Board of Directors - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I would like to call to order the June 2nd, 2026 Little Rock City Board of Directors meeting. We would like to welcome those in attendance as well as those watching and streaming online or at home. Madam Clerk, if you would please call the roll.

Director Miller. Director Richardson. Director Webb. Director Peck. Director Hines. Director Lewis. Director Kempiras. Director Phillips. Director Adcock. Vice Mayor Weirich. Mayor Scott here.

I now want to take this time to recognize Director Virgil Miller, who would give our invocation.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Would you all pause with me in a moment of silence as we prepare our hearts and minds for tonight's invocation? Tonight, I would like to invoke a spirit of appreciation over tonight's meeting. A spirit of gratefulness, thankfulness, gratification, and indebtedness to the approximately 2,500 employees in the 14 different departments that work for the city of Little Rock. I especially want to take this time to extend appreciation to former Little Rock Police Chief Heath Helton for his 30 years of service to the city. We wish him the best and he'll be missed. And finally, appreciation for the time, work, effort, research, knowledge, and understanding that it takes to conduct these board meetings. and to discuss and debate the many issues that come before this body. Amen.

Amen. Please stand for pledge of allegiance. Members of the board, we have seven modifications for today's agenda. Five additions, one deferral, and one withdrawal. Is there a motion? I move the roll. We got pressure. There's a motion. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. Madam Clerk, if you would please read the consent agenda.

A resolution authorize the city manager to enter into a contract with American Fire Protection Group Incorporated an amount not to exceed $72,321.62 plus applicable taxes and fees for the purchase of an additional Falcon 3100 trailer system for the LRPD's real-time crime center and for other purposes. A resolution authorize the city manager to enter into a contract with MN LRF LLC doing business as Mark McLarty Ford in an amount not to exceed $61,499, plus applicable taxes and fees for the purchase of one 2026 Ford Transit 350 cargo van for the use of by the Little Rock Police Department Special Weapons and Tactical Response Unit and for other purposes. A resolution authorize the city manager to enter into a contract with a commercial air in an amount not to exceed $137,140.58, plus applicable taxes and fees for the purchase and installation of one 25 ton train RTU air conditioning unit to replace an existing unit at the fleet services sedan shop and for other purposes. A resolution authorizes city manager to enter into a contract with Gulf States distributors in an amount not to exceed $79,012.50 plus applicable taxes and fees for the purchase of 300 cases of AE9AP MM ammunition to supply the Little Rock Police Department with ammunition for duty and training purposes and for other purposes. A resolution authorized the city manager to enter into a one-year contract with Safety National Casualty Corporation, an amount not to exceed $249,876 plus applicable taxes and fees for the excess workers' compensation insurance for one year term from July 1, 2026 to July 1, 2027 and for other purposes. A resolution authorizes city manager to enter into a contract with the Renaissance Construction in an amount not to exceed $450,000 for the development of two single family new construction properties utilizing home investment partnership program funds and for other purposes. A resolution authorized the City Manager to enter into a contract with AJS Homes and amount not to exceed $586,800 including a 20% contingency for the development of two single-family new construction homes utilizing home investment partnership program funds and for other purposes. A resolution authorized the City Manager to allocate targeted community development program funds toward identified capital projects in Southwest Little Rocks Ward 7 and for other purposes. A resolution authorized the City Manager to enter into a contract with Brown, Bortz, and Caldington Inc. in an amount not to exceed $89,999 for the development, implementation, and staff training for a small business enterprise program for a term not to exceed two years and further purposes. A resolution authorized the city manager to enter into an intergovernmental mutual aid police services agreement with Kansas City, Missouri and for other purposes. A resolution authorized the extension of the temporary entertainment district for one day on June 13th, 2026 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for the operation of an outdoor dining area in response to the SOMA 501 entertainment district of downtown Little Rock's application and for other purposes. A resolution authorized the creation of a temporary entertainment district for one day on June 20th, 2026, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. for the Juneteenth in the Rock Street Festival in response to the Friends of Mosaic Cultural Center application. And for other purposes, a resolution to authorize the settlement of litigation and authorize the city manager to execute a settlement agreement in the matter of Cindy Ortez at all versus City of Little Rock at all Eastern District of Arkansas case number 424-CV-00246-JM and for other purposes. A resolution authorizes City Manager to accept $1,662,774.80 in AR 500 Continuum of Care grant funds for the provision of permanent supportive housing rental assistance for qualified individuals and families and for other purposes. That concludes your consent agenda.

There's a motion and second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. We'll now go into, before we go into citizen communication, I do want to take this time. I think we all know here in the city of Little Rock, we're excited about our Little Rock children's baseball team that recently made for the first time in history to Super Regionals. And so we would be declaring today Little Rock Trojans baseball day. And so we want to go and give them a round of applause. All right, we'll go and All right. All right. All right, members of the board, we're going to go a bit out of order to get some of this other business that's before us here since we should be here longer than usual. And so, Madam Clerk, if you will read. We'll go to the first separate item. Which is item 11, and then we'll skip item 12 and then we'll the remainder and then we'll come back to the item 12.

An ordinance to condemn the property located at 3101 Asher Avenue, Little Rock, Arkansas as a structural fire and health hazard to provide for summary abatement procedures to direct city staff to take such action as is necessary to raise and remove such structure to declare an emergency and for other purposes. First reading.

There's a motion. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. Second reading.

An ordinance to condemn the property located at 3101 Asher Avenue, Little Rock, Arkansas as a structural fire and health hazard to provide summary abatement procedures to direct city staff to take such action as is necessary to raise or remove said structure to declare an emergency.

Second reading.

There's a motion to second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. Third and final reading.

An ordinance to condemn the property located at 3101 Asher Avenue, Little Rock, Arkansas as a structural fire and health hazard to provide for summary abatement procedures to direct city staff to take such action as is necessary to raise and remove said structure to declare an emergency. Third and final reading.

Mr. Board, we have three readings. Director Miller. You didn't need that? Okay. All right.

I'd like to like that place.

All right, here it is. There it is. There you go, Director Hackett. No, just touch it one time. Leave it alone. All right, I got you. There you go.

Okay. Mr. Miller can go first if he'd like.

He wants you to go first.

Okay. Mr. Goulet was supposed to be here this evening. He called me this afternoon. He was coming. Do we have his card?

No, ma'am.

He may have not knew that he needed to get here early.

Okay. Director Miller, you have a question now?

Yes. Thanks, Mayor. I guess this is in Ward 1. Of course, this item had been discussed as late as last December. It was a time period for corrective action that expired. We've heard from the applicant. We've heard from the neighborhood. I've also heard from Mr. Goulet, who was the president of the Goodwill neighborhood, where this property is located. Of course, we heard about this last Tuesday at our agenda meeting. I support the staff and their decision to move forward with condemnation of this property. And I want to say that for the record.

All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. Madam Clerk, if you would please read item 13. Now open up the public hearing.

A resolution to approve the sources and uses of the projected 2026 Community Development Block Grant, home investments, partnerships, and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS funds, approving the recommendations of the Consolidated Planning Committee and for other purposes.

We'll now close this hearing. Are there any questions? Any questions? Okay, no questions. All those favorably say aye.

Aye. All those opposed say nay.

Ayes have it. Open up public hearing for item number 14.

In order to approve the abandonment of a portion of the T Street right-of-way located immediately west of Watt Street in the City of Little Rock, Arkansas, and for other purposes, first reading.

Second.

There's a motion to second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. Second reading.

In order to approve the abandonment of a portion of the T Street right-of-way located immediately west of Watt Street in the City of Little Rock, Arkansas, second reading.

Second.

There's a motion to second. All those favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Ayes have it. Third and final reading.

An ordinance to approve the abandonment of a portion of the T Street right away located immediately west of Watt Street in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas.

Third and final reading. We've had three readings. Are there any questions? Are there any questions? Are there any questions? All those favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Ayes have it. We'll now go to Citizens Communications. So those who've already had their business taken care of, if you want to stay, great. If there's some people downstairs that may want your seat. Citizens communication. Angelica Warner. Is Angelica Lorna downstairs? Ashley or April? We'll keep going. We'll come back. Corey Talbert. Yes, sir. And for those that are new to City Hall in this process during citizens communications, there's a three minute limit per person.

