're raising families or grandchildren, and it's a good place to retire. Wide streets, the sidewalks for walking, nice neighbors. It would be devastating to lose this to that. The data center issue, as it is in the state because even the state legislator I read all those bills you read off they can't decide themselves and they are talking about pausing. I just read that today they are thinking about taking a step back and thinking a little bit because all these different it's coming too fast more than any previous technology has ever moved This comes with excitement, I understand that, a potential for something new and good and all that, but can be quickly offset with uncertainty, regret, errors. So why not take a pause? Does Columbia Borough really want to be the guinea pig in this county? We're not a township. We don't have a lot of room like the townships do. this is it we're going to be the only borough likely ever do we really want to be that guinea pig in this state at this time when things are not yet fully settled so i i just and i'm worried about our staff are they going to be ready to tackle the the position the needs the requirements that are required in this ordinance that you want to pass tonight Those things also are going to strain the borough and the employees to try to make sure they're doing what they're doing is right. And are they following the rules? And do you feel this bidder can actually meet all those proposed requirements for this center? So I'm asking you please to rethink it, even though you want to wash your hands of it. We know how much it means. Yes, it means going back out to bid again, possibly, or maybe a lawsuit. Well, let them come. Get in line, as we like to say. But we would much rather see something more attainable, a nice residence or recreational areas, as a lot of people are talking about, would be a much better use of that land. And I also was against it back in 18. I came and told you, don't be in the real estate business.

I JUST WANT TO SAY VOTE NO. I THANK YOU.

COMMENTS FOR APPROVAL. CONSIDER APPROVAL OF THE BOROUGH COUNCIL WORKSHOP MEETING MINUTES FOR MAY 5, 2026. NEW SPEAKERS?

NEW SPEAKERS?

NEW SPEAKERS?

NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS?

NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS?

NEW SPEAKERS?

NEW SPEAKERS? NEW SPEAKERS?

Borough Council Workshop Meeting Minutes for May 5th, 2026. Motion by Councilman Cooper, second by Councilman Kesey.

have a motion to approve the borough council workshop meeting minutes for may 5th 2026 motion by councilman cooper second by councilman gizzi one of the minute they're in the packet if you go online to where you can check out the agendas that packet is full of all the information that we will be discussing tonight so you can pull it up on your phones just columbia borough uh websites go to agendas and you can see the documents that were approved

There are minutes from the previous meetings that were approved.

All in favor say aye. Aye.

Consider approval of the borough council meeting for May 12th, 2026. I second.

I HAVE A MOTION BY COUNCILMAN COOPER, SECOND BY COUNCILMAN ZIGLER TO APPROVE THE BOROUGH COUNCIL MEETING MENTIONED FOR MAY 12, 2026. ALL IN FAVOR SAY AYE. AYE. Mayor Lutz. I HAVE NOTHING TO REPORT AND I'LL PASS IT TO CHIEF ARNOLD. nothing at this time thank you no comments action items authorized bill payments i'll make that motion to approve the bill payments as presented in the packet this evening and i will second it a motion by councilman murphy second by councilman zinc to authorize bill payments All in favor, say aye. Aye. Consider approval of resolution 2026-15, appointing Jesse to zoning hearing board. So moved. Second. I have a motion by Councilman Ziegler Second by Councilman Murphy to approve the resolution 2026.15, appointing Jesse Rabonowitz to the Zoning Hearing Board. All in favor say aye. Aye. 9C, we're not considering approval. this is strictly text amendment that we're going to add to the data center for zoning uh it was only put in here so that we could have that discussion further we do not actually have a full amendment to it it is it's but it is a in rough draft form for everybody's um knowledge tonight

This is just the beginning of the process on any zoning amendment that would impose some of these regulations on any data center that would be allowed in the borough.

We can't vote on an ordinance to the zoning amendment or to the zoning ordinance because that amendment would have to go through a public, it would have to be advertised and go through a public hearing. We're not doing that tonight because we haven't advertised it. We haven't even gone through the development of process of it. It was put on here so that we could potentially discuss it. We're not voting on it.

i would i would like to make i would like to make a motion that we table the discussion on

THE PROPOSED ORDINANCE. KELLY AND I AS THE LEGISLATIVE LEADS, WE HAVEN'T DISCUSSED THIS AND I PERSONALLY DID NOT HAVE TIME TO LOOK AT IT THIS WEEKEND. SO I WOULD TELL WE CAN GET IT. NEW SPEAKER BECAUSE WE MEET MONTHLY AND HAVE if you don't mind i'd like to talk if that's okay look at it but kelly and i think the legislative leads it's about the job to put things together to present to council legislation last year the zoning the zoning ordinance was amended to add data centers as a right we did that over the course of several months it passed through not only this council it passed through the columbia borough planning commission and the lancaster county planning commission all of which recommended approval of that it was not done in a vacuum we had to have those discussions over several months that that was going on it was not a secret it was not it was not hidden it was all transparent THIS IS A LOCAL ORDINANCE THIS IS NOT A STATE ORDINANCE YES I'M SORRY I DON'T THE LAND HAS ALREADY BEEN REZONED. AND IT'S NOT CHANGED. NO, THAT WAS ADDED LAST YEAR. YES. EVERYONE IS INVITED TO ANY COUNCIL MEETING. EVERYTHING'S ONLINE. WE DIDN'T DO IT IN A VACUUM. It is.

Thank you. We don't run a referendum system here in Pennsylvania generally. It's different in other states for sure, but here generally referendums are not how things are done.

Excuse me, would you have somebody who is blind enough to put their hand up to speak? Can you speak into that mic, please?

State your name.

My name is Laken Lockman. My family has lived in this town for as long as I can remember and prior to that. While I share everybody's sentiment here tonight, I do also understand that you guys do have the council meetings. They are aired and anybody is welcome to see them. At the same time, most of the people in this community don't follow the council. Most of the people in this community believe that most of the council should be removed and replaced because you've all been there.

That sentiment aside, I agree.

Columbia does need more revenue. We need something. Right next door to my house is a hotel being built. That hotel is bringing in tourists. That hotel is to bring in benefits for the community. At the same time, that company that is building that hotel is also creating a mass amount of litter and pollution in that block. And they do not clean it up. I do. My family runs a nonprofit in this area to help the community and Anybody who happens to get onto Facebook, YouTube, anything like that, Santa's Wolfpack is there. And my family is there supporting this community. And we have supported the council on several things. As far as the data center goes, it's not even being voted on. As it was made clear, it's not even ready to be voted on. The ordinance wasn't passed, the amendment wasn't passed. So everybody who showed up tonight, who also is standing outside yet, you're here, you showed your support, some much, much louder than others. As a community, we say no to data centers. I ALSO AGREE THAT THERE ARE OUTSIDE PEOPLE COMING INTO OUR COMMUNITY TELLING US WHAT WE SHOULD AND SHOULDN'T DO. WE MAY BE PART OF LANCASTER COUNTY, BUT WE ARE COLUMBIA BOROUGH. WE AS A COMMUNITY PAID THE TAXES THAT BOUGHT THAT LAND. WE AS A COMMUNITY ALSO VOTED FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ARE SITTING IN FRONT OF US. We don't have to agree with them. We do have to trust that they will be open about further ongoings about the data center and about the innovation part that will bring people into our community. I was born at the Columbia Hospital and my family has pictures of things being built in this community that other people opposed. People didn't want many of the things in this community. We burn a whole bridge to keep people from crossing. Columbia doesn't make small gestures. And as we showed tonight, we don't do small. We had to empty people outside who are still standing there listening. But at this time, there's no need for everybody to be shouting over each other. We're better than that.

I would like to thank you for your comments, especially about not speaking over each other. We did have a motion to table the approval of the text amendment to the data centers. I would like to second that if I wouldn't have to compete for time. Thank you.

A MOTION TO TABLE THE TEXT AMENDMENTS TO THE TO ADD TO DATA CENTERS BY COUNCILMAN ZINK SECOND BY COUNCILMAN MURPHY ALL IN FAVOR SAY AYE

folks we have one more agenda item to get to before we get to discussing mcginnis directly so if you could please just let us get through that very quickly and then we will move on consider approval of coa for 148 church avenue with no conditions

i have a motion by councilman ziegler second by councilman zinc to approve the coa for 148 church avenue with no team stations i would i would just like to voice my concerns i have nothing against the project itself i do have a lot of concerns about rebuilding a home on a property that burned to the ground years ago and actually cost somebody their life um it's very difficult to beat any of our fire personnel or rescue personnel in town it's very difficult and actually mostly impossible for them to get their equipment down the alleyways in many of these narrow streets in town they have to run hose or blocks and blocks and that takes a lot of time so for that reason i'll be opposing this i don't oppose the plan i don't oppose the drawings they gave us but i don't feel that we should be looking to build in the allies

thanks for saying that totally i was thinking the same thing that i was wondering if this was the one the property where it burned down you got a question

My name's Jesse Swagger, and I just wanted to give you guys some input about the Church Avenue property.

i was there when that fire was there and frank dicey was his name that's the man that perished and he was running for borough council and that is a very hard place to get a fire truck in there and if i could tell you not to build the house area after seeing what i did as a volunteer firefighter on that particular day i would say please don't build the house

i'm just curious if there's anything lawfully preventing this resident from building this home other than no there's not and this is this is strictly the coa is strictly about the historic the historic part of this the the project the coa for your information is certificate of appropriateness thank you

I hear the concerns in regards to safety, but I believe that the citizen has the right to build this on. Eric, do you have somebody in the back?

Yeah, come on up to the front to the microphone up here. While he's coming up, I'll also mention that one of the issues from the fire was that a fire truck couldn't properly get back there. That is one of the reasons that we did approve the fire company to purchase a new fire vehicle, specifically because there were areas in Columbia that they could not get down the roads. But the new, I don't remember what it's called, Tom, do you remember? Oh, yeah. Tiller truck, thank you. The tiller truck is specifically designed to be able to make those tight turns and get into those areas that were a problem before.

Yes, my name is Jeff Sugden. I do own that property and intend to build there. So, yeah, I agree that it's not an actual alley. It is Church Avenue. There are alleys on either side. And I do understand your concern with fire, but you know what you've taken in consideration with smaller fire trucks. Also too, you know, just as a reminder, you did approve Lancaster Housing Authority to build four duplexes in the same area. So if that is approved and allowed to be built, and I do wish to also have mine considered as well as with no issues. I think possibly maybe for that area, is there a possibility of running any additional fire hydrants to get into that area? Maybe in a certain intersection that would be feasible that would probably not only attend my new home, but There are two homes adjacent to the one that I'll be building and then the new construction with Lancaster Housing Authority as well. So anyway, I just put my vote of confidence behind it. Anyway, that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. We do have a motion. Yeah. And a second.

I HAVE A MOTION BY COUNCILMAN ZIGLER, SECOND BY COUNCILMAN ZINK, TO APPROVE THE COA FOR 148 JERK SHOPPING WITH NO CONDITIONS. YES.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ALL IN FAVOR SAY AYE. AYE.

consider awarding the bid for a guinness innovation park property to saadi holding llc for six thousand six million three three hundred fifty thousand approve the bid for the mcginnis innovation party properties

So let's be clear about how this process works. Somebody is going to make a motion. We're going to get a second and then we will have discussion on the item before we make our final vote. I just want to make sure that's clear. Making a motion is not necessarily approving or voting yes. So I will make a motion. I'll second.