Good evening. Good evening, Mayor, board members, city manager and fellow residents. My name is Corey Talbert. I'm a 25 year old Little Rock native and I'm the founder of Youth Sunny Cares, a youth mental health and mentorship organization serving students and families through central Arkansas. I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight because I believe our city is at a pivotal moment. Little Rock has always been a city with tremendous potential, incredible people, and a rich history. However, many of our young people are facing challenges unlike any other generation before them. We're seeing increasing concerns about mental health, violence, hopelessness, social isolation, and a lack of positive opportunities for engagement. Through East County Cares, I spend times in schools working directly with students. I hear their stories, I hear their fears, I hear their dreams, and many of them simply want to know that someone cares and that someone is willing to invest in them and that they have a future worth fighting for. That's why I'm launching the Just Breathe Festival. Labor Day weekend, September 3rd through September 6th, this Just Breathe Festival is more than an event. It's a movement designed to unite our city around healing, hope, opportunity, and community. Our vision is to create a multi-day experience and bring together youth, families, educators, churches, businesses, nonprofit organizations, artists, athletes, entertainers, and community leaders all under one shared purpose, investing into the people of Little Rock. The festival will focus on a mental health awareness, youth empowerment, education, entrepreneurship, community engagement, faith, culture, and entertainment. We want young people to see successful people who look like them. We want families to connect with resources they may not know exist, and we want local businesses to showcase opportunities. We want organizations doing great work to be seen and supported. Many people in our city still remember the excitement and unity that events like Riverfest brought to our Little Rock. While we are creating something different, we are inspired by the same spirit of bringing people together from every neighborhood, every background, and every walk of life. My goal is simple. I want Little Rock to become a model city for youth wellness, community collaboration, and innovation. I want people from all over Arkansas and beyond to look at Little Rock and see a city that's investing in its future by investing in its people. We have already began conversations with the leaders, entertainers, athletes, businesses, churches and organizations that share the vision. The response has been encouraging because people understand our city needs opportunities that inspire, connect and empower. The festival is expected to draw significant attendance, support local businesses, increase tourism, highlight community organization and most importantly, generate resources that allow East Honeycares to expand mental health and youth development program throughout our schools and communities. Tonight, I'm asking the city's partnership, whether that comes through guidance, collaboration, promotion, resources, or simply helping connect us with the right stakeholders, we welcome the opportunity to work together. This festival is not about one person or one organization. It's about creating something that belongs to the people of Little Rock. I firmly believe when the government and businesses face... Thank you, Mr. Talbert. Thank you.

If you have that and want to leave that with us, we can add it to the record.

Definitely.

If you'll just give that to Ms. Queener. I believe Miss Angelica Lorna is here now. After Angelica, Jenny Narasi. Jenny Narasi after Miss Angelica.

Hello, I'm filling in for Angelica. My name is Elizabeth Gandara. I'm here because the people do not want any data centers. We have not seen the impact that they have done on nature, on the communities. Arkansas consistently ranks last in everything bad except for progression. And AI is not going to make a difference because it is not investing in the people of Arkansas. Arkansas rural areas are consistently ranking the highest in teen pregnancy in high school dropouts. We have substance abuse problems and this is not going to be bettered by AI. We're being sold to politicians and the people resenting us are not doing anything about it. There's no transparency being shared with us. I would rather be out kayaking or enjoying an Arkansas summer, but instead I'm here having to fight for the right of not only my community, my family members, but the elderly and the sickly that are going to have impacts because they have health concerns. Arkansas doesn't rank top on anything, especially healthcare systems. We've been asking for higher education, better healthcare systems, and we've been denied that. Instead, we've been given the backs turned to us, and political deals with super mega corporations that are not trustworthy. So we're here to ask to stand up for the people of Arkansas. I'm here asking that you really sit down and listen to the community members, not just the ones with money or living on one side of the political spectrum, but all of us. AI, this one that's coming, Avola or whatever, it's a third party. So we don't know who's going to come in. Anybody can come in. Google, Elon, Meta, Peter Thiel. And the reality is y'all are making promises. Y'all do not know yourselves that y'all can fulfill. That's why we're here and we're asking for stronger and transparency with everybody. And this is all controlled by the system. And unfortunately, I don't have a job wanting to know all the regulations, but I will if it means protecting the natural state that I love and that I've called home and that I want my family to call home. I am an asthmatic myself. The humidity in Arkansas doesn't help that, but together I think we can make a beautiful Arkansas and we can make a better economy. The answer are not the data centers. If you've seen all the communities where these have gone up, they've been negatively impacted. The only people who are being beneficially impacted are the 1% and the people sitting behind those closed doors. So we ask that these communities be protected, and be protected by the officials that we trust to protect us. That means understanding the environmental impact, the economical impact, and everything that it comes. Because time and time again, the patterns show that the communities that are negatively impacted are the rural, small, poor communities and the communities of color. So that is my ask for you today. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Miss Jenny. Jenny Narcy. Oh, let's bring. Miss Jenny. Are you Miss Jenny? Just one second. Ashley, ma'am, if you'll come up. Ma'am, if you'll state your name.

Myesha Gooding. Myesha Gooding.

Myesha Gooding. She's the owner of one of the properties that you all have already voted on. Uh, we do not have a card for her, but Ashley made me aware that she was here and so she still needs to speak. And so if whatever she says changes your mind, we know that the parliamentary procedure process to expunge a vote. Yes, ma'am.

So we came back here today due to the lack of communication. Um, I'm trying to see how did you guys just make this vote when Um, like I'm just now getting here and I don't see nobody here from the city planning department.

So ma'am, let me, uh, so the meeting started at six o'clock.

I mean, no, I've been here. I filled out one of the papers.

And that's the reason why I'm allowing you to come here. Somehow one of those papers did not get to me. It has to come to me at before six o'clock and then I would have had the opportunity to recognize you so you could speak before the vote. Nonetheless, that didn't happen. We don't know why it didn't happen. Ashley made us aware that you were here. And so I'm allowing you to speak and your commentary can just whether it's right now, what it would have been 20 minutes ago, whatever you say right now still has the opportunity to change the vote. They did pass the I believe it was a demolition. They did pass the demolition. But if something that you are prepared to say right now can change that if they decide that they want to expunge their vote and that is possible through the parliamentary procedure process. Well, in our planning director, I see the merger, Tim.

Yes, I just said so. They wanted me to get the property, I mean the building together and I didn't have enough time. I did everything I was supposed to do at the end of the day. And I have a recording, but we ended up back here. So can I play that recording?

Sure.

And I got a call from Tim Whitener last week stating that they have him come into a meeting. And I asked him, well, can I come in as well? And he said, no, it was just for him.

So last week we had the agenda meeting. And Tim Whitener came to explain the process. And board members asked Mr. Whitener of that particular process at that time. During agenda meetings, it's like the committee of the whole, so it's not a public Q&A process or the ability to do what you're doing right now. And so that's the reason why you weren't able to speak last Tuesday, but you are able to speak today. You can put the microphone.

So my building is 30, 31, Ashland.

Hang on just a minute. Let's pull it up. While I'm... Come on, come on, come on.

Okay, 31.

01, Asher. That's right. I remember that though. Okay. So we're trying to bring it up to code.

It's work cut out.

Yeah. What are you gonna try to do with it? Don't know yet. We still just indecisive with it right now. That's part of bringing it up to code you got to know what you're going to do with that business because every a lot of businesses have different codes and you do have living quarters upstairs and you've got whatever you want to do downstairs i mean i heard that you wanted to is it your son or is it uh mr good son that's who's going to live upstairs. No, our son just got killed not too long ago.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

So neither of us, we have houses. We own a few different houses.

So there's, I don't know who said that the child will live up there.

But it depends on what you're going to do with that building. And here's, this is why I want to be plain with you, okay?

We have people come in here, and I'm so glad you come in.

Because we have people come in that says, oh, I want to put a restaurant there. OK. Do you have a gray strap? I would say no. Oh, OK. Well, you say you want a restaurant. You have a gray strap.

So the last person that spent $50,000 trying to fix up a business and then find out she didn't have a grease strapped over in the restaurant cost her another 30 something thousand that she didn't have. Right.

So what I'm just trying to do is fix it for right now.

But you've got to have them.

but you can't you can't i mean i don't you can't determine where i'm gonna go with my business you know once i figure out what i want to do and then i come back to you okay well this is my this is my plan this is now you can get an exterior permit and we will allow you to work on the exterior of the building correct we can do that okay but if what this is

commercial property what we do is when you when they try to pull a permit we ask them what they're going to do with it because it depends on what the code is because you can't bring it up to code unless you know what code that you're trying to bring it up to right

If we don't know what you're using for, I can't tell you. So right now it's code just for commercial. So why just can't keep it as that for right now? It is commercial. Right.

But there's different uses for commercial. There's a different deal from a shoe store to a restaurant to a bar to a daycare. So that looks like Tim. I guess my question is her question.

maybe a little summer.

She won't, she don't know what she wants to do with the inside of the building. She's willing to permit to fix the outside.

We can do that. What it is, it's going to be what we call that is kind of like a shell permit. Okay. We can do that. But then when you come to the inside, to bring it up to code, at that point, we got to know

what she's going to do with it. But I think what she'd want, you know, if she gets the outside fixed up, you know, with the outside looks nice, looks presentable, she can, you know, if she wants to take five years to decide what she wants to do with that side.

Yeah.

Now, I do know that we had multiple, multiple complaints

in there at one time well we never got it we had so i don't know if you want to listen to a video or not but anyways that was on february 26 23rd and i spoke with um randy back in the end of march and told him i was getting me i was waiting on the materials to come in i got the materials once the materials came in That's when we went to go put a permit. He had a lock on it. We can't do anything. So I'm trying to figure out why the building should be Kadeem when I'm sitting here doing everything I'm supposed to do after they agreed to letting me work on it.

Brad, if you'll just give a synopsis of what happened last Tuesday, or Tim's here as well.

That meeting that she's discussing happened, it was right after the last board meeting, the time before when you gave her 90 days.