And what is the motion?

THE MOTION TO CONSIDER APPROVAL OF THE MCGINNIS PROPERTY SALE. TO CONSIDER THE APPROVAL.

WE'RE GOING TO BE MAKING THE VOTE HERE IN A MOMENT. NEW SPEAKER SO JUST TO BE CLEAR, WE WILL NEED A SECOND MOTION. BECAUSE THIS ONE, YES, BECAUSE YOU SAID YOUR MOTION IS JUST TO CONSIDER. NEW SPEAKER SO i was just i was just explaining something i said we will need procedurally to comply with robert's rules the motion on the floor is to consider approval if we decide to take further action we will need a second motion because this motion is just to consider it is just the motion to have the discussion thank you yeah we have to vote to on the motion that can take to the motion to consider i have a motion by

And since it's emotionally considered, I would say we should vote on that.

Because we're motioning to approve. We're not motioning to consider. Do you want to change it? Do you want to change it?

Make the motion.

Oh, I got a motion on the floor.

Yeah, we have a motion on the floor.

unless i was going to keep them removed all right procedurally i'll remove my consider motion so somebody else can make a motion to just take the regular vote there will still be a discussion

we were not voting on the ordinance change this is a separate action it is a separate agenda item this is a vote on a bid itself THE ONLY WAY WE CAN HAVE A DISCUSSION ON AN AGENDA ITEM IS IF WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND TO ALLOW THE DISCUSSION TO HAPPEN. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR A MOTION AND A SECOND, THEN WE WILL NOT HAVE THAT CONVERSATION. PERIOD. THAT'S THE WAY IT WORKS. I SECOND IT.

WHO MADE THE MOTION?

I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION THAT WE AWARD THE BID FOR THE MCGINNIS INNOVATION PARK PROPERTY TO SAUDIA HOLDINGS LLC FOR 6.35 MILLION. DO WE HAVE A SECOND? I'LL SECOND THAT SO WE CAN HAVE OUR DISCUSSION. ALL RIGHT. NOW WE CAN HAVE THE DISCUSSION.

underneath the rights to no law to pennsylvania we're entitled to a draft proposal every one of us a written proposal of reading planning to any zoning changes right this isn't okay so has there been an approval or a plan you made yet the the motion on the floor is to approve the big price

and the bid that they proposed.

Okay, so you brought the land for 1.5 million, is that correct? Excuse me? You brought the land from McGinnis for 1.5 million, is that correct?

It is not correct. It was 1.395. Okay.

So, so, so, we're going to sell it for 63, correct?

6.35. Okay, so where's the profit then? Where's that money going? That goes into the general fund.

to insinuate that any of us are personally benefiting from this

I didn't say that. I said, is it going back to the pocket of all the people? My question is underneath the right to know.

I want to know where each and every penny is going to

When it's spent, you can get that. You have to submit a right-to-know request. But we publish all of our financial reports every month. They are all out there. You can go and look for them.

You have to go to the website to look for them. According to Pennsylvania state law, if one person comes to you, each one of us comes to you, you have to give a complete, detailed plan.

And we do not have to give you the special information if we've already published it on our website. It's there. You don't need to put out a request. It's there. That's okay. We can get him. He's got a piece in his pocket, so I think he has access to a computer.

Not everybody has that. There is a way, to be clear, there is a way to do a right-to-know request without a computer. As a right-to-know request form, you can request paper copies of whatever documents you would like. There are several people in this room that do that frequently, just to be clear.

I'm Brenda Siglitz, Draeger Road. I'm not a citizen of Columbia Borough, but I'm a stakeholder. I'm the former board president of the Donaldo Funk Susquehanna Valley Chamber. I've previously worked on our former Riverlands Trail Fest that we had for many years. And growing up, I used to come to Columbia every time for my orthodonture with Dr. Perry. I'm sure many of you got braces from Dr. Perry. So I've been here a long time and very invested in the town. I say that because I care a lot about Columbia, and I've invested a lot of my personal time here. Also, other people have invested a lot of time and resources, and I speak on behalf of myself, not on behalf of them. But when you think about Pennsylvania Department of Conservation Natural Resources, who has put millions of dollars into the Susquehanna Riverlands because it is a gem. it is an absolute gem the northwest lancaster county river trail is the reason that people are coming here they're coming here for the trail they're coming here for restoration for recreation the last time i went to the outdoor forum it was about economic outdoor businesses it was about needing more airbnbs It was about needing more hotels. It was about bringing outdoor economy here because that's the economy we need. We do not need data centers as our economy. We need the economy. We need the economy that will help build Columbia up. I've seen it throughout northern Pennsylvania and the northern tier, what the oil and gas industry has done, coming in and going out and decimating small towns like Columbia, who thrive on recreation and then are decimated by oil and gas leases, leaving their towns behind and destroyed. I do not want to see that happen with AI centers. I trust that all of you do not want to see that happen either. I trust that all of you want to continue this conversation, which is why you allowed some of us to step outside to continue this conversation. And I thank you for that, because this is so important to all of us, to the residents, the people who have invested their time here. And I know you all are investing your time. You've purchased that property. You need to see it through. But there's so much potential in that property from the gentleman that talked about the deer and the turkeys. But when you think about that precious river there that is providing water for Columbia, Columbia Water Company relies on that river. It cannot be contaminated. It cannot be drawn from. We rely on that. And the residents here are already suffering with high tax issues. They're already suffering with high water prices, high electricity, that will not diminish. So you may get a better tax benefit, but your residents will not get the benefits that they need. Recreation will do that. And that is a prime source of recreation opportunity. So I ask that you please consider declining the bid and begin talking with partners who could make that property a destination because i promise you there are people that can help make that happen i do not represent them but i know that all of you know those people jeannie i know that you know those people we know those people and they would love that property to be available to the residents of columbia and for the community that's why they put a brand new state park in just across the river wouldn't that be amazing for this place all right last but not least if you choose to do this again please consider having it at the columbia football field like the gentleman from the fire hall suggested in the first place so that we are not all dying of heat exhaustion just for care of your residents thank you

My name is Todd Allshouse. My wife and I are borough residents. We bought here in 2021. Unlike so many of the other speakers, I didn't grow up here. I wasn't born here, but I got here as fast as I could. I love this town. It was the first place I ever really considered moving when I was moving out of my parents' house. It is my favorite place I've ever lived. i love this town i love the community i love the people i love how walkable it is i love how strong this town is in this community and building a massive box that consumes our resources and drones on on and on constantly 24 hours a day just so that one person can have a remote job based out of new york is absurd and let's be very clear about the actual job numbers from data centers i work for an msb i direct relevant first-hand professional experience with this when you build a data center you will create at most one full-time job it will be remote and it will not be local there are Somewhere in the order of 770, 790 data centers of this scale in the United States. There are at our highest estimates somewhere just under 700 full time jobs created by them. Data centers do not create jobs. There will be a temporary building. As we are constructing the data center will be temporary jobs. largely to national and regional construction companies which may or may not temporarily benefit residents once those jobs are gone there will be cameras monitored by some national firm again remotely and security will fall to the police department and there will be some cleaners every other week or so again and those might be local residents but that is not a meaningful contribution to the local economy so we are giving up so much we are compromising the finances of everybody in this town, because we all have to deal with the increased utility rates. We all have to deal with the heat. We all have to deal with all of the negative externalities that these AI data companies get to foist on the communities that they build in. The economics of these data centers only work if they get to foist all of these costs off on us. they only turn a profit if we shoulder the costs and i for one am not interested in ruining my town so that some millionaire that i have no connection with gets to make a few extra

Hi, my name is Juno Regard. I'm a resident of Columbia Borough. I did not grow up here. I had family that did. We've lived in Lancaster City for the past five years till we moved here this past year. I didn't have a backyard. I didn't have a porch I felt safe sitting on. And that really deeply affected me. And so moving here and having a porch I can feel safe sitting on, being able to listen to the birds, the water, take my nephew to go look for rocks. It's really changed our quality of life. And we have to remember when bringing in a company like this, what brings Columbia money? What brings people here? it's the beautiful ecosystem the landscape that we have so why would we destroy that um i wanted to ask are you aware of what happened in memphis with the data centers they didn't pay their bills and they destroyed a majority black low-income community that begged their local government to not do it because it doesn't create jobs that's a fact we need to start investing instead of gentrifying because what we're going to do because look at lancaster city we had to move here because we couldn't afford a studio apartment Let that sink in. Two people could not afford a studio apartment in Lancaster City. And we moved here. And I don't know if you're aware, but a lot of AI jobs are remote and they're bringing people from New York, different states, big cities, and they're raising the rent. And it's pushing out the local people that love this place and want to invest in it. And I think that you really need to consider people over profit. And I'm not saying that you directly are profiting. I don't want my words twisted, but just listen to the people. You were elected by the people and the people are telling you what they want. I'm an activist. I do grant-funded work for homeless kids. I know that sometimes we have to make decisions that are not fun. I know sometimes things are tough, but I don't feel this is a tough decision. And I feel that, you know, is 6.35 million the price of our ecosystem and our children's lungs? Is that what you'll sell it for? And money runs out. Investing in your community, it grows over time.

The last thing I want to say is listen to the people because we're who would vote you back in.