Tim, if you'll come close to the microphone.

Yeah. It was when, right after the first board meeting, when she had 90 days to repair or get a permit. Well, at that time, she and the other owner had come into the office to talk to Mr. Baldwin and myself. And I really did not know exactly what was going on with it. But she never come and got any kind of a permit after that in the 90 days come out. And then all of a sudden she was wanting to get the permit. I asked for a plan, which I distributed last Tuesday night. And that just was not going to get it. I mean, the plan did not bring it up to code in any way, shape, or form.

So did you state to me that it wasn't up to you, it was up to your boss, the building was structured good and everything? No, I said it had good bones.

Ma'am, ma'am, he's speaking to the city board just like when you're speaking to sports.

Well, I'm going to go ahead and answer the question. I went out there after the plan, she gave me a plan, to look at it. I walked around with her and the other owner. She had never been upstairs is what understood, so I walked through the entire facility. It was in a lot worse shape than I even thought it was after looking at it. The stucco was popping off the walls because of not having, which I explained that to her. And I said at that time, it has good bones. It feels like it does, which means studs, floor joists. But there's so much work between to even try to get it up to code that I tried to explain to her that it was going to spend a lot more money than probably the building would be worth to fix up.

All right. Thank you, Tim. Ma'am, Ms. Godwin.

You can't determine how much money I'm willing to put in my building. The 90 days, he never told, and I have the video still. We could finish listening to it. If everybody mind, I don't mind. But we was never told nothing about 90 days. But even if it was 90 days, I still went to pull that permit within the 90 days.

Yes, ma'am. Brad, you have anything to share? And then after this, I'll ask the board if they want to change their mind or not.

Mayor, the only thing I'd like to share is I know that our staff have been working with the applicants on this. I know that the neighborhood, we get calls all the time about about this building and have for a while. We've been dealing with this since December. We're sitting here at the first of June. staff supports the condemnation that this board just voted for. Again, our staff goes above and beyond to try to help these situations. You heard Mr. Whitener say that the building was in worse shape than he even thought it was originally and would probably cost more money to fix than it's worth. So again, I just like to just echo staff support for this condemnation.

Ma'am, any final words? Members of the board, do you all want to expunge the vote? Seeing none, the board has decided not to expunge the vote. Ms. Cotlin.

Thank you. So you have a good day.

Thank you. All right, Ms. Jenny Narcy. Am I pronouncing it correctly? I apologize. Narici.

Narici. Nice. Well done.

Thank you.

Yes, my name is Jenny Raylene Arisi. I'm here speaking on behalf of the land and the environmental concerns around the construction of the data center. Up until last fall, I was a resident just in the adjacent community from this area across 530. I don't know the exact location of the data center. It's been a little difficult to come across that information, but I've tried to find it. However, my understanding is that it is nestled still in this woodland, wetland area. I'm fairly familiar with there is a natural area or preserve in close proximity to wherever this will be. As my understanding, if any of you have not been there, please go. It's the Little Rance Creek Natural Area. I teach people about foraging, like on an introductory level, I take them into areas around usually just West Little Rock. I teach them about mushrooms, the local ecology, the trees, the wildlife, all the interrelationships of things. Again, at an introductory level, I'm not an expert. I'm someone who came into this and it changed my life and now I share it with other people. But if there's one thing that I have taken away from it, The networks that are interrelated in the ecology around us are so complex, so interwoven, and we are not separate from them. The thought that we could take this eight mile stretch of land where this data center would be and scrape it clean and then talk to the people about having an environmentally friendly data center is A little insulting, frankly, when I hear that. I'm not directing that at y'all, I'm letting y'all know how it feels as a citizen, as someone who is directly connected to these places and has lived there. I've watched my home be destroyed before, right before me. It is a particular kind of grief, seeing all the wildlife leave. And we have to think about what is the land worth to us? Is it just a commodity that we flip for financial profit? Is it something that is just symbolic to the people? Is a blue heron incredible to us because it looks pretty? I will live by the truth that that is not the case. These things are a part of a much bigger network that we are causing a massive interruption to. No matter what level of development we're doing, but this is a level of development on an order we've not seen yet. This is not the only data center, and I have to believe it's not stopping after this. I have to think this is only the beginning. Allowing these things to happen here in the beginning I think sets a precedent. I know there are- Thank you for your time.

Lewis Ballard. While we wait on Lewis Ballard, we'll do Junior Taez if he's inside the room. At least we're getting you ready because it looks like Mr. Ballard may beat you. He's walking pretty fast there. Mr. Ballard, you come on in. You walked a long way. Then Mr. Tejas.

Hello to all you present. My name is Louis Ballard. First off, thank you for the chance to let me appear and speak before you for our cause. I come to shine a light on a clearing present. life and safety issue that impacts pedestrians but mostly our youth in our area at Little Rock. Today marks for us 13 months that divide for our family the time before from the time after. You'll understand soon. It was a Friday. Our 16-year-old son, Hunter Shane Ballard, was walking home from Southwest High School. He was excited for Fast Food Friday and his regular David's Burgers request, but more than that for the Dungeons and Dragons game he would host that night with his online friends. He made his pass through Morehart Park across from Maplevale Elementary. He crossed Maplevale Cut-Off close to the crest of the ridge. That's where he was struck by a vehicle traveling eastbound and came to rest on the sidewalk near the shallow entrance. My wife and I drove up on the stop car but couldn't tell what was going on for a minute. We'd been looking to catch up with him so he could catch a ride home with us. That's when we saw his jacket and his long hair and we knew it was him. Our son Clyde was soon there too. He was on the way home from work. I'll spare you all the details but we will carry them and see them forever. The paramedics and the firemen did all that they could do. But it was much too late. Hunter was gone. This case finally closed recently. There was no charges for the driver, even though his vehicle was not legal. But he passed the drug test and Hunter was not on a crosswalk.

But there used to be a crosswalk there.

When we first moved there, Hunter was about two. and the road i'm talking about maple bell cut off was quite a bit narrower and turned a hard right down at the park the roadway was reconfigured to meet maple bell main and the right turn of the road was dug up and eliminated it was expanded to five lanes where drivers routinely blow through the 35 mile per hour signs at close to highway speeds the crosswalks never ever came back That's something you can check on maybe. We noticed and I wish that we'd raised alarms sooner. But Hunter had gone on to other schools and it didn't affect him as much and I don't guess I worried about it as much as I should have. But now I've searched out and drove by many of the schools in the city and I can't find another school anywhere that doesn't have crosswalks, lights and even guards. I watch people cross every day here across Mapleville, cut off at the top of the hill.

Mr. Ballard, Mr. Ballard, Mr. Ballard, your time is up, but if you'll leave your letter with us, number one, and secondly, more importantly, we're definitely praying for you and your family. Thank you, sir. Mr. Ballard, if you'll leave, well, Junior, if you'll, oh, if you'll give that to Ms. Queen, I Thank you, Mr. Ballard. Uh, vice mayor work as a comment.

Thank you, Mr. Ballard. Um, I I've talked to you on the phone a couple of times and, um, I didn't, I didn't know who you were in the elevator earlier. So I apologize for that. Uh, I've talked to the public works director and also talked to the city manager and, um, there are lights that flash there at the location and there are signs. But since it's turned into five lanes, it makes it difficult to do the striping according to the warrants and the processes that have to be done. So I've asked the city manager to take a deeper dive into what we can do to make that area in front of Mayville Elementary School a much safer place. As you know and I know, you go up a hill, And then you go down the hill, and to the left is the school, and then you've got a big curve that's down there. People are not following the speed limits through there. We don't have enough police officers to chase all of the speeders, but I'm hopeful that we can come up with a plan to make a crosswalk. there at the elementary school. I've looked at Lacey Academy, and I've looked at Mabelville Middle School. They have crosswalks, and I don't understand why we can't get one there at Mabelville Elementary, and I've made that comment to them. We have them in other schools, so I'm still working on it, and thank you for coming tonight to share your story. I know it was hard.

Yes, ma'am. I had to speak up. I can't allow Hunter to be Hunter's lost to be in vain.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Please don't let any of our neighbors go through what we've gone through, please.

Thank you for coming here tonight. Appreciate you.

Mr. Tejas.

Okay. Oh, sorry. I just I just I don't know if it was God's will that he came in first to talk about this, because I just came from a funeral from Javier Ramos, who was taken from us two weeks Friday before last. And, you know, same thing, speeding, you know, took his life. And Mayor Scott, me and And a bunch of my community thanks you for coming, and a couple of the directors too, to console the family at their impossible time that they're dealing with. I just hope you guys know that our Hispanic community and Latino community, they're facing hard times with everything going on. When I come to these meetings, I can at least put out that we're actually trying to do something for our fellow neighbors. On behalf of the over 30 Hispanic churches here in Little Rock and over 50 in Pulaski County, I hope you guys just recognize us that as per the census in 2020, it says that we only account for 11% of the population. But I think that number is wrong. A lot of my community don't really report where they live or anything like that. And Southwest Little Rock has exploded as of recently with my community. And I hope I hope we can continue the relationship that we should have with everyone, because we are your constituents. We are your neighbors, we are people that live here, we are landowners, we are homeowners, and we hope we're not being ignored. Me and my coalition are working really hard to make sure we're not just asking for things that we actually go out and vote and get things done. Because I hope that my belief is greater for you guys, that you guys aren't cynical, that we're not being ignored because we're not an important enough voter base. As of this year, me and my fellow pastors, we're working on that. Half of our churches are young Gen Z college kids who are seeing how their parents are being treated and how the system doesn't really see them. And I hope we can work together and you guys can can see us as your neighbors, because it feels like every day, the rhetoric online, the rhetoric in person. We're just trying to live with dignity, we're just trying to work with dignity, and hopefully in November we will vote with dignity. Thank you.