Hello, neighbors. My name is Jeff Hill. I wasn't born and raised in Columbia, PA. I'm from Wilmington, Delaware. The gentleman was talking about data centers. I used to live next to a data center in Wilmington, Delaware, right next to the post office where he goes. I know exactly what they do. I know how they cool them, the whole nine yards. Matter of fact, I even had a part-time job there. when I was younger, way younger. I've been here in Columbia for 20 years now. I also worked for Harley-Davidson. I'm also a union member, so I'm used to talking to people. When I was told that Datter Center was going to be put in here, I didn't think it would be here in Columbia, PA, in that big field out there. I see animals out there. I see deer out there. I'm also an avid hunter, fisherman. I also jet ski in the river. I never did that in Delaware. Jumped off of bridges and all that when I was younger. But I didn't like Columbia too much because it was too small being from Delaware. But I got used to it. Starting to hear the fire engines going down the hill a lot. I asked my wife. Of course, you probably know who my wife is. It's Donna. Her grandfather donated to Gladford Field. So I know pretty much about the history of this place because she showed me films of this place and everything it's been through. I seen a lot of things here in Columbia, PA, the fires and people jumping off the bridge. I got used to seeing that a lot too. But, you know, working here and living here has changed me for the better. Knowing the locals and the police department and going around here, seeing how everything is. But you guys are making a big mistake listening to the people. I listen to people every day. They come to me and tell me their problems and stuff at work and then come in here and they deal with the situation here in Columbia and actually where you live at. It's not fun, especially listening to people who don't listen to people, listening to the community, listening to people you live with. I don't care who you vote for. I don't care what side you're on. all i care about is making this place a better place to live at first i said well where's the pools where's the walk pass if you go in other communities you'll see little paths that people are walking the seniors are walking pools for the children walking out but as a matter of fact i'm right here on columbia kids are playing out in the street instead of playing in the field They're playing with traffic going up and down the road. Fire engines are flying right by them. And you're like, well, where can they go play at? Well, there's a field right up there. Well, they don't want to go up there. They live right around here. Where else are they going to play? Why couldn't you purchase that for the children that are growing up around here, the seniors that need a place to walk? You know what I mean? everybody knows that you know community needs money and um to make money you have to you have to get together and figure out where where the money's going to come from but you know when i first moved here i go up and down this street man street down here and they got lines going up and down the street and i've never seen that before and i told my wife i said who the hell's decision was to do that put the lines in the street you know it don't make any sense And there's a lot of things around here that's not making any sense. The decisions that are being made. But I just hope you guys get it together. I mean, this is no scream and shout. I understand people are upset. But it's about the time to start listening to community and making things right. Thank you.

i'm jimmy brown and i live over at wagon works what one of the things that i would like to point out is with the increased heating that goes on in the areas with it with data centers has plans been put in place in case of a fire type situation if things get too hot that considers evacuation of people with disabilities because there are many people over in that apartment complex only a couple blocks away who would be at risk and many of us have no reliable transportation so when thinking about this i would encourage you to look at that aspect as well and when i see the people that i have worked with in this area um i've worked with non-profit type of situations and people that i work with are often low-income people and one of the things that i have seen is there's always a need for resources in the way of educational um community material resources i would love to see something more like a community center that might have housing above it so that it would provide for the community a place to live to possibly have gardens and to have community that can come together maybe have a bigger hall down in that space that would be big enough to accommodate everybody who wants to come to this that's what i would love to see happen and i'd ask you to please consider that when when making your decision today

Kennedy Phillips, I'm a resident of Columbia. I live on Locust Street. I've been here since 2019. I'm a little bit confused because based on the agenda, it states that you guys were voting to approve. I understand that we're having the discussion. Considering that you tabled the ordinance that would restrict AI data centers in Columbia, my understanding is you guys are voting on that later. You're going to consider that later. How are we then able to fully approve a deal for a warehouse when we don't know if it's going to be a regular warehouse or a AI data center? How are you putting the stretches on them if you don't have the ordinance? And I get it. This is discussion. And I want to say that I've lived here for almost seven years. I've never been to one of these because I never felt that I was going to be listened to because every single one of my neighbors that I spoke to upon moving here told me that the council is dismissive so i feel like if there's going to be a vote here whatever discussion is happening is irrelevant because it feels like the decision by the council has already been made so i'm gonna ask that you guys really genuinely consider what everyone in this room has been telling you, their personal experiences, the data that they've been bringing, because I really genuinely feel like this data center, this vote is going to be this council's legacy. And you have an entire building of people and a field of them out there that are going and willing to run against you if you stop and refuse to listen to them.

Oh, hold on a second. Evan, can you explain the process of which we are following?

Yeah, so this was a sealed bid, right? There are only a couple of ways that a borough can sell real property that is valued at over $6,000, right? It's either a sealed bid, a public auction, or potentially there are ways that we could sell it to a nonprofit, an economic development company, a redevelopment authority, um where bidding would not be required but a sealed bid is is what borough council felt was the best way to handle this we had hoped um to sell it to the or lancaster economic development company lancaster edc um that plan did not come to fruition um but so we it was a sealed bid which means that basically we can we can look at what they've submitted and make a decision on that there's not a whole lot of hey here's our plan let's discuss it we're literally not allowed to do that the the borough code does not allow us to do that when i say the borough code i mean the pennsylvania borough code right your state legislature if you want to change that we'd have to obviously get a hold of the state legislators i understand i i trust me this is not the way i think anyone would like to buy or sell a piece of property it's not there's not much we can do about it though okay

I would appreciate all of your, I would appreciate all of your, I'm sorry, I'm a little bit nervous. I would appreciate your listening to me because I live next to the firehouse. I've lived in Columbia for 20 years. My name is Corinne House. The firehouse bought my property and tore it down. We bought another property. So I now live on 203 South 8th Street, which is a corner of Cherry and 8th Street. i have been volunteering in the columbia school district i volunteered for two to three years i can't remember because it was a while ago i helped kid writing in kindergarten because my daughter my only child was born in lancaster grew up here she played him at guinness field she discovered phone she discovered treasures back there okay i moved we moved we found a better house on 203 south 8th street I also helped to get rid of the crack house that was across from where I live. There were shots fired there. I volunteered my services to the constables from Columbia and in Lancaster to help make my neighborhood better. We own our property. We bought the adjacent property next to us to control who moved in there. because we were getting nothing but riffraff. The previous landlord was a slumlord. And so we purchased the property, whether we could afford to or not, we found a way. I did not do all this for nothing, for them to build the data center here. That's ridiculous. There are other things you could do. You could make more money by leasing versus owning. That's a long-term generating income for the community, okay? i'm not saying that we want to do that but i'm just saying you could find another way you could build single homes one-story homes for people to live in that can't or rent that can't afford any of the rentals here okay my daughter played soccer for many years with the mariners soccer league at glad felter field you know this community is going to be destroyed if you build an ai center here but i don't understand why we don't have a say this is ridiculous we are the taxpayers and you need to listen to us and all of you should be ashamed ashamed for voting to to approve this statement there's not going to be job it's going to be nothing but trouble and you'll find out when it happens and i'll be gone amen

Good evening, folks.

My name's Frank J. Dautrich. I live up in the Aronville Pike. I lived in Columbia all my 88 years. I think I spent half of them down at the Columbia Borough Council meetings, which I would love to see a lot of you people go and educate yourself. With what Evan just said, I wish he'd go a little further. Evan, we got two issues on the board. And Borough Council, seven voting people have the right to turn this down or to sell this. They have no choice. They have to do one or the other or Columbia is facing a large, large lawsuit. Am I correct? would i would say that's certainly a possibility yes the only thing which stops us and correct me if i'm wrong is the ordinance that they have if that doesn't pass then the bidder cannot put that in except for special exception am i right you that is not actually correct the it is it is allowed by currently it is allowed by right in the light business district it would not require a special exception that's why

We wanted to get in place an ordinance that would put some additional regulation. That's what item 9C was tonight. We obviously need some more time to look at that and make sure it is correct. But that would put those regulations in place to help try to protect the community. That's what that ordinance would do.

But if you don't put the ordinance in, they can still put that in?

That's correct, yes.

Now that's...

That was part of the zoning amendment changes that were made back in September, October.

So regardless what happens, you can say whatever you want to say here. Council got to vote for this unless they want to face a large lawsuit.

No, that's the council could vote to reject the bid. right on what duration on what basis they they just have the right to reject all bids the barcode gives them the right to reject all bids if they would like to well i don't know you have to make a decision one way or another but you can i had to think about that yeah i i if i was sitting there i would be afraid of that um and another is the meeting being streamed tonight it is yes it's being streamed right now

Okay. And again, Todd Burkhart was up here. You people need to listen to what he said. If this is turned down, and they put this up for bids again, and they don't get a bid, or they get a lot lower bid, they have a bid right now. And we need, our brewery's in bad shape. bad bad shape and we need something like this to give us something to take us up out of it let him talk please we need something to give us a boost and i'm you can you can put me in jail say whatever you want to say this is something that we need this is something we really have to look at and and they have to go through all the hoops i got 17 pages over here of this ordinance that they want to put in this this code i want to make it to the zoning they have to follow every one of them if you people want to do anything you come to them meetings and object and make sure or make sure come to me to make sure that it gets done there's there's three meetings a month in the borough and We tried to make everyone, me and Sharon Littner here, but when Todd was on council, we hammered him like hell. I mean, I'm surprised he got up here and said what he said. I'm kind of a little bit humble on that. I want to apologize publicly. But come to the meeting. You're here after the fact. The borough bought it. Where were you at when the borough bought this? Anyway, thank you for listening. Thank you. Hi. Well, I'm in front. Hi. I'm sitting.

I'm sitting. If you had a baby granddaughter,

that it just purchased the house her mother okay and also sir there is a line of other people i have been waiting one question and you are permitted to ask it but please let the other people who have been waiting ask their questions first

hi my name is john stevens i've lived in the borough for the last few years now i wasn't here for the original sale of the guinness field

i want to put forth in no uncertain terms that i am presumably against the idea of a data center coming in and all of the complaints but since i've been here in five or so minutes looking around a lot i saw a lot of concern and a lot of legal action against deal holdings so while i'm aware the borough is under a lot of strain i urge a great sense of caution trying to sign a purchase agreement with a company that is currently in proceedings for non-payments if that's the kind of people we want to trust our tax revenue to come from then i think we very much need to look at how they've been handling their payments and if they're in court for non-payment i don't believe that's something we can trust and i would also on that term vote against the idea of selling to city of holdings

Hi, my name is Diana Allen.

I'm a small business owner in Columbia. I moved here about a year ago because most other places are too expensive. I'm also super nervous and I don't normally public speak, but I feel so strongly about this that I'm just going to power through it. So bear with me. I have so many things that I want to touch on, but I'm going to try to keep it brief. But probably one of the biggest things for me, myself, personally, is the impact that this data center would have on nature itself. I'm not sure if any of you are aware, but the Susquehanna is one of the oldest rivers in the entire world. In the world. The data center will destroy that. It will kill things and a certain circumference of it among other things um speaking in a business aspect your bills will go up you will support this data center and when the bills go up who's going to be able to come and afford to support my business or anyone else's small businesses in this town i came to this town with my small business because i thought it was an up-and-coming town with diversity and really cool things happening and i could be a part of that a data center will kill your town it might not do it immediately but i promise you in the long run it will it is not going to bring you long-term revenue that land could be used for so many other things it is it is not empty to the gentleman that said it was empty it's not it is food of nature and that's disgusting okay that land could be used as an outdoor venue i guarantee you if you decided to make that land an outdoor venue all the people in this room would probably help you do it you could have weddings you could have retreats you could have parties it would be beautiful and it would bring you long-term revenue not short-term revenue I'm so frustrated that this is even happening, like, not where I live necessarily, but where I spend most of my days. I've been coming to Columbia for its nature areas for many years, even before I moved here. Like, I'm fighting this online back in my hometown of the desert where they're trying to build data centers. And I really didn't think that it would hit this close to home, but it did. And I'm here and I'm showing up and I'm voicing my opinion. And so is everyone else in this room. And everyone else in this room is who pays your salaries. Everyone in this room pays your salaries.

Did you do the best for that?