We have This person didn't share their name or location, but their first name just says Johnson. So there's a Johnson out here.

Good day to all.

Good day to all. I have several questions concerning the data center. And first of all, is the Water Department here?

Yes. So maybe stop real quick just because I'm taking her time. I don't want to take her time. So we are going to have a presentation. And so some of your questions may be answered later. This portion is just for you to kind of give commentary to to the board.

Okay. Is the electric company here or just the water company?

Water company. Every utility is here.

Okay, great.

You can start your time back up.

Okay. My questions are, first of all, I would like to know how many fees will they have at the data center? That's Google. That's what we're talking about here. And I would also like to know who is supplying the utilities. Are there multiple power companies? Will it be co-op or what have you? And will there be any reconstructions with the neighborhood? I don't know the actual setup, but that's one of my questions. And we touched on the environmental impact. Someone said something about it, but I want to know, do I have the report of the environmental impact on the river and the wetlands? And what type of jobs and employment will be available after the build out of Google? And also, in the facility, um has google said would there be crack units or would they be what type of cooling systems would they be using within the facility and oh yeah okay google hasn't applied for any city permits correct is that correct but that's the question answer Okay, and if it hasn't, I don't know if they applied for a state permit through the Department of Environmental Quality. Also, what is the recovery process if anything happened, a power outage or a disaster recovery or anything at the location? And with the five buildings, will they have servers in all five buildings or what's the makeup of that? And also, you all voted to have, I read in an article that Mr. Bohannon has stated that Google has said they will use up to 4 million gallons of water per day. But he said it would probably be more like a million. But you all voted on a franchise tax. at like 1.4 million. If they go over, is that a daily tax or is that a monthly tax where you do the average consumption? At any rate, those are my concerns. I don't know if this- Are you finished?

Yeah, I'm good. That sheet of paper, if you don't mind us- These are note cards. But just so we can make certain all those good questions, the people who are behind you will be able to answer that later.

Okay. Well, I'll get it. I'll catch them. I get it. I will. I get copies.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

All right.

All right.

All right. We got to miss Leah White. It looks like she's from North Little Rock, though, but

Good evening all. My name is Lee White, a concerned citizen and constituent of Arkansas. I come before you today to speak out against the AVO data center. I'd like to pose a question. Do you know that there's already a data center in Little Rock right off Chanel Parkway? You wouldn't know it because it's quiet, it's small and unsuspecting. It blends in right next to the car wash. A maximum of one to three people are on staff all day. And I know because I work there sometimes. Data centers are needed, but not at this scale, and especially when they do not benefit local businesses like the one optional parkway. AVO Digital have proposed four other data centers in the country. Notice how I said proposed, because they haven't actually built any of them. How can they promise environmental friendliness with zero data to back it up? I would urge you to go to avodigital.com, but it wasn't loading at the time of me writing this. They don't want you to do your research. The water and electric companies are using this data center to bail them out on the lack of infrastructure improvements. Instead of using our tax dollars appropriately, they are selling out Wrightsville. They pushed this project out to the west, as Mr. Bohannon put it, and states that any upgrade AVO needs, they will provide. One second. Where are the contracts? Where are the people's vote in this? What stopped the full halt of this project is already invested money. That means this discussion has been in the hands of the Little Rock Chamber for some time, at least 2024, I believe, and we were only informed of it this year. They are not giving constituents time or an opportunity to vote against these massive sores on the community. Just as Stowers said just last week, the future is AI, the future is data centers. District 13, is that how your representative feels about corporations and businesses who are actively working to take your jobs and raise your utilities as a bonus? I mean, it's pretty clear to me that that is the case. He believes that to go forward, we must continue to raise the bar and raise the bar. Well, the bar reaches a limit and the people have reached their limit. I have reached my limit and I thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. We're now at the moment. We're going to start before we do the readings for item number 12. We'll now have a uh, presentation, uh, from a number of different individuals involved, uh, part of this whole process. Uh, as I want to stress to these individuals, um, just keep it tight because we got a lot of folks here who want to talk tonight. Uh, so please keep it, keep, um, keep it tight as far as you go. We'll start with, uh, whoever's here for the Google representation.

We turned in cards.

We haven't gotten to your car yet. So if you, if you had to make sure for those, this is your first time, what we just had was citizens communication, which we allow anyone to speak at three, uh, three minutes each. Uh, and so that's what we just went through. So if you didn't write down a yellow card, you wouldn't have been called upon. Now I'm pretty certain your names in here with all these cards right here. And so after we have this presentation, from these individuals who are here, the individuals are representatives from Google Energy, Arkansas, Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority and Central Arkansas Water, all in that order. Then I'm pretty certain because many people have shared various questions with the city board members. City board members will ask them some questions, many some questions you all have already shared today. They'll ask their own questions as elected members to these individuals. They'll go through that process and once we feel like they asked all the questions that they want to ask, we then will go to this whole list throughout the process and then we'll then go to the readings as it relates to the three readings. All right. If everyone will state their name.

Of course. Uh, hello. My name is Laurel Brown. Um, and forgive me. I know there were a lot of questions, so I'm not sure if I'm limited to three minutes, but I did want to take the time to be responsive to as many questions as possible. So if, if I have to.

You all have a presentation. Okay. A lot of you all, you all got a presentation time of about 20 minutes all together. Perfect. And then these individuals will then ask you, I can't ever tell them how many questions I asked them. They'll probably ask a whole lot of questions and there'll be a back and forth process. And then of course, again, for everyone, Everyone will be heard tonight. I want to make sure we're very clear. Everyone will be heard tonight. Excuse me. Mr. Wise, I will make sure everyone understands the rule. There's a three-minute time. So maybe not be the best question to ask, but there's a three-minute time limit, all right, on the yellow cards. There's no time limit on the white cards. However, Ms. Wells, if you've watched any of our city board meetings, if someone takes too much time There will be, I will be, I'll be very surprised if there's not a city board member that, you know, ask that we encourage and create a time limit. So there's no time limit on white cars until they're made to want to have a time limit on white cars. So don't abuse your time.

Good evening, city directors, Mayor Scott, and members of the public. My name is Laurel Brown, and I'm the Public Affairs Manager Lead for Google. And I'm here because I recognize that people are concerned. People have questions, they hear rumors, there's concerns about health, and people just want answers. And so I want to make sure that we are here to share more information than you've probably had at this time. But first I want to talk to you a little bit about me. Before joining Google, I spent over 20 years in economic and community development, focusing on public-private partnerships, everything from affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization to small business development and green infrastructure, like creating parks and public spaces that tangibly improve the quality of daily life. My career has been built on one simple premise, using real estate investments to create real economic opportunities and improve the lives of local residents. Not for the community, but collaboratively with the community. I know how important these decisions are to a city. And I respect the weight of the choice before you tonight. But that's exactly why I joined Google. Because our projects focus on creating win-win opportunities for the communities and for all the people and businesses that use Google services every day. Now I know my title is public affairs and people think, oh, she's just a talking head for Google. My role is twofold. So of course I work with the technical teams that help develop the data centers. We have conversations every day about how to responsibly use water, how to responsibly use energy. But also my role is talking with the communities, talking with local leaders from churches to small businesses to understand what are the community concerns. And in those conversations, I take that feedback back to the development team. It is not a one-way conversation. I'm not a talking head. I am a collaborative entry point for Google in conversations with Google. So I wanted to start there. So, a little bit about why we're all here today, and I want to start off. I would imagine that most of you are here tonight because you received an email or an online message encouraging you to attend. That happened because of a data center. People streaming this meeting online are doing it because of a data center. The GPS on your phone that helped you navigate here tonight was because of a data center. The logo a new business created to advertise their shop, the streaming TV service you watch at home, the app you use to check your bank account, the digital x-ray your doctor reviewed before your last physical, all of that is made possible because of data centers. Even the ambulance that dispatches to an emergency in your neighborhood gets there faster and safer because of a data center. I know it's hard to visualize just how much data we use every day, but our collective appetite for digital services is growing. To meet that demand, we must have the physical infrastructure to back it up. Google wants Little Rock to benefit from this technology growth. So tonight, I wanna separate speculation from fact and hopefully ease some of the fears and concerns that people have. Based on all the rumors, I understand it, but we are here to help guide some of these conversations. So one of the questions that we get is why Little Rock? And it's a fair question. And the answer is twofold. There's no big secret conspiracy, but one, again, we're looking at demand from businesses and people for cloud services. And we want to be where the businesses and people that want our, we want to be near the places that businesses and people that use our services are. And two, these data center projects are fairly large structures and they're very complicated. And so we have to, in the first place, be in a location that is suitable in size to fit our data centers. And so there's additional considerations in addition to just physical size is access to energy, access to other resources that are needed to power the data center. So that's the baseline. But then I think there's a very unique advantage being in Little Rock. And that's because the project would be sited at the port of Little Rock, an industrial park that is built to manage large industrial projects, to mitigate some of those impacts that might otherwise arise. Intentional planned zoning, built responsibly to the scale of infrastructure projects like ours. And then there's the other side of it, the human side of it.