Not what's best for you, not what's best for something, not what's best for some corporation, but what's best for that.

so i guess at the end of all of this if you don't find some way to keep this data center from happening we will all know that you don't actually work for them

Hi, I am Joseph Favaroso. I'm a resident of Millersville Borough, but I work in Columbia Borough and I have for the past three years, so I feel that my comments are relevant to this discussion. Beyond that, I'm a big fan of Columbia. I like Kangol's, I like Brittle's, I like going up to Chickie's Rock, and I like going down to the Riverside. You know, this town means a lot today. I think the residents that have come forward thus far and put their opinions here about the concerns to public health, the concerns to the natural health of this area are far more important than anything else that I'm going to say. But I do want to reiterate all of the issues that have been brought up tonight. At peak performance hours, these data centers will emit DBA levels of 96 decibels. That is the equivalent of being next to an outdoor music festival 24-7. And when it drops down in the evenings down to 70 dBs, that might help in the local area, but you also have to consider DVC levels, which, because they are at a lower frequency, will not only affect the area directly around the data center, but will propagate to the edge of town, up to Marietta, down to Washington Borough, and east out towards Millersville. There will be a never-ending hum with this town as the source of it. So it affects more than just the people in Columbia. You consider what these noise levels will do to people living right next to it. People will be unable to sleep at night. People who are suffering from sleep deprivation are more prone to stress and anxiety, which can lead to concerns of weight gain and diabetes and obesity, increased risk of heart disease, increased risk of stroke. And that's before we even touch on any of the pollutants that the coolants that these centers use up and waste. you know what's going to happen to that what's going to happen to all of the clean potable water that we are taking from these reservoirs because they can't in these center centers they have to use clean drinking water you can't run salt water or mineral contaminated water over these sensitive electronic components i'm i'm a controls engineer i've been a controls engineer i have my bachelor's of science from millersville university and i have experience working on electronics for eight years you have to have pure still water running over these alongside the coolant and once you run out of that Some of it will go back into the water cycle, but you've wasted a lot of this town's potable water. I've seen videos of towns out in the Midwest that have these data centers and the water either dries up or turns yellow. I don't know how else to articulate how low it would bring the quality of life in this area. I do feel it's a little irresponsible to go forward with this Proposition 10b if we have cancelled 9c. If we can't have a discussion on the zoning rules related to this proposal, I think that that should be tabled as well. I just don't feel that the long-term benefits exist. I feel that this is a short-term solution to a long-term budgetary problem. This money is going to be cashed in. We don't know what's going to happen to it. I mean, depending on what happens to it, people have a right to know what happens to it. But the long-term effects go beyond something like tax revenue. It's going to severely affect the quality of life for us, for our neighbors, for all of the natural wildlife that lives out there and in the surrounding area. I really just don't feel that that's worth it. It's a question of whether or not we want short-term gains financially and in exchange for poisoning ourselves and our neighbors. I'm a prospective house fire. I'd love to move through this area, but I'm not going to move into a town that is constantly generating the same level of noise that I have to work with on a production floor every day. I have to wear hearing protection or I'm going to go deaf. i don't want to live next to that i don't want that to permeate through the walls of my house and wake up my sensitive children who are then going to cry through the night so even if i can drown out the set the sounds of this data center i have to deal with my crying kids every night i just think you should reconsider thanks

My name is Amelia, and I am not a resident of Columbia County. I live in York in Springsburg, but I came here because what I do have in common with these residents is that I am human, and so are you. And I would like this to become a human discussion. I would like you to look at all the people in this room and outside and know that they're sacrificing to be here. I was speaking to a man. He had to take off of work today. A woman is celebrating her birthday today but chose to be here. There are volunteers who are handing out water outside. We are all in this very hot building because we choose to be here and we care about this community and about the environment. I sometimes get flustered when there's a lot going on in my mind, so I apologize if this isn't exactly articulate. But what the actual fuck? Like... We have seen across the country what is happening to the communities who live next to and with data centers. There was recently an investigation where water was collected from next to a data center. It was in a mason jar. It's brown. It's brown water. That's not safe to drink. Would you serve that to your children, your grandchildren, nieces, nephews, any children? Would you serve that to yourself? Absolutely fucking not. Would you want... I will speak how I choose to speak. I apologize if that offends you, but you need to grow up. Will you want to live... Next to, as the gentleman said, essentially a music festival 24 seven. Will you want to live in an environment where the temperature is already worse than your mate? You would be making it worse than the current climate change we face. Do you want to live in worse air quality? Do you want your children to live in worse air quality? Answer me. No. I want you to ask yourself tonight, who will you be if you say yes to this? Who will your children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews think you are? Will they be proud of you? When you are in your deathbed, will you be proud of yourself? If the answer to that is no, then I think you have some things to consider. Thank you.

sir hold up one second please i make a motion that we take a 20 minute uh all right five minutes uh recess to take a restroom break i'll second that should i just wait here for five minutes or what's the plan with that i'll just wait five minutes yeah i'm working on the floor by counseling

So,

. . . . All right. Hello. Hello.

um um

uh they got small . . . . . . . and produce um Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. i'll get this I don't know. Oh, I got a whole set of crackers. I'm ready for tomorrow. Where were they talking about having this at the football field? thank you

Thank you. AND SOMEBODY BY THE DOOR LET FOLKS KNOW OUTSIDE THAT WE ARE RECONVENING. NEW SPEAKERS ARE IN LINE TO SPEAK.

GOES OUT THE DOOR.

ARE YOU ALL BASICALLY SAYING THE SAME THING?

no okay we're just we're just looking okay that's fine no problem sorry sorry i'd like to wait for people to get in people are still coming in they're on

I'd like to ask council members and the members here.

Can you state your name for the record, please?

My name is Moises. Moises Hernandez. I moved here a little bit ago. And I'd like to ask all of you if you enjoyed that five-minute break because you're not going to get that with that data center. You're going to always be in a place that's hot, always in a place that's humid, and always in a place that you can't handle the noise level because it's going to be so loud. So appreciate the break you just had because it might be one of the last ones if this AI data center gets built. The two gentlemen of the couple hundred that are here, so less than 1%, I also asked them directly, did you enjoy having that break? Because you are personally ensuring that we'll never have a break like that again. And the two points they brought up, the most important, I think, was the money and the budget. Those are the two points. There are multiple ways to make money without a data AI center that are sustainable. Someone mentioned an outdoor venue. That's great. Local markets. local art menu, dog parks. One place I volunteer at is a plant sanctuary where we sell the plants. That's an incredible way to balance nature and the need for money. There's no need to create a giant music box that will damage all of us and hurt us in the long run when there's a perfectly viable thing in our world called nature. There's a perfectly viable thing in the World Cup community. We have local businesses. We can keep the money in Columbia. We don't have to have some national person bring in millions and then leave and then never pay us. We don't need to have someone have a remote job for a giant box that will do nothing but hurt us. We can support our local businesses. We can support our nature. We can support our communities. with things like dog parks, events, local venues. We can even generate revenue from it. We don't even have to pay the utilities for the townhouse where we have the market if we have it outside. There's a huge market for people who want to buy locally things that are generated by people. And there is a market for people who want to be outside and enjoy those things. So we have to respect that. We have to respect the constituents that are here telling you that we want that. We want people. We want nature. Thank you.

Hi, everyone. My name is Claudia Terry, and I have never been to a council meeting. But this was a first for me because I do feel very strongly about how evil AI data centers are and how harmful they are to our communities. And I also love history. And one of the things I love about Columbia is walking around town and seeing all of the historical parts of our town. And it amazes me that our country is turning 250 years old this year, but Columbia has been around for 300 years. Is this really something that we're considering on the 300th birthday of this town that we live in? So we weren't paying attention before, but we are now. And I just wanted to read parts of this article from a website called Substack.

Hold on a second. We have a lot of people here.

I'll keep it brief.

The name of the article is called Follow the Water by Ada Nestor, if anyone wants to look it up at another time.

Last week, I wrote about why we need to stop calling these things data centers. They're surveillance centers, and the people building them are not interested in being honest with you about what they are and what they want. Today, I want to talk about what they want. In Silver Spring Township, Pennsylvania, an 86-year-old farmer named Mervin Radebaugh was offered $60,000 an acre for his 261-acre farm. When you do the math, that is $15.7 million sitting on his kitchen table. He turned it down. He sold the development rights to the Lancaster Farmland Trust instead for under $2 million. A fraction of what the developers were waving at him just to guarantee that no one would ever pave it. He said, I am not interested in destroying my farms. While one elderly farmer was turning down $15 million to protect his land, the next township over was quietly signing a $14.1 million deal that hands a hyperscale surveillance center the right to draw 40,000 gallons of water per day from the public water and sewer system. That is roughly what 2,300 homes use. It is over 40% of the town's excess water supply. The developer is Carlisle development partners, a joint venture between Pennsylvania data center partners and powerhouse status centers. The water deal was signed at the local level, no state oversight, no constitutional challenge, no serious public scrutiny. And when residents pushed back the township supervisor, Phil leader, Told them not to worry, the tax revenue from the project would fund a lot of unrelated township projects that were already on the books. That is the deal we are being offered, your water for their services and a new municipal salt shed for your trouble. They are not buying the land because they want farms. They are buying the land because what is underneath it. If you have been wondering why the wealthiest men in America have been on a farmland buying spree, this is the answer. Here's the part fewer addressing at the township meetings. Pennsylvania's constitution makes most of this illegal. And the reason why I wanted to get up here is specifically to read this next section. Article one, section 27, ratified by the voters in 1971 by a four to one margin reads in full, the people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural scenic, historic, and aesthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all people. The water is not the borough's right to sell. It is not Shapiro's to give away. It is not the Diaz holdings to buy. The Commonwealth, including every local government inside it, holds public water and trust for the people of Pennsylvania and for the generations who have not been born yet. The state is the caretaker. We are the owners. That is not my interpretation. That is the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's interpretation. In 2017, the Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation versus the Commonwealth, the state Supreme Court ruled that Article 1, Section 27, that I just read, creates a real enforceable public trust. The Commonwealth is the trustee. The people, current and future, are the beneficiaries. And the trustee, that's you, has the fiduciary duty, the same kind of legal duty your financial advisor has to you, to conserve and maintain the trust assets for the people who actually own them. That's us. The court was specific. Those trustee obligations are not vested exclusively in any single branch of state government. They apply to all agencies and entities of the Commonwealth, both state and local. That means borough supervisors. That means borough councils. That means the planning commission that approved the Middlesex deal. A trustee cannot trade trust assets for tax revenue. A financial advisor who sold off your retirement account to fund unrelated office expenses would be sued into oblivion. But that is essentially what the Middlesex township supervisor told residents he was doing, and no one mentioned the Constitution. Public water held in trust for the people cannot be traded for tax revenue. That is not opinion. That is what the Pennsylvania Supreme Court already decided. Meanwhile, in Harrisburg, Governor Shapiro is racing in the opposite direction. His administration has rolled out something called GRID, the Governor's Responsible Infrastructure Development Standards, which fast tracks permitting for data center developers who agreed to certain conditions. He has also stood by an existing sales tax exemption for data center equipment that his own administration now projects will cost Pennsylvania taxpayers around $2 billion in lost revenue by mid-2031. The estimate for next fiscal year alone has been revised upward from $45 million to $188 million. unless we forget this is a bipartisan issue. In July, 2025, Shapiro stood next to President Trump and Senator McCormick at Carnegie Mellon University to announce a $90 billion investment in artificial intelligence, energy infrastructure and data centers across Pennsylvania. The governor has called this an economic transformation. He is treating the soil of this Commonwealth like a clearance sale. A reasonable person can ask, with the Constitution in one hand and the budget in the other, whether the governor is fulfilling his fiduciary duty as trustee of Pennsylvania's natural resources or whether he is violating it. I am not a lawyer. I am a mother and a commentator who can read plain English. But the people writing checks to these developers have lawyers, and their lawyers know about Article 1, Section 27. they know about p-e-d-f they know the argument exists the reason they are moving so fast township by township borough by borough is because they want the contract signed before the rest of us can catch up but we aren't powerless And then she goes on to state, if you have a borough meeting coming up, go. Bring this article if you want. Stand up during public comment and say the words Article 1, Section 27 out loud on the record. Say the words PEDF versus the Commonwealth. Say public trust. Fiduciary duty. Once those words are in the official minutes of a public hearing, they become part of the legal foundation for a constitutional challenge later. Developers know this. Their lawyers know this. The only people who do not know this are the neighbors whose water is being sold while they sleep. Well, now we're awake. Every township meeting where no one mentions the Constitution is a gift to the developers. If you know an environmental lawyer or you know someone who knows one, this is worth a conversation. The legal argument has not been fully tested in court for water in this specific context. The PEDF rulings have so far been about oil and gas leasing on state forest land. But the language of Section 27 lists pure water for anything else. And the Supreme Court has been clear that the trust covers public natural resources broadly, not selectively. Somebody is going to file the test case. Pennsylvania could be the state that draws the line. This is a chain. Each link looks reasonable on its own, but strung together, they add up to something no one would have voted for if you put it on the ballot in plain language. Put it on the ballot in plain language. Every borough meeting, every county commissioners meeting, every conversation with your state representative, every neighbor who still thinks this is just about server racks in a windowless building somewhere. The water belongs to the people. The constitution says so. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court says so. The only question left is whether we are going to say it loud enough that they cannot pretend that they didn't hear us.

Going to be real quick. Thank you guys for your patience. I know a lot of people showed up tonight. And I know it's hot in here. But even though I'm really scared of the idea of a data center coming into our town, hundreds of people showed up tonight. I didn't introduce my name. My name is Robert Machania. I live on South 5th Street. Real quick. I THINK THERE ARE TWO POSSIBLE FUTURES HERE FOR YOU GUYS AS BOROUGH COUNCIL. YOU GUYS CAN REALLY STAND UP AND BE CHAMPIONS IN THIS FIGHT AGAINST DATA CENTERS. YOU CAN BE AN EXAMPLE FOR MUNICIPALITIES ACROSS THE STATE AND ACROSS THE COUNTRY. you can bring everyday people into the process to pass legislation that not only stops the data center now but prevents one from ever coming into our town in the future that's right there is an alternative future where you guys vote against the interests of our neighbors sacrifice our water our power and our environment for big tech corporations in the event that that second future becomes a reality four of you are up for election in 2027 and everyone with their own council won their seats four of your seats are up at least um every one of you won your seats by less votes than there are people who showed up here tonight and i think even people who are still in the room i can promise you if you vote to sell this property to a data center developer people in this room will stand up to run against you if you're still considering running and many more will support them i am asking you guys to not sell our town out to big tech tech corporations i would also ask that you do a roll call vote rather than a voice vote so we know who among Please listen to the community you all stepped up to serve. I think you guys will make the right choice tonight. Thank you. Hey, folks.

My name is Kyle Ricker. I'm a cybersecurity engineer by trade. it wouldn't feel right if I didn't try to present as many facts as possible before people were making a decision. I'm going to try to go through these really quick. I have more, but yeah. So one of the main facts that jumped out to me was that if it housed the data center, it could draw between three to seven times as much as our current residential electric motor. And the grid top load for that, that's going to have to get upgraded and someone will pay for it. Data centers across the nation are currently increasing how much electricity they're using in general. 1.7% in 2020, 4.4% in 2024, and 2028, Bloomberg is predicting 12% of use across the country total. They're in that same article also in, let's see. Yeah, analysis that Bloomberg did on utility rates found that areas with high concentration of data centers like our ninth ward could be saw electricity prices jumped 267% for five years. That's a lot. The Pennsylvania House as mentioned earlier tonight has passed four bills to try to regulate data centers and protect rate payers. It is important to mention that those have not passed the Senate and I do not personally have high hopes for them passing the Senate. I wish they would. So that means that we're kind of on our own. And the Borough Council is the protection of the Columbia residents. With that being said on electricity, I also did want to ask a question about the Keystone Opportunity Zone. And no, it is not eligible. Is that correct? No. Okay, yeah. Because if it were, I think it's tax-free for 10 years, correct?

And there's no lower level.

So that, yeah, they're not eligible.

There's no tax abatement stuff on the table at all.

Okay, excellent. Thank you so much. Howdy, y'all.

Unlike those people, I don't really have anything prepared. Can you speak up?

I sure can. So my parents made their first home here. Can you please state your name for the record? My name is B-E-E, like bug, not like B-E-N. I live directly across the street. My parents made their home here in the late 90s. My grandparents made their home here. I would love to make my home here. I can't if my water is ruined and my electric bill goes up by a dinosaur. There are so many little kids that live in that house across the street, and they're not going to be safe with a data center down the road. It would be much better to put, I don't know, a park, something. But a data center just is not what the people want. There's so many people outside telling you they don't want this. You were going to cancel the meeting because so many people said they didn't want this.

Hello, members of the panel. My name is Andra Arroyo-Bear. I'm here with my mother, Jenny Bear, daughter of Rich and Charlene Bear, granddaughter of Rich and Mary Elizabeth Bear. You might know Mary Elizabeth Bear. She's named after the parish center at St. Paul's. So my family has a lot of skin in the game here, a lot of blood, a lot of generations that have been living in Columbia, me included, grew up here, live here now. I think it's great. I think it's fantastic. What I don't think is great or fantastic is the threat of something so looming and dark in our community. As countless people have already said, we have almost canceled the meeting here tonight because there were so many people who wanted to voice their opinions on why this data center is wrong and i can see that i'm losing some people's attention here because some of the panel is not even giving me eye contact i just have to say i have been disappointed in the way our representatives are handling things tonight. I'm disappointed in the future plans that our representatives have brought forth for us tonight. I don't think there's going to be much of a future for Columbia if we introduce this data center. There's a lot of people some of the people we kicked out earlier who don't want this. People who want to move, people who don't want to take any part of this. There's not going to be money in the game. There's not going to be anything if everyone leaves because they're frustrated with how things are being handled.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Mason Miller. I bought my house on Lancaster Avenue about three months ago. I'd love to stay here a really long time. Me and my fiance have a dog and a cat. We were planning on having kids. I want to have them go down to the river like I did when I was a kid. I'm from E-town. My dad would bring us down here all the time. Now, me and her, every Friday, we go and we walk that beautiful river trail. Why not add a little bit of extra green land? That's what brought us here in the first place when we lived across the river. I'm a musician, and I've been going down to SRCC not every week, sorry. That's awesome. We love community. It's a river town. We've been here for 300 years. I just want to see it keep going. Don't just sell it for a dollar. That's it.

Hi, my name is Steve Hofmaster. I don't live here. I'm a Lancaster resident. I was raised in Columbia. I was part of the Boy Scouts at the Knights of Columbus over there. Thank you. I love this town. A lot of people, it has a charm. However, I just have a question. The two councilmen on the far left, not the blue shirt, the two suits, you're staring at me. What's your name? Yes, sir. Yes. My name's Tate. What's your name? My name's Tom Ziegler. Tom Ziegler. And the gentleman to the left or your right? He's the mayor. The mayor?

Nice to meet both of you.

Further example of the fallacies I've seen tonight. I saw both of you kind of smile and laugh during diane's you know diane the big sign who was up here i saw you kind of grin a bit and i understand i am scrutinizing your biometrics how that is exactly what these data centers are known for were made famous by alan turing who was a british spy

Let me respond to that.

No, I'm not done yet. Just I have two more seconds.

I understand. This is already taking such a long time and thank you.

Owl habitats have been destroyed because of these data centers. It's on record. It's shown the moments, the methods, of putting these data centers into place are dubious they had conservators come and just see okay the owl won't die we're not infringing on like this bird act from blah blah blah i understand thank you um i i haven't seen any empathy here tonight and you wonder why why we keep asking if you're listening and at the end of the day i have one more thing to say where's top door guard i'm here i vote no okay

Did you hear that? Okay. I am here partially to confer with the person who was just here. I hate to say it. Leo Lutz, you have been staring at this wall the entire night instead of at the people coming to this van. And I don't find the person.

Let me tell you something. You know what?

I cannot hear him. I have a problem with my head. Looking straight ahead is more comfortable for me, and I can hear that.

So I think the solution to that would be to have the tables facing you instead of having them set these signs. So we should do that next time. Anyways, I don't even live in Columbia. I'm a citizen from York County. I came here because we are being very much affected by data centers. We are consistently at the brunt of these plans. They're springing up all the time. And I'm here to tell you that citizens in your county are leaving in droves because we cannot afford our electric bills and we cannot afford our water bills. These are two bills that would be very strongly impacted by the implementation of a data center. And I know that it's not like 100%. It can be a data center or a warehouse. But given the zoning thing, it seems like we're pretty committed on the idea of defending or taking down this idea of building a data center here um let me look at my notes i said this already people are moving people cannot afford to live in these places that are being affected someone said they were being gentrified earlier and i think that's a great comparison i don't know how well people are able to afford the cost of living here it seems like it's rising especially with taxes and i can guarantee that i know someone very stole my thought and asked about Keystone, oh my God, Opportunity Zones, which is a great thing to hear. But I think that these resources can be allocated somewhere else if we're looking to broaden a tax base. Because instead of even just one warehouse is not going to bring in the economic drive that you're looking for. It's going to maintain like at most 100 jobs. And if it's a data center, then it's going to bring in not only like the one person remote from out of state lines that's going to take care of it, but it's also going to bring in outside of county and outside of state construction workers to work on this project. And that's not what you're looking for if you're trying to promote job growth and also expand your tax base. and again for going on the assumption that this would be a data center because they're not being very transparent with what they want to do with this land unless it's just something you have not told us yet which i think is a little unfair if we're to judge what this land is to be used for based like it's going to be purchased for this purpose and we do not know what that purpose is yet because a lot of data centers are built different ways, whatever, even closed loop systems, which are considered to be the best way for these data centers to be maintained, they are still very much contaminating water because even with a closed loop system, it gets water in, it cycles it, it recycles it, but even recycled water can only go so far. It has to be pushed back out. Usually it's sent to like our, or water treatment sites, or it's just sent right back into where it came from. But because of the evaporation, as we've kind of discussed earlier, it captures and concentrates these toxins that, again, releases back into the same source of water. So it's just picking up the same kind of sources, or it's pulling even more limited resources in. this concerns me because i work in a daycare and daycares are big on tap water and if we are already so thin on our resources we cannot afford to buy bottles of water for every single child because every single child has to have their own water bottle every day because if parents can't even get tap water from their own houses how can they expect to get it from a daycare um i also have like outdoor animals that drink whatever they find and if that water is toxic then that is going to probably kill them and that could also affect we've seen like wildlife drinking from the susquehanna whatever that whatever um moreover uh sadia holdings which is a subsidiary of saya groups is a duplicitous business i think you guys are being strong-armed because the opening bid was 6.2 million dollars was basically given like two months to fulfill that bid and then they placed a 6.35 million dollar bid basically the day it was due if i'm not mistaken so i think that you are not getting the value that you deserve if you're trying to redistribute this to a $100 million budget problem. It's going to be a very, very short-term solution to a very long-term problem that's just not going to see returns. People are here today to tell you what they want. I think, as you've said, lots of people haven't been showing up until like today. I think you're going to see a lot more people show up today and that you're going to want them to be on your side as people who believe that you represent their best interests. I think everyone has the capacity to do that.