People want to work at a data center.

There's a lot of great opportunities, particularly at Google data centers for jobs and workers. And many people think, to go to get a Google data center, I have to have 10,000 million degrees to get a great six figure job. It's not the case. At a Google data center, people even without a college degree can earn a six figure job. There's a plethora of jobs and opportunities within the data center, supportive of the data center, in construction, and then also all the opportunities that we work with in partnership with the communities where we are cited. So let's talk about exactly where we are today in this process. We are still in the early due diligence stages of this process. I've seen online, we're gonna be constructing a project tomorrow and we're still very early. So if you've heard that, it's not correct. Right now, Google is performing standard technical studies, engineering research, environmental studies, and utility load modeling to determine technical viability. A final decision to build is only made after all diligence and public reviews are complete. And candidly, we have not reached that point. At this point, again, we are conducting the necessary due diligence to understand basic elements of sustainable building design and project footprint since we've purchased the process. We had to buy the land to start to do the real math. and the information that we learn about the site continues to evolve. As we learn more about the technical data on site, it changes the calculations that our engineering teams make. It's a highly circular iterative process, not a linear one. The process has changed our core designs in the past, doing our homework works, and Google insists on doing its homework, period. So as part of that homework, we've recently received information about how our utilities can be routed to the site. That new data is incredibly valuable. It shows us a path towards potentially more sustainable building. and we are committed to building the most sustainable sites possible. Given the new utility routing information, we're going to resubmit our wetlands permit application with the US Army Corps of Engineers. We will use this time window with the wetlands permits requires to do What we always do, continue to investigate ways to responsibly balance our infrastructure requirements, community input, and environmental stewardship within a finalized campus master plan. We aren't afraid to adjust and approve our plans as we go. So let me be clear, no dirt is moving anytime soon. What you may have read online simply is false. But furthermore, many oversight agencies will have to approve this project before a single shovel turns dirt. Looking at the long road map of local, state, potentially federal permits required, which typically takes at least 12 to 18 months, I'm confident we won't be breaking ground in 2026. Now the last part, we want to answer your hard questions again, and we've seen a lot of them and thank you to those who have shared them. But we want to answer your hard questions with data and not guesses. We heard your voice through hundreds of questions from members of the Board of Directors and from you, the public. As we look at these inquiries, we want to explain to you where we are in our process. And again, that's in the very early stages of development. Many highly specific details are simply too early to answer today. However, where we can provide answers, we want to lay out our approach as responsible data center developers. We set the trends, we lead how data centers are built. People look to us to set the standard and we do that. Our practices are industry leading and we have hundreds of successful examples of this approach in action, both at our facility in West Memphis and in communities all over the world. To help make sense of the information, I'm just quickly grouped the hundreds of questions that we've received into three general categories based on how and when we can answer them. So there's a lot of questions that fall into project specific technical and environmental specifications. That group of questions focuses on the exact physical footprint and direct operational resources needed of the specific facility. Because we are still in the early engineering and evaluation stages, these metrics do not yet exist. We look forward to sharing this data as soon as our designs are mature enough to calculate them. And we have set up a website, littlerockdatacenter.com, so as the project evolves, you all can follow along the process with us and also continue to submit your questions to us. I read them. I read them. I take it back to our team. I read them. There's also more general questions about this specific project, which again, because we are still doing our homework, people often, you don't want to take the test and answer the test, the questions to the test without having studied. And that's what we're doing, studying. So I can't give you specifics about this project, but I can show you and tell you about our general approach to all of our projects. an online website to view that. Questions about tax base and economic impact. Data centers are highly capital intensive projects that contribute significantly, significantly to the local tax base. Oftentimes being one of the largest taxpayers in host jurisdictions. Those communities frequently use those funds to fund schools, park, public safety. Great payer protection, a lot of people are concerned my bills are going to go up, my bills are going to go up. Not with Google. Google pays for Google's footprint. We pay 100% of the cost of our infrastructure. We fully fund upgrades and electric costs needed to serve our demand, ensuring local residential utility customers do not subsidize our growth. Again, we set the standards. Energy grid and affordability, we're actively working with Energy Arkansas to bring new solar, battery storage, and other clean energy projects online quickly to support regional grid modernization and project grid reliability. responsible water stewardship. We take what we call a climate conscious approach to cooling our buildings. We tailor cooling technologies to local geographic conditions, prioritize air cooling in water stress regions, and have pledged to replenish more water than we consume on average across our offices and data centers by 2030. I'm going to say that again. We have committed to restoring more water across our offices and data centers than we consume by 2030. Our brand new 2026 water stewardship report is currently online at datacenters.google. And I invite everyone to look at our data. Based on our preliminary review, we will not use ground water for our cooling operations here. We believe in preparing local talent for the digital future. Beyond direct hiring, we support workforce training programs such as our skilled trades and readiness initiative called STAR. Many people say, can I work at a Google data center? Do I have enough of the skill set? If you might not be ready, willing, and able, if you are ready, willing, we can help you get able. Google.org has provided a $10 million grant nationally to train 100,000 electricians and support 30,000 new apprenticeships to build a robust pipeline for skilled trades. And then there's a genre of questions that aren't, they're directed to Google, but Google is not the best entity to respond to those questions. So I want to close. I want to talk about us as a neighbor. Again, we set the standard for how data centers behave. These are massive, long-term investments. We upgrade, we adapt, we evolve the technology. But in over 20 years of operations, Google has never decommissioned a data center. We build to stay. We are true to our culture, we have examples of how we operate, we have access to our environmental reports. And again, this is something that I am personally passionate about. Working with communities, leveraging this investment to do better. And so I thank you all for your time. I look forward to questions and I look forward to the continued conversations that we will have not just today, but over the course of this development project. Thank you.

We'll now have Energy Arkansas.

Good morning, Mayor. Well, not good morning. It might be morning before we leave, but good evening. I I WANT TO TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO JUST BEFORE I GET IN, I KNOW WE ONLY HAVE 20 MINUTES, BUT I WANT TO TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO ACKNOWLEDGE.

I WAS MEETING 20 MINUTES WITH EVERYBODY. I UNDERSTAND. I UNDERSTAND. NOT 20 MINUTES.

BUT I WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT I ACKNOWLEDGE THE WORK THAT THE EVERYDAY WORK THAT WE DO WITH INTRODUCE WITH THE CITY DIRECTOR AND PEOPLE OF THE CITY. THAT'S WORK THAT IS MEANINGFUL WORK. AND SO I APPRECIATE THE COLLABORATION THAT WE HAVE ONGOING. A lot of conversations about data centers. I'm pleased that you all got an opportunity to hear from Google directly. Their proposed project is in the port of Little Rock, and everyone knows that's an industrial park that is designed specifically designed and zoned specifically for these types of development. Larell spoke about Google's approach to environment, electricity and water needs and how they engage with the community. And so as a utility provider, our job is to make sure that we provide safe, reliable power. And so I can't speak to the operations of the data centers, but the customers here and they can speak to those. But what we do is we make sure that we provide the power. And so it starts with an obligation to provide that power to all customers who locate in our service territory. Our goal is to make sure that that power is safe, reliable and is resilient so that it withstands the extreme temperatures of Arkansas. We also need that power to be affordable. Right now, our rates are some of the lowest in the country. In fact, they're like 22% below the national average, and we plan to keep them that way. And so one of the biggest misconceptions that I've heard about the data centers is that they're being built on the backs of regular, uh, everyday citizens and businesses here in Arkansas. And that is not the case. You just heard from, um, Laurel that says that they pay 100% of the cost to connect to the grid to operate. But then we're also asking them to also do more than just that. Um, For anyone that says that these data centers are being built on the backs of everyday residents, that is just not the case. It's not true. And they're just not informed. So, you know, I could go and I could talk about all of the benefits that the Google facility is going to bring. But the one that I want to make sure that everyone hears tonight is that not only are they going to pay their fair share of cost to serve them, they're also going to be adding additional benefits for the existing customers that are already right here. And so what I mean by that is because they are required to pay their full cost and they're going to be contributing to other fixed costs on the system, the they're going to be adding or putting pressure on rates so that other customers' rates don't go up as much as they otherwise would have to. The West Memphis Google project that we worked with and partnered with Google on, that contract alone stands to benefit customers by over a billion dollars over the life of that contract. That's a billion dollars in cost that we don't have to ask our customers for, but that the customer, this new customer that we're inviting into the state, they're going to cover those costs. So our existing customers don't have to. That's a benefit that we recognize and that that's a benefit that is real. So We understand all of the issues that are being raised around the country around data centers and it doesn't fall on deaf ears. But what I can tell you is that we are making steps and making plans to make sure that we're abiding by all of the state and federal guidelines and the local guidelines to make sure that we're building building our facilities responsibly. Our our regulatory framework is just set up differently here in Arkansas. A key part of the protections that we have in place for our customers consists of our fair share plus pledge. And before we serve any new data center, we go through and make sure that we have the available capacity to study that facility to make sure that we can produce the power that they need. And that power doesn't interfere with everyone else's power. We're building everything they need for them and they're going to pay for it. So when I think about fair share plus, it does two things. One, it ensures that the hyperscale data centers pay their fair share of the costs, and then they also add additional value to our existing customers. What L'Oreal did not talk about was what they're doing in West Memphis. There's a $25 million energy impact fund that is going toward that's over and above what they are doing for the city over and above what they're doing for the tax base. But they've decided to invest in the energy infrastructure of people's homes, weatherization, AI education, and also workforce development. They're doing that on their own. So there's examples of them coming in and adding value to an already already good thing that's going on for us here in the state. So the first thing I wanted to make sure that everyone knows about Fair Share Plus is that it can be summed up in three commitments. One, there's going to be strong financial protections that ensure the data center pays their own way. So we're talking about long-term contracts, we're talking about deposits, cash, collateral, all of those things that go into contracts to ensure that the cost that they are paying or they're responsible for paying do not get shifted to the average residential customer. Secondly, reliability and power quality standards to protect the grid. Again, earlier I said we're not going to, we're doing the studying that Laurel mentioned or Ms. Brown mentioned. We're doing those studies. We do those studies for every project before they get settled or before they locate here in the state. And so we're making sure that they have facilities in place that protect not only their, uh, their facilities, but also protect everyone else as well. And third and lastly, but, uh, is accountability and long term value creation. So every one of these projects remain subject to the Arkansas Public Service Commission. They are responsible for making sure that the decisions that we make and all other utilities in the state make are just and reasonable and in the best interest of the public. So that transparency and accountability is built into all of those all of those decisions that we make. And those are the principles that we're relying on every time we execute a contract with the hyperscale data center. We're wanting to make sure that not only are they paying their fair share, but they are not causing additional harm to the other customers that are already here. So thank you for your time here. Thank you.

Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority.

Thank you, Mayor, City Directors. I am Ryan Benefield. I'm the Chief Operating Officer with your Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority. Jean Block sends her apologies for not being able to be here in person. Several of the points she wanted me to make. The first is just kind of go through the process when any new industry wants to come into the City of Little Rock that we go through. And this industry would be was no different. The first thing we look at is the wastewater they would send us if they were to tie into our system. And we have to analyze to make sure that our wastewater treatment plants can handle that wastewater and still effectively meet our permit. So when this industry first came to us, we actually had a treatability study performed to look at the quantity and quality of the wastewater that we would need to treat. And we determined that we can, at our Foosh Creek facility, treat this quantity and quality of water. Second thing is the quantity aspect of it. So just to give you some statistics, currently our Foosh Creek facility is a 16 million gallon per day plant. It's currently at 8 million gallons per day. So there's 8 million gallons per day of additional capacity during wet weather. That plant actually can go to 40 million gallons per day. So that plant has plenty of capacity to be able to handle additional wastewater, which is the second thing we looked at. The third thing we require is that any cost of improvements to accept the wastewater would be borne by the industry. And in this case, because of its location near the Fush Creek plant, that makes it a very convenient location for them to be able to transmit and treat any wastewater from that facility at no cost to our residents. So residential bills will not go up based on this wastewater. They'll fully pay for the cost of their treatment. And like I said, finally, the other thing that makes this site very unique for us is how close it is to the Foosh Creek plant. That means we're able to do some things there like we're going to have a dedicated line that just takes this wastewater to the plant and we're able to handle it in an appropriate way and still fully meet our permit. The last thing, just so you know, our process, any industry like this would have to get a permit from us. So we all know we'll have regulations on what they can send us, how much they can send us, and they'll have to meet certain criteria before they can send us their wastewater. So those are the points we wanted to make, and obviously we'll stay for questions later.

Mr. Tav, O'Hannon.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Directors, pleasure to be in front of you all this evening. Tad Bohannon, CEO of Central Arkansas Water. Much like the first two speakers and the Google representative that already spoken, I have the same points to address. The first question we always get is, is the data center or is Google going to pay for the full cost of the infrastructure to serve their facility? Yes. The piece of property that they are exploring, there is not currently water service at. So they will have to build a line from there to the next available where there's sufficient enough water to serve the property. That is an existing property that was actually paid for by an industry before that was put in that they would be going to tie into. So there will be no infrastructure cost passed on to the individual residential rate payers for this facility or even to the other commercial rate payers for this facility. The second thing is, is will it impact the availability of water to the community? It will not. We are very fortunate that the people that came before us built two wonderful lakes that are capable of providing a great deal amount of water to the community. Our average day is about 67 million gallons a day. Our lakes can provide 120 million gallons a day, every day, each day, every day, all the time. Our treatment capacity is 157 million gallons a day. So there's plenty of room there for additional industry. This comment has nothing to do with data centers, but it has to do with water in our community. We have great water. People stop me all the time and say I hate traveling or I hate going somewhere else because our water is so good. We will continue to have great water available to the entire community. The other thing is water is an economic driver. Since I became CEO in 2016, I've been saying we have a great product here that we can use to drive economic development. I've beat this into Jay Cheshire saying, go out and find industries that can support it. And he has done that with industries like Trex and Sage Foods that exist and use our water and they love our water. And we want to be responsible stewards of that water. Not just for the commercial customers, but for everybody, every day. I live in this community. I would like for my son to live in this community. He plans to live in this community. He is going to UALR to get his education. Unfortunately, he's not a baseball player. But we take our responsibility to deliver high quality, abundant, affordable water to the community very seriously. And we do that job every day. A data center does not take that responsibility from us. It stays with us. And that is what we do every day when we come to work. So there will not be rate shifting to the customers. There will not be charges for infrastructure to the existing customers that are here. And we have plenty of water available. Great water.

So I have. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Members of the board, before we go to the agenda card items for item number 12, do you have any questions of do you have any questions of anyone here today? Director Miller.

Mayor, you don't have the actual issue before you. If the board's going to start talking, you really need to have the first reading.

Well, we're going through the presentation, so that's kind of how I'm taking it. We're asking them not to...

If the board's going to get involved, then... Is that what you would like?

Yes, just the first reading. Well, if we're going to do readings, I want to get through all three readings, so we have to wait for Director Hines. Uh, we'll, we'll do the first reading and then when director Hines gets here, we'll do the second reading gets back. Madam clerk. So everyone understand what's going on. Uh, our city attorney has a pond that before the city board engages with those who presented to us that we need to at least do the first reading on the engagement of the topic being item number 12. Uh, the clerk will read the first reading. We'll wait for Director Hines. I see I'm walking back. No, no problem. So, Director Hines, I will share with everyone that I was getting ready to start asking questions. I have the board members ask questions of the utility partners that are here. I see the attorney opined that if the board is going to engage in that process, we need at least start the readings of this. And so we'll just go through the first three readings, get that under us, and then we'll go back to the questions. But what got had so everyone understand the rules. You have to have eight people to suspend the rules to go from the first reading to the second reading, secondary to the third reading. A vote can only be taken after three readings. So, Madam Clerk.

An ordinance to establish clear standards for the development of data centers to amend ordinances and city code provisions of the Little Rock Revised Code of Ordinances accordingly and for other purposes. First reading.

There's a motion, is there a second? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Aye. Second reading.

An ordinance to establish clear standards for the development of data centers to amend ordinances and city code provisions of the Little Rock Revised Code of Ordinances accordingly and for other purposes. Second reading.

There's a motion to suspend the rules in place on third and final reading. There's a motion to second. I'd second that. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Ayes have it. We've had three readings. Well now.

That was only two. I'm sorry.

That was two. Oh, you got to do it. I'm sorry.

An ordinance to establish clear standards for the development.

My eyes are pretty good since my eyes aren't. My ears are pretty good since my eyes aren't.

An ordinance to establish clear standards for the development of data centers to amend ordinances and city code provisions of the Little Rock Revised Code of Ordinances accordingly. And for other purposes, third and final reading.

Thank you. We now have three readings. Board members can now engage. We'll go in order. Director Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. Before I ask any questions of those who've just presented, I'd like to ask the city attorney to give us an overview of Act 851, Arkansas Data Center Acts of 2023 and how it relates to limits on local control and what we can and can't do, because this act seemed to speaks specifically about crypto mines, but also it talks about these hyper data centers because, quite frankly, I get a lot of phone calls, Texas messages from individuals who say, I don't want a data center, period. I don't want one. So I need to know what this act allows us to do, can number one, can the city of Little Rock say, pass an ordinance that says we do not want data centers in Little Rock, Arkansas. Can we do that?

No. All right. 851 851 has language that says that can't be done.

So for all these people who are texting me and calling me and saying, Director Miller, I don't want a data center, vote against it. You're saying we can't do that.