you guys and do it that's kind of good my name is david michaud i'm from old chickies hill road full disclosure i know how there's ink we used to pokemon go together i'm very disappointed in you heather i know i haven't kept my streets up growing up beyond the Ecological problems, the employment problems that you've heard tonight, I want to bring up something that we haven't talked about, reason and logic. Something you don't have to be an expert on. Where is the pro data center people here? We heard from three people. Two, maybe it's because they were scared. And the one guy. Yeah. And the one guy who had a vested interest in it, which is, I mean, I know we're living in a world where dubious things are happening in politics, but shouldn't be happening here. Second thing I want to talk about is Columbia identity. And this is my big point. Why on earth? Every person I've asked, why on earth would you even be considering this? Why? Anybody? for the money correct for greed and you're worried about a lawsuit which i heard about i got news for you if this goes through there's going to be a lot more lawsuits that's not an excuse not to do it and the people that are here tonight are going to keep coming and the people that are here tonight are going to keep coming they're going to be relentless you couldn't handle a girl reading a a newspaper article and you think you're going to be able to handle i mean look at the internet there are millions of videos not one of them is about pro data centers there are people going on hunger strikes there are people getting arrested you got so many police here does that mean you're scared yeah somebody needs to explain the logic here because we're not getting it and we're all here opposing it you're supposed to be representatives i mean like basic definition of a representative is you're supposed to represent us and not the three people who left the bear pocket yeah exactly listen to my man you're in somebody's pocket you're not transparent you won't show us any plans you're supposed zoning restrictions were not even researched. Heather, you came on here and started talking about things that are going on in Harrisburg just to oppose them. You didn't even research it. You just pulled it up on your computer and were like, what about? What about this?

No, I have done extensive research. Don't even tell me about it, Heather.

In fact, I sit on the County Planning Commission, and as part of that,

You've done your research, okay. What is the maximum number of gallons of water that a data center is going to take?

Let me tell you what I... Go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, it's fine. Now you want to talk. Go ahead. She was trying to talk. I was trying to. Go ahead. Just go. Go. five million gallons of water is the max 97 decibels which some somebody mentioned there have been a lot of conservative numbers in here 97 decibels prolonged hearing loss prolonged exposure to that will lead to hearing loss we spent four million the lancaster conservatory spent four million dollars to beautify chickies park and you want to put a big building in it that's a slap in the face to the lancaster conservatory What, how does that match?

Go ahead, Heather.

No, you're putting it downstream. We can all, I mean, you're building a hotel. Cause I assume you want tourism. Can somebody cite me the number one tourism to places with data centers? Yeah. Is that a vacation destination? You are, I mean, I'm sorry. I waited till the end because I'm fuming, but you have invested so much in trying to get people to come here. And now you're going to undo it in one single stroke. There is no doubt in my mind that we will become known as Columbia, the city with the data center, not Columbia with the hiking trails, not Columbia with the river park, not Columbia where it's, you know, be safe and walk around and play Pokemon Go, Heather. It's not going to happen. So I'm sorry to tell you, but there is absolutely zero reason to put a data center in this town zero and you haven't you haven't laid out a reason the three guys that came in here gave us what abouts or maybes maybe we'll get some return on investment maybe they'll build a power a power plant to power it maybe it won't come from our our grid no definites and you want to vote on it i'm I am beyond shocked that this is even being considered when there are a million other things you could do. You could invest in the people in the city that don't have jobs. You could be giving that money in small in small business loans. You could do a lot of things with that, but you want to. No, you can't? That didn't work. What do you mean it didn't work? It's unconstitutional in Pennsylvania.

It's against the Pennsylvania law.

Oh, yes. Here we go. This guy who doesn't want to take on the politicians. You didn't want to change the borough rules. You said, oh, we would have to take on the Pennsylvania borough. My man, if you are not up to the job, please resign and let somebody who will. I'm tired of hearing, I can't, I can't, I can't, when there are 1,500 people who signed a petition with other ideas. It makes absolutely no sense. I'm done. I mean, unless you have something to say. Of course you don't.

Hi, I'm Jesse Rabinowitz. I live over on 6th Street. You guys know me. First, I'm also not in favor of the data center, but I just want to say, actually this is not to you guys, this is to everyone else here. They've had this, they've been working on this for how many years now five years five years right i was attending most of the council set meetings last year um there was many nights three people at council frank and sharon i forget your name joe um that was mary was there there was not many people who would show up todd who you all booed Sure, I don't agree with him to have this data center, but he came to meetings with big notepads and was asking for ideas. He was really trying to find things to do with this land. That's great. Hold on. He was really trying to do something with this. We are in a situation where... That's what I always say with my wife. Whenever we make a poor decision, it's like, well, we're here now. We have to figure it out. We're here now. Listen, listen, dude, dude, you just spoke forever. Stop for a moment, buddy. We're here now. We have to come up with a solution. We got one bid. That's right. One bid. Council has to make a decision and we have to talk about it. so yes this is coming up how the comments how dare you let's think about this that's the only thing we have we have to think about it we don't have to accept it but it is partly what we have and so just yelling at council yelling at council all night is just really just disrespectful these people who one don't get paid for this they get like a hundred dollar stipend a month guys there's no money in this for them to like stop accusing them of being these evil people all right like they're not they're volunteers so just just please just have a little grace towards them that's all i'm asking here just a little grace towards them and show up to the council meetings like frank and sharon and joe

thank you i appreciate you guys this is a tough situation thanks jesse hello my name is caitlyn dumbach i own my home on perry street and i vote in every election a lot of people have talked about all of the issues with data centers you don't need to hear that from another person so let's set the data centers aside and look at the company saudi is not a trustworthy company for us to work with they are defaulting on loans and losing lawsuits two years ago they lost a lawsuit for 45 million dollars the stony battery location has closed and they are promising us six million dollars but i don't trust that we would actually get that money additionally you have said that the information about where this proposed six million dollars would be going would be available after it is spent why are you not able to present a comprehensive proposal ahead of time for where the money is going it's not going anywhere it doesn't go anywhere until we allocate the funds so what are you planning to do with the money what is the general account and what is the plan for it why are you just holding six million dollars and not making a plan ahead of time for what to do to improve our community

Hi, my name is Lady King and I'm a local artist and musician. Hi, my name is Lady King. I'm a local artist. I actually have a song that I wrote that I feel like the lyrics really pertain to this. So I'm going to read it like a poem. Can I sing it? You have to hear my band sometime. Are you unchanged, unchanged, unchanged? Are you unchanged, unchanged, unchanged? If you are unchanged, something could rearrange. Aren't you carrying around some type of rage? I take the stage, a melody brigade, but they say sedition isn't okay. I use my word to mention my concern, as I know that there's better ways. And I'm unchained, unchained, unchained. Well, I'm unchained, unchained, unchained. But when I use my word to mention my concern, they act like I'm obscure. the scrutiny preventing unity so maybe what we need now is mutiny and i'd accept the blame but wouldn't bear no shame because i'm unchained unchained unchained well i'm unchained unchained unchained i said i'm unchained unchained unchained are you unchained unchained unchained

Hi.

Is this on?

Am I speaking? This is my first time public speaking.

Forgive me. My name is Brian. I live across the bridge. I live on Mount Pisgah. I come from West Virginia. How many of y'all have been in West Virginia? Have lived in West Virginia? Been there? Being there and living there are two different things. If you've lived there, you'll know the state that the state's in. All right. It's in a very terrible spot. You got pollution, just general economic decay, towns gone, people on drugs, everything. All right. And the whole way that starts, the whole how it started become like that is because there was no cooperation. All right. No cooperation with the community, with any officials. All right. That entire state is dying. I come from a dying state. All right. I don't want this state to die. Frankly, I don't. I think this place is beautiful. This is the best place I've ever lived. All right. And if we don't stop this right here and right now, it's just, it'll become, it'll be the same thing. It'll just be the same. We'll end up like West Virginia. We'll be in horrible decay. And, and trust me, you guys don't see it. I mean, it's, it's people on drugs, birth defects, everything. I've seen people I love not off from drug use. almost overdosing and stuff. And this is a daily occurrence there. And I just don't want that to happen to this place. I don't. We got a beautiful river. All right. There's beautiful. I live right next to Sam Lewis. Sam Lewis is gorgeous. That's a gorgeous place. Gorgeous views. That's the kind of stuff we need. All right. These data centers are just, they destroy that. They destroy it. All right. I already have hearing problems. All right. We don't need any more of that. Okay. i just don't want to see this place become another west virginia i just don't the place don't get me wrong west virginia is a beautiful place to visit but living there is a completely different thing and i just i don't want to see the state become that i i left west virginia to come here because this is a much better spot it's a much better place i just don't want to see that room i don't okay so please please don't allow this to happen all right don't even consider it it's horrible

My name is Bryce Thomas. I live down the street. Earlier today, I had a conversation with the CEO of a regulated utility here in Pennsylvania. When we look at the permitting process for regulated utilities, there's currently several slated closures for fossil fuel power plants between now and 2030. That results in a 10 to 20% drop in fossil fuel power as supplied measured by megawatts. There's a bunch of data centers being built. These data centers use quite a bit of energy. What this results in, in the absence of no scheduled increases in supply, is a fundamental supply and demand imbalance in electricity. I don't think this is rocket science. I think anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows what's going on here. If you decrease the amount of electricity you're producing because older plants are getting phased out and new ones aren't being built, keeping in mind that the permitting process for a new coal or gas-fired power plant is over five years, and you're building new data centers, what's going to happen to your electric bill? This is just stupid economics. There is no reason to build this here. The other thing I would point out is that only a real scumbag sues taxpayers. Thank you.

I'm not going to double dip with the comment. I just had a question actually about the bid if that's allowed. Okay. Perfect. Okay, perfect. I saw a quote from Council President Eric Kaufman that you didn't know much about the company, but we're excited about the project. So I did a little digging about the company and saw that they had that $45 million lawsuit two years ago, and that the Stony Battery location is closed. i work in public bidding and i'm familiar with the process in their public bidding did they disclose like their audited financials did you review them as an organization as a council and were those approved and vetted for the fork bringing this to bed so we didn't request audit financials why not I ask because in the organization I work for, that is a no brainer as a nonprofit NGO. We have to for our auditing purposes, we have to request audit financials to do good business. So I asked, why is that not part? I would like an answer. Why is that not part of your, is that normally part of your bid? Like if you were to hire a contractor to renovate the park, would you ask for their financials if they were only one year in business and trust that they were going to show up and do the work?

There are different stipulations.

i think it's a valid question we use a standard rfp for this paper person okay so it wasn't i i then i asked you to consider i'm sorry you wanted to say something go ahead it was it was very i i don't

don't know how to say this when we were when we were putting this together like evan stated earlier you know there's only there's only certain ways that municipalities can sell real property okay and one is a sealed bid one is a public auction or using uh a non-profit as a pass-through okay um the original intent was to use a non-profit as a pass-through and very recently we learned that that was not going to be an option so okay we we had to debate between public auction or sealed bid and when we were discussing doing the sealed bid at that time we said you know what we want more information than just than just a number i appreciate that we want so i basically i took um i took a an rfp from lancaster city that they did for one of their redevelopment projects um i think it was a walnut street project or something and i sort of tweaked it so that it was more relevant to our projects um we also included a scoring rubric so that it was very clear as to what we were looking for the the scoring was based on how what they were proposing fit into what our goals were and so forth um but i want to i think one thing is important to note that even though we put this out for bid like that there is nothing that obligates the the bid winner to do whatever they proposed in here so kudos to sadia for being honest with us and giving us a proposal that they did because they very easily could have proposed something completely different and then build a data center so kudos to them for at least being honest i mean if there's no other know i but i i i just wanted to make sure that i did that you know when i worked with yeah when i was when i was writing up the rfp because i i did do it um i was working with lancaster edc and consulting with um consulting with them on how we do this, because we wanted more information, but we also want to comply with the state laws. Sorry, please be quiet. I know it's a boring process, but it's important. That was how we came up with it. I've never done this before. This was a whole new thing, but we wanted to make sure that we captured all of our goals, that we were very clear with what our goals were, and Okay.

I just, I asked them that you really highly consider that I believe that you are able to deny a bid, even if it's the sole bid. Yes. Only because if you haven't looked at their fiduciary, I really plead you to if all else fails, because it sounds like the core of what your concern is, is the tax issues and the concern about the monetary future of Columbia. And I get that. I resonate with that. I think every person in here resonates with that. But to go into business with someone who just two years defaulted that significantly and companies have had to sue them for back rent and not gotten it. And I would not want to see Columbia in a position where they are then on the hook for something they sold and then have to go use their solicitor to sue them for something that didn't come to fruition. So I'm really asking you to just pause and do more due diligence. You can extend your RFP longer, open it up longer. You can also request more information. You can do an RFI, request for information and extend it. and ask them for more due diligence i think that everyone knows honestly i think you as a council are owed that information because they may have been transparent with you on that but they were not transparent on this thank you for considering

Hey, I'm not a great public speaker. My name is Missy and I'm a business owner and a property owner here at Columbia Borough. I just want to speak on the animosity that you're feeling. It's because from that back corner of the room, I've seen every single one of you looking smug. And the vibe is that nothing that we are saying matters and you're yelling into the void. I am just here to ask that if you aren't receiving payouts or money, which one of you was so offended by the accusation, then why are you so willing to betray the people of our town? Listen to the people, deny the bid. Thank you. All right.

Nathan, do you have any comments? Not much beyond what we discussed. I'm kind of limited in what I'm allowed to say, but I do echo a lot of the concerns that people have brought up tonight, especially considering Saudia's financial situations. Yeah, again, I'm not totally sure what I can and can't discuss.

I think you can hit some of the high points if you'd like. I don't think that's a problem.

Some of my main concerns that I did bring up were I believe that the job estimations that they included in the bid seem a bit inflated. compared to what the national averages are. For example, they listed short-term construction creating 500 to 600 jobs and long-term operational creating 150 to 200. And as I sent in the email, the national average for a data center is 46 full-time and 196 in construction. So that's their financial situation. And additionally, one of their... locations that they sent us as an example of one of their other properties in doing research from it i could not find that they own it or that they are even it's listed as being being developed into a farm um feed facility not as a data center as they listed that's the one in illinois um now maybe that's just not public information but i'm i was surprised to not be able to find things to back up their claim and i think even putting the issue of a data center aside i think that the issue of the actual bid is not of sufficient quality to for us to like

Thank you.

Any comment? Yes. Hi. I'm with Ethan on this.

I did research on Sadia and they are in a $247 million lawsuit in New York to do with bad taxes. And They have so many unpaid situations going on that I don't feel safe in having them be here. I don't think we would ever collect a dime of taxes. I don't believe that they're going to be good for the town. And so I would vote no.

I have one major concern. I mean, I have several concerns. However, In reading through this, last Monday when we scored it and everything, we kind of skimmed it. That was the first we were looking at it. Spent time actually reading through everything. And I believe their attorney is here. On page 16, under the section where we requested ESTIMATED PROJECT TIMELINE. I THINK WE MADE IT CLEAR IN THE RFP THAT BECAUSE THIS IS A MUNICIPALITY, WE HAVE TO RECEIVE PAYMENT, FULL PAYMENT, WITHIN 60 DAYS OF BID AWARD, AND ON PAGE 16, Letter A says the acquisition and closing on property. It says they will close on the property within 30 days following final non-appealable borough approval of a contemplated site plan. And based on the actual date timeline, that would not be until next year. That's not acceptable. allowed to happen we have to have full payment for the property within 60 days of bid award and that's non-negotiable i mean that's the that's the that's the borough code so i'm not in a position to change anything about the proposal that's before you this evening so I mean that in and of itself is is disqualifying I mean our to make it a qualifying bid we had to have each item addressed and they were and this was a very detailed and thank you for that I think I told you that before um and I think I told everyone Claudia's on this she's going to be really thorough and everything else um But I think that alone is disqualifying as we cannot accept a bid that does not give us full payment within 60 days of the bid award. That's correct. Along with that, I also agree that their estimates for job creation are are seriously inflated um however one thing and my computer died and i don't have i don't have power so i can't get the actual numbers um but um i think i can pull it up for when i sent it um just to let everyone know because i know this is a big this is the big question and this is you know everyone and i spent a lot of time pulling numbers together frank you kept asking me yeah i'm looking for that thank you kelly you keep asking about money and money and and the money and who's keeping track of things i spent a lot of time getting the numbers together. And I think that I would like the public to know the numbers on this. So the total project cost from pre-construction or from pre-purchase through today has been $4,876,749.63. We have received grants in the amount of $1,774,587. The borough investment into this project has been $3,099,663.63. Upon sale of the property, we will be required to pay back the state buyers program, $1,187,969. Assuming a sale price of $6,350,000, the return on investment is $3,250,336.37. So, we're looking at a hundred over a hundred percent roi um after we would close we would you know like i said that's putting all of the money back in that we've already spent we would clear three a little like 3.2 million dollars over and above that so i just wanted to throw that out there i would also like to point out that um The current property assessment, because these are questions that people have asked. And Frank, I know you've asked a lot of them. So I wanted to have these numbers for you tonight. The current assessed property value is $607,900. It brings us $6,079 in property tax a year. Now, while the borough owns it, we're not obviously paying ourselves. But that's how much it would generate. If the site was developed and the development cost, that goes in towards the permitting fees and the other fees that we would receive. at a low estimate of 85 million dollars to out to for the hard cost of the thing of the site assuming that would impact the final assessed value that would be 880 000 850 000 a year in property taxes that's almost two mils at the current tax assessment now obviously that's going to change next month when everyone gets their new assessment bills from from the county but i'm just i just felt you yes i'm i'm not downgrading everyone's concerns about the environment and everything else but i wanted to put this in in perspective that we're looking at we're looking at accepting a bid i wanted to get past the noise and show you what you know what we're looking at here um what we we also said that again let me reiterate we are accepting a bid that does not mean the project has approval that does not mean the project has any sort of anything and as i said before if we award the bid to this company that project could change as long as it fits our zoning it fits our zoning so But again, it still has to go through the land development process. It still has to go through all of the permitting process. Yes, we have the NPDES permit, which is the environmental clearance, but they will still have to go through the environmental clearance and everything else. So I just wanted to say that. And when we were talking about dates, Claudia, we would need the closing date on this to be on or before July 24th, and that's when we would need to have full payment for the property if we were to accept this bid.

I have a quick question for clarification for purposes.

Did I hear you say that because of whatever page you're talking to Claudia about, that this bid is disqualified because... the payment can't is not guaranteed whatever the wording was i don't know because i can't read it and i can't hold all that in my head so did you say that the bid is disqualified because of i mean i would think that it would have to be disqualified because it can't fit our timeline did anybody else know that this bid was disqualified before tonight it's not a matter of it being

disqualified the borough has the right to waive any defects in the bid if they want to it's it was in the bid um that's not my decision that is not a defect that we are able to wait because

right so i understand that so excuse me right so you can't waive that so does that mean that this bid does not meet the requirements that were set forth we would have we would have the right to go back to them and say this doesn't need it whatever or we would have the right to reject the bid flat out and issue call for another call for another bid Thank you so much we in this table have not had the opportunity to talk until now right and so i mean had we been able to talk earlier we could have avoided a whole lot of stuff but now we're here so i'm expressing the concern and it will be up to council to say are we going to reject the bid what are we going to do now I personally do not feel comfortable accepting a bid that does not comply with what we know that we have to do.

So what is the process now that you have a motion and a second to approve that bid? Do you have to reject it by voting no to approve the bid? Yes, that's correct. That is the only option at this point. Even though the bid in itself went against your requirements,

the bid itself was to address the individual items it did that it did go against whichever the state law is that you're referring to the rfp we asked them to provide a timeline and they did

okay so but the timeline does not match what we need it to be correct so why are we even talking about this if it goes against the state law that prevents you from

i was not able to speak earlier in the evening to express this but it's right how did they make it on the agenda and ask that question or didn't so you didn't but could you have yeah you could have yeah

okay that is all i wanted to say please take your vote real quick um disregarding the outside noise um i spent a week a week we had to

REVIEW AS MUCH AS WE COULD, LEARN AS MUCH AS WE COULD. SOME OF US AREN'T VERY FAMILIAR WITH DATA CENTERS, SO I DID A LOT OF RESEARCH. AND I SPENT A LOT OF TIME GOING TO MY NEIGHBORS, MY CONSTITUENTS, MY FRIENDS, AND ASKING THEM WHAT THEY FELT ABOUT THIS, IF IT IS A DATA CENTER. HOW IS THAT RELEVANT?

QUIET. EVERYBODY OUT THERE GOT YOUR CHANCE TO SPEAK.

let him speak it's getting old now i know that on the table is a bid for this property to be sold possibly a warehouse possibly a data center in my mind that's all semantics because if we vote yes We know that it's probably going to become a data center and that I cannot support. My vote would be no.

Yeah, I have a few things to say. First of all, I want to thank Heather for pointing it out. Again, Lauren, I appreciate your comments, but we all are familiar with the Sunshine Act in Columbia, believe me. Just be quiet. I'm not talking to you.

I'm speaking.