What I'm saying is that you're correct that Act 851 focused upon data mining operations, which in terms of noise, from what I've read, it's entirely different. However, it does use the language data centers in there, and there is a belief that it applies to all data centers. Therefore, that you can't just ban them.

So tell us what we can and can't do under this act.

Well, the act allows for the regulation of these data centers, which essentially is going to deal with zoning type matters. You know, you've got the authority to say where AFCOS still is going to be or not going to be. And I'm not picking on AFCOS. I just know it makes noise. And you've got the ability to say these are going to be in a certain type of zoning classification and the ordinance is before you does that. Puts it in industrial three.

Okay, I just want to be clear when people are telling me, Director Miller, vote against data centers being created in Little Rock. I just want to tell them it's against state law, I can't do it.

Right.

All right, so that's-

Everybody, we're going to have some decorum. Before we get started, we're just on the first question. Let's make sure we have some decorum, everybody. Director Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. I want to be clear about what I heard from the city attorney of what I can and can't do as it relates to voting against data centers. All right. Now, let me get to just a couple of questions as it relates to what some of the presenters said. Specifically, this one's for Google. So can you talk a little bit about, you said something about oversight agencies that you have to go Two, to get permits.

Correct.

Can you give us just some idea of the agencies that you have to go through and get permits for and do these agencies allow for public comments during this process?

Sure thing, and what we can also do is post a little bit more insight on our website so that people know. But I think probably the biggest one that people know of and are aware of are the US Army Corps of Engineers. And so that process in and of itself takes estimated 12 to 18 months. At times, because of the proximity to The airport, there might be evaluations that have to get done by the FAA in terms of the height and distance of cooling towers. There are air quality permits that we have to go through and get those evaluated and approved. Yes, so there are various points. There's not just one point. This is not the only time that that the public will be invited to make comment. There's a special rate contract that happens with respect to our energy usage and power, and there's a comment period for that. So there's various points, and again, I know it tends to be a little bit complicated, particularly because a lot of these things are interdependent. So if we get kind of one thing here, then we might have to reevaluate our projects, so we're happy to lay that out a little bit more. But to answer your question, there are a number of different regulatory bodies that we would have to go through. One, and there are still a number of different public opportunities to comment, engage, and evaluate the project as we present it.

Let me ask you, you made reference to a website, littlerockdatacenter.com. Correct. Would you be putting all this information about what supervisory agencies, oversight agencies you're going to have to go to If they allow for public comment, will all this information be put on your website?

We can make that happen, absolutely.

That's your pledge to make this happen? Yes, sir. So that the public will know when they can go before an oversight agency and express their- Absolutely. Concerns or whatever. There will be public comments. We're going to continue to be talking, so yes, sir. And the average time on going to the public the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, you said would be 12 to 18 months. So we're at least 12 to 18 months out just based on just the experiences that you've had. Correct. Thank you. I want to hog up the time.

Director Comperis, then Director Hines, then Director Webb.

Thank you. That was a great presentation you made.

Thank you.

A couple of things. One of the things, and I actually have been to the property, so one of the things in your experience with your company, I'm sure you have put in centers, other centers in places where there is required mitigation. Really talk about that with replacement of land, mitigation on site. and other opportunities that we have in this city if you come here to further our parks and that sort of thing and recreational activity.

Sure thing. So I think, you know, we can talk about the wetlands permits and kind of some of those conversations because... You and the Corps can fight on that.

But I want you to tell me about your experiences in other places and what you've done and how you have taken those opportunities if you have to use the wetlands and how you're replacing them in the city.

Absolutely. I'll talk a little bit and then you all will be able to visit our website. We also have a water stewardship report that just got released so you'll be able to see and dig in deep as to how we do it. I'll say just as a general premise, again, if you're going to lead the industry, then you're not just going to stop at what the ordinances require you to do. You are not just going to stop at what the regulations require you to do. Some people do that. It's not Google. So we are always optimizing for our business needs, the environment, and communities. So generally speaking, as a premise, there may be an ordinance out there, and we do this a lot in the water stewardship regard, where we're looking at water impacts locally. And we may do, again, if it's wetlands, there's certain wetlands mitigation credits that we may purchase. That's not enough for Google. So there are opportunities, and again, there's a lot of opportunities, Examples, we have a QR code that people can look at, that people can go to.

I'm not sure how to get this to folks, but...

So there's an example in Oklahoma. So again, we can just look at our data center, but that would be not the Google way. So there's an example in Oklahoma where we were working to do various water studies and we had our project located there. And kind of in the course of our work in Oklahoma, we learned of a native Cherokee tribe that was having, I think it was about, and don't quote me on the mileage, but they had some water pipage that was causing extensive leaking into the system. So there was a lot of water that was being lost. So our team, our water stewardship team said this isn't just about Google, this is about being responsible water stewards. So we paid for the investment to repair that infrastructure that did not benefit Google, that was about the community. We have tons of examples of doing work like that in terms of you know, the conversation with Entergy, again, we could stop at just plugging into the grid and say, okay, we've done our job and, you know, we're giving $1.1 billion of savings to the customers. Oh, we're going to, that's, we're great. We were happy that we've done that. We've gone above and beyond, but we said, no, we can do above and above and beyond. And so in that case, what we have is a $25 million energy impact fund that helps homeowners that are dealing with home challenges that make their energy bills go up, helps them get their homes repaired, unlocks federal dollars so they can access even more opportunities and lower their bills. And we could have stopped there, and we said, no, we're not going to stop there either. So in our conversations with the community, well before we went into groundbreaking, one of the things they said, I said, we do this energy impact fund. Well, they said, we'd love to be part of those conversations. We'd love to help you figure out where the opportunities are in our communities. Who are the homeowners? And so we created, and this is the first time we've done this through our energy impact fund program. We've done these energy impact fund programs throughout the nation, but in Arkansas, in West Memphis, I heard that people wanted to hear, they wanted to have influence. So we also stood up a community advisory council portion of this $25 million grant fund. So local leaders get to say, hey, there's a project here where we think that there's an opportunity to do more. We don't stop at the ordinances. We do more and there's opportunities to hear from the community and figure out where we need to dig in.

One of the things that I think helps mitigate the fear that your company, yourselves and the community, is examples of where you take your money and make your community more livable. Yes. I would urge you to do that. Any concrete examples that you want to give us tonight, please do.

Sure thing. I mean, and again, this is even beyond the environmental. I think it was great. And so I want to back up a little bit because people often ask about the jobs at the data center and they say, how many jobs are at the data center? And again, part of that conversation is not just about jobs at Google. In most communities, some of the biggest job providers are the small businesses that we know and love, the restaurants that we go to and patronize. And sometimes those restaurants or businesses, they have an opportunity to expand, but they might not have the funds. And so, for example, in West Memphis, early on we worked with the Main Street West Memphis Chamber of Commerce and provided a $75,000 storefront grant improvement program to help local businesses down there. clean up their storefronts and facades. You can go on their website and they say in their 30 year history of being around, that was the largest grant they had ever received. So again, there are a lot of examples locally and I can share this QR code.

And that's the important thing. I think this community is a great community and every one of the examples of the people that talk after you are Howe in this community and Jay in the chamber. But anytime you have an opportunity like this, anytime your company can put something back into the community that is tangible, that people use every day, that says, because you're here, this wetlands has been fixed up. This building has been fixed up. This opportunity has been fixed for low-income people to have piping. Those are the things that help make my community and our community better. So thank you. Tan, I've got one question for you. I know you think you were going to hang out if you're okay. I agree with you. We have a great water system. We have great water. But I think the thing that you and I have talked about for years is the opportunity we have with the other lakes where we have never tapped into them. But we have the opportunity, if necessary, to tap in and bring that water to Little Rock. So in very short sentences, tell people what that opportunity is.

We have storage rights at Lake DeGray for 100 million gallons a day. So that almost doubles the available capacity. And we've asked the Corps to study Greer's Ferry for another 90 million gallons for there. So that's a long ways off. That's just kind of a shot. But there's been a few comments made. But we have dotted line secured, contracted for 100 million gallons a day available out of Lake DeGray. That's the important part. Thanks.

Director Hines.

Thank you. This question is for the folks, Laurel and the folks that go. I appreciate you, Laurel. This question is for you. I know all these other folks. I can ask them questions all day long. So I appreciate you guys meeting with me yesterday and kind of filling me in on what your proposal is. I was very well versed back from our initial announcement last last April to today. I know that there are some some debate about whether or not we were transparent. We were very transparent about what we were doing last April when we announced that we just couldn't tell you who the company was until later in the year, which we did. So everything else was there. So, you know, you can always talk about what you're going to do in the future, but it's what you've done in the past. And mainly you brought up your Oklahoma data center and the impacts on its neighborhood. So how long has that data center been there and how long has it been operating and what's its size? Yeah, I believe it's 2012.

Um, but we actually have a website with all of our data, data centers listed. So data centers dot Google's. I don't want to quote the exact date. Cause no, no, that's fine.