I didn't answer your response. You know what? Here's the thing. Sunset says we can't speak about this. Tonight's our first public chance to speak to what we got a week ago. And it's a lot of pages and a lot of information to dig through. And like I said, none of us are experts on it. So you get online and start trying to look for facts. You can find facts. I don't look for Facebook or AI for my facts. Trust me. i heard a lot of things tonight that were pretty sketchy and we'll just leave it at that okay but i would say this i want to thank heather for that because you know i if it's just calling our bid then i you know we need to get it rectified before we even consider moving forward But one thing I would ask is, I'm assuming you'll be coming back to some more meetings. I would really like to see a little more civil decor, okay? You all want to sit here and yell at us about, oh, you're not looking at me at this podium. I'm not just kind of being disrespectful. What do you think you were today? This was, somebody called it a shit show, okay? It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing because of the way the public acts. It's very embarrassing. That's what I got to say. I don't care. I have a motion on the floor.

the award debate with mcginnis innovation park property society holding llc for 6.35 million emotions by councilman zinc second by councilman murphy i don't have a roll call but please person cooper no that's the person buyers no that's the person easy no that's the person murphy

No.

Council person Ziegler?

No.

Council person Zink?

No.

Council President Kaufman?

No.

Thank you.

Okay.

Quite a few items we need to get through.

I WOULD ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO STAY BECAUSE THESE ARE VERY INTERESTING MEETINGS.

I EXPECT TO SEE EVERYBODY. My family's text and asking for proof of life, so. All right, I have a motion.

Second by Councilman Heasey to approve the hiring of Jenna Beck as part-time assistant market manager, contingent upon passage of a background check and making testing, Jenna will be hired at a rate of $25 per hour, working no more than 20 to 25 hours per month. Any questions? All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Consider approval to hire Seth Wickenheiser as a seasonal public works employee contingent upon passage of back and up check medical testing. Seth will be hired at a rate of 19.34 per hour working no more than 40 hours per week.

Second.

second by councilman fires to prove the hiring of seth wickenheiser as seasonal public works employee contingent upon passage of background check medical testing sets will be hired at a rate of 1934 per hour working no more than 40 hours per week Any questions, concerns? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Consider approval of a one-day pop-up event at the Market House for Great Columbia Waving the Feet. Great Columbia is requesting to sell tickets and local garden plants for the Columbia Garden Door. So moved.

Second.

i have a motion by councilman cooper second by councilman geesey to approve a one-day pop-up event at the market house for creek columbia waiving the fee creek columbia is requesting to sell tickets and local garden plants for the columbia garden tour any questions or concerns yeah about the president do you have a date on that june 13th yeah june 13th i wouldn't have today just so you know when the

If you want to go on it, it's June 13th, Saturday, June 13th.

I don't see the application of the bid packet, besides from the executive summary. Is it? Yeah, no, it's not in there.

It's not in there.

THANK YOU AND THEY'RE JUST GOING TO SET UP IN MARKET TO SELL THE TICKETS AND PLANS THAT PEOPLE DONATE THIS JUST WON'T BE AN EVENT APPLICATION THIS IS STRICTLY A PLACE JUST LIKE THE NEXT ONE IS SUGGESTED WAVE IN THE

Consider approval of one day pop-up event at the Market House for pre-Columbia, waiving the fee. Motion by Cooper, seconded by Giese.

Councilman Giese. All in favor say aye. Aye. Consider approval of a one day pop-up event at the Market House for CCAT, waiving the fee. CCAT will hand out information to the public about services offered and conduct fundraising.

Second.

I'm going to say that.

Easy.

Okay.

Motion for approval.

of a one-day pop-up event at the Market House for CCAP. Motion by Councilman Giesee, second by Councilman Cooper. Any questions or concerns? All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye 7. Solicitor's report. I do not have anything further this evening. Thank you.

just a uh just a note if you all haven't seen the 100 200 block wallet street project did start yesterday so we are off and racing on that construction down there and how long is that expected um the contractor has an end date of the end of november they actually can apply for a one month extension WHAT I WOULD EXPECT TO SEE IS YOU'RE GOING TO SEE SOME HEAVY CONSTRUCTION OUT THERE FOR PROBABLY THE NEXT TWO, THREE MONTHS. AFTER THAT, IT'S GOING TO TAPER OFF BECAUSE THE END OF CONSTRUCTION WILL BE THE LEAD TIME ON THE LIGHTING. SO AGAIN, I EXPECT THEM TO PROBABLY GET IT LARGER OVER THE NEXT TWO, THREE MONTHS. PRETTY WELL WRAP UP EXCEPT THE LIGHTING.

THANKS, DARREN.

BOARDS, COMMISSIONS, AND COMMITTEES, OUTCOMING MEETINGS. COMMITTEES APPROVED, CIVIL SERVICE, APRIL 14, 2026, OR MARCH 11, 2026. BORROW COUNCIL CALL VOTES. WE'LL START WITH COUNCILMAN ZIGLER.

I, aside from the house with no employees, I appreciate the enthusiasm and the participation that I saw today, especially when I reached out to Mr. Deftert and Jesse, thank you for your decorum. I know you guys have different opinions, but you've expressed yourselves in a matter of the fitting this meeting tonight. Thank you very much.

Just to echo what Tom said, uh tonight's meeting and the turnout and the uh atmosphere was not unexpected at least from not my end but i would say i'm glad to see this much reaction and this much participating participation rural council meetings are first second and fourth tuesdays of every month seven o'clock i urge all of you to come out so we don't just have three or four people in the audience and i would also expect given the or some people here, I'm hoping next spring when we have the elections for primaries and that, I'd like to see about a hundred people's names on the docket. It really should be. We have committees and we have volunteers in this town that is seriously needed and goes unfilled. You go to events, you see the same volunteers everywhere. So if you have time, volunteer.

Councilor Zan. Thank you.

Actually, I just have a couple of things. I don't know if everyone here saw or heard or read the Lancaster City Water Project going up Banner Street. THE LANCASTER CITY COUNCIL HAD AN AGENDA ITEM THE OTHER LAST MONTH, I THINK IT WAS, TO VOTE ON ACCEPTING THE PENVEST LOAN FOR THAT PROJECT. THEY TABLED THAT VOTE. SO BASICALLY WE'VE BEEN WAITING TO HEAR IF THEY'RE GOING TO DO THE PROJECT. I DO NOT BELIEVE THEY'RE GOING TO BE UNDERTAKING THAT PROJECT ANY TIME SOON. UNLESS THEY GET MORE MONEY. THE COSTS WERE HIGHER THAN WHAT WAS ESTIMATED AND THE PENVEST PLAN DIDN'T COVER IT SO THEY HAVE NOT ACCEPTED THE PENVEST PLAN AT THIS POINT. THIS WEEKEND STARTING SUNDAY, COUNCILPERSON COOPER, MANAGER BRAUMER AND MYSELF WILL BE ATTENDING THE PSAB CONFERENCE. Pretty excited to have two people that have never been there before. It'll be exciting. And I think I sent you all the list of legislation that will be asked to vote if it should be a legislative priority. There are some pretty cool things in there. One of which is the LOOP, the Long Owner Occupied Program, which basically... exempt senior citizens 65 and older that have been in their house for 10 years from property taxes. So that's kind of cool. I, like everyone else, appreciate everyone coming out. I, you know, I'm a government nerd. I've always... like government that's what i went to school for that's was my my degree is in government um and so to see so many people speaking out is is pretty exciting um one way or the other um and thank you to those of you that exercise decorum and and respect for the process and everything else so thank you

Everything Heather just said. And I'm on the finance committee. And this week and next week, we are choosing a bank, whether we stay with Truist, whether we go with Fulton, or... nothing, not Northwest. And well, M&T, we have we have meetings set up with them to see what they can do for us. And we will take the best offer that we get for our money. So just wanted you to know that that is going on. When Truist decided to close, we decided that maybe we should look at something else and see what else is out there. So that's what we're going to be doing the next couple of weeks. And again, I thank you all for staying with us for this boring part of the meeting and for allowing us to have the chance to talk to you as people. Unfortunately, the way this works, it's really hard with the Sunshine Laws because we can't tell you, we can't talk to each other. And so, you know, we had things underlined, I had stuff highlighted that I had questions on, and so did Heather. And that was about that payment when it was going to be. So I am thrilled that we got the no vote. And this may come up again, but we'll we'll we'll put out another bit i'm not sure what we're going to do how we're going to work it yet but um we'll let you know when we know thank you all for your time tonight

Yeah, everything everybody else said. But also, it's easy for us to seem like people up here don't care or that we're not listening. But genuinely, I was so excited as the room kept getting filled up. And Joanne and I, probably 15 minutes even before the meeting started, we were like, are we in trouble with the fire limit? This is going to be a problem. And that's a good problem to have. And usually it is a very, very empty council chamber. And I when I started going to council meetings about a year and a half ago, I was also like I hadn't gone to a council meeting before that. But that's exactly how you can get involved and how you can speak to people about what's going on in town and stay active. Another option is the live stream. Usually we have anywhere between 10 and 20 people watching the live stream. Tonight we had 307 at one point. So I'm very glad to see all the participation. I just want to see it keep up because the more people we have involved in these conversations, the easier the conversations get. When it is just the seven of us up here talking, it can be difficult to see other people's perspective because it is just ours up here. So it is really, really valuable for people to come up and talk. um so even though the meeting did go to 11 30 and i haven't eaten yet i do genuinely appreciate everybody coming out and speaking tonight oh no i didn't get pizza no i'll take it up with ron later But the only other thing I wanted to say is myself and Tom are the leads on the communications portion of the borough. And any feedback that you guys have, good and especially bad, I would love to see everything so we can make it better. In this instance, for example, with the sealed bid, me being new, I was not fully aware of what the process was going to be and what we could talk about at the end. And so I was also surprised when we had a week to make a decision and we weren't allowed to talk about it. That's... REALLY DIFFICULT BUT THAT'S ALSO STATE LAW. AND SO WE NEED TO LOOK AT OUR PROCESSES IN THE FUTURE AND FIND WAYS TO MAKE IT MORE INCLUSIVE. BECAUSE WHEN PEOPLE DON'T GET INFORMATION, PEOPLE JUST START MAKING STUFF UP. YES? NEW SPEAKER WE CAN SPEAK AFTERWARDS. WE CAN FINISH THE MEETING.

NEW SPEAKER THERE'S NO PROBLEMS.

we're not having conversation why don't you come up to me afterwards so you and i can talk okay i'm sorry i'm sorry i apologize joanne i'm trying trying it's okay I'd like to thank the Columbia Borough Fire Department for hosting us today. We had volunteers here that sure didn't want to be here, I'm sure, but I appreciate them. We had a music guy, and I apologize, I don't know your name, but he was able to provide mics and stuff and sound system for us. I appreciate that. And I'd like to thank the staff to move this out here to get everything here at the podiums to make this happen today, Wilson, all of us. Thank you very much. So with that being said, the next council meeting will be 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 2nd. 2026 there'll be a workshop meeting i have motion for genres second who beats it i wish that councilman easy is second by councilman zinc to adjourn all bearers say hi