You get me in the ballpark. I knew it had been operating for quite a while. And, uh, I kind of like to share with some folks brought up. We've actually got three data centers in West Little Rock, all within a mile of my house. That total square footage is probably somewhere well over 150,000 total square feet. They've been operating there for 20, 30, 40 years. So I know them to be good neighbors, at least within a half mile of my neighborhood. How big is the community size in that Oklahoma town roughly?

Say it again?

How big is the community that that's located in?

So yeah, some of these, the Oklahoma one, again, that would be on our website. So my projects primarily are in Arkansas, so I'm Miss- All right, so I should ask you about West Memphis. Yeah, Miss West Memphis, Arkansas is- That's fine.

On the West Memphis, so is it, what stage are you guys in in West Memphis? Is it fully operational in the build stage?

We're under construction.

Under construction. Correct. So how long have you guys been working on that?

So we broke ground, we had an official groundbreaking in October of last year. Okay.

All right. And you already talked about your $25 million. And I just got online and looked at your water stewardship. And that's the thing you were talking about, the project portfolio? Correct.

Correct. And we also, again, every year in connection with our data centers, we release an environmental impact report. So those reports, again, are an additional opportunity for people to see what our environmental impacts are. So we release, for instance, our water usage data for all of our sites, all of our metros. within our portfolio. So those exist within our environmental impact reports that are released annually. And you'll see other details about, you know, water stewardship programs and the like.

And I wanted to share something publicly that I shared with you, the impacts of, I went to a meeting with the St. Louis Fed last week, and they talked about AI's impact on GDP. And it occurred to me that we've got three potential data centers just from Google in the state with West Memphis, Little Rock, and Conway. That impact on the state's GDP is going to be pretty significant if you look at $3 billion, you know, a billion dollars in each data center for the first one and then a bill. I found it interesting that, you know, folks didn't understand that impact that it's not just the next 12 to 18 months, but you guys are talking about what a five to eight year build out just for Little Rock and I guess the same in West Memphis.

Yeah, I would say, you know, again, data centers, if you don't know anything about data centers, they're pretty hard to pick up and move. And so we're here and the economic benefits, particularly around tax revenues and the like, those are ongoing benefits. You know, the grid stabilization. So those have broader ramifications throughout not just our sites, but also for the state as well.

And like I said, one of the things I share with you, one of my customers actually builds the cooling racks that go in these data centers, not just for Google, but for many of the AI companies. One of their owners lives here in Arkansas. One lives in Decatur, Alabama. The Arkansas owner is opening a facility here to build those cooling racks. not only for you guys, but others. And so we're already seeing a net benefit from the data center boom with initial 50 to 75 jobs.

And that speaks to the suppliers. So again, it's not just the data center itself, but their suppliers, construction, a number of different inputs and businesses that end up contributing to the construction and operations of data centers.

Thank you. I appreciate them. And I would also encourage you. I know you've sat down with the city board and I look forward to your community, your meetings with the community members. Of course. Ask you directly, not in a little more private form.

Absolutely.

Director Webb.

Thank you, Mayor. And I guess after we hear from all of the residents, then we're going to be able to go back and ask questions if some of the ones that we're not going to ask right now, if they don't ask. And we'll also be able to ask the planning department about specifics. And you can ask whatever questions right now. Ordinance. OK. One of, and this is not related to the ordinance, but it's related to the big issue, and a lot of the questions that I've gotten about, have been, and I disagree respectfully with my colleague about transparency, and a lot of the questions that I've gotten have been about non-disclosed MOUs between Google and Entergy, non-disclosed MOUs between Google and CAW. And things like that. And I don't know if that is, I guess, to Laurel, to Tad, if you all would address that issue. I mean, so that's my first.

Sure thing. And again, I think that that's fair. have questions, they want to know the answers. And again, part of the early part of this process is we're doing the work and trying to figure things out. And so part of us being able to share more information with decision makers is, that we enter into these agreements so that we can share more information. I know there's this tension, right? But a lot of times we'll have proprietary business information that Most businesses will respect the fact that there's certain information that's proprietary and you don't want it to get out. But of course, what we want is people to make a fair and informed decision. So we'll enter into those agreements so that we can share more information so that the decision makers are empowered to make the right decisions. So that's broadly speaking, and then again, also times. If we're in that moment, if we don't do that, then we're sharing kind of hypotheticals. If this was the case, and you can't make informed decisions if we have to share hypotheticals with you. So we use these as a tool to really provide more information so that decision makers can make informed decisions, particularly in the very early stages when we're doing so much to figure out which direction we're going with our projects.

OK. I have been looking at a lot of things in the Public Service Commission docket. We don't regulate the Public Service Commission. We don't tell the legislature what to do. You have stated, and Intergy has stated, that you all pay 100%. So this also is probably a question for Intergy. But as I look through the dockets, I'm not convinced that that's accurate. So I've got way too many pages and way too many papers. Understood, understood. So you pay 100%?

We pay 100% of the cost to bring our infrastructure. We pay 100%.

I may have to come back to that. Sure thing.

And again, I think Ventrell mentioned, so for our, and I'm using the project in West Memphis as a reference because we have the data. We are much further along with that project. But the amount that we're investing, ultimately that amounts to, and we've done the study, over a billion dollars of savings for people, for rate payers. That's, you know, we are committed to paying 100% of the cost of our infrastructure and that is what we're doing.

So many of the questions that we have gotten have been about these nondisclosures about, you know, footprints, well understood, you know, understood those kinds of things. And so understood, we're not going to get answers to those questions.

Well, so yeah, and again, these are very complex projects. But part of the reason why we stood up the Little Rock Data Center website is because people have questions. And so as we get get answers those questions as we do our homework, we're sharing the information so that people can have more access to the information. But again, we can also we can put it on the website, but we're happy to have conversations and share more information as we have it available if it's in other formats as well. So the conversation does not stop here. So even and I'll give you an example again in West Memphis before we broke ground. Some of the earliest conversations that I had were with the school superintendent. We spoke with the NAACP. We spoke with the Southern Environmental Law Center because they had environmental impact concerns. So we spoke with them. The conversations always continue. I've been in, and I want to say that just because we speak with them once doesn't mean the conversations stop there, so we continue to have conversations. When we had our Energy Impact Fund announcement in April, after that we held a session in one of the local churches where the community and the pastors and certain local leaders were invited to talk to Our team, they talk to the data center construction team, the data center operations team, and we're able to ask questions about that process. What does it look like directly with a smaller intimate session? So when we have the information and we're able to share it, we want to share that. And I will say that we also have other data center websites for other projects that are further along in the process. And you will see that they're able to share more information because they just have done the work and they're able to share that publicly. So even if you see you go to our website and you're like, I want more answers. We're still doing that homework. But if there are other data center sites and I don't have them off the top, but I can share those where there's even more information that are on those project websites. And that's because they have the answers. So

And I'll just one more question, because I know everybody's got questions. One of the things you said was that final decisions are made after all of the reviews and you do all your due diligence. Have have you have you all been in a situation elsewhere where you've done the due diligence and then you've said, for whatever reason, you have to go back? This isn't going to work and we're not going to what you bought the land and whatever. But then you've said, no, we're not going to locate here.

we would, we would have had this, we would have had the land at that point. But I mean, again, so we're, maybe I'm, maybe I'm not, if you can repeat your question. So have we, have we been in a situation where we bought the land and then gave back?

I think you said that the final decisions were made after all the reviews and you've done. Correct.

Right. So if we're, if we've, we've done our homework, we know that we want to build, then we're not starting to build before we have the conversation. So that I think there's, at least from my understanding, there's a concern that we're about to build tomorrow and you know, the data center is going to go up. There is a process that we go through where we're doing the evaluations. We have to do studies. Those studies inform what goes into our permits. those permits kind of inform how the questions that people have and how we build our data centers. So it's this iterative process. And when we get those answers and are able to, to build and we will, but it's, there's, there's a process. Um, and we're still in that process and I hope I've answered your question, Director Webb.

I'll come back later for more. Thank you.

All right, Director Pett.

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Laurel, you stay there and thank you for your presentation. Thank you so much to you and your team for visiting with me yesterday. I learned a lot. What I didn't learn, but I'm sure you can educate me. I have a particular attachment to Fish Creek and Fish Bottoms. And I know that this area will be affected. What are wetland credits? I don't I know the term, but I don't know what that means. I do know that there have been generations of people that have fished on the fish, and there are lots of plans with what you're not aware of. But a lot of people in hard the Southwest Trail and the connectivity, and it's just a very special urban waterway. Will people still be able to fish there? What are wetland credits?

I do not want to pretend to be the technical expert of wetland credits and how they operate. I told you I want to come here with data and facts. Some of those data and facts, I am not the right person on those. Generally speaking, there are wetland credit banks and so what happens is if there are going to be impacts to wetlands, then companies will purchase credits to basically compensate for those wetlands within that same watershed. And ultimately, the compensation would bring on more wetland footprint than what was impacted. And so again, we could stop there, so ordinance or infrastructure allows for this compensation of the wetlands and to do more than the baseline. of the impact. And then again, we do additional investments beyond that, outside of that architecture. And then, you know, again, for more details on that, we can absolutely bring an expert on that, but I would not be the one.

And I know it's really not fair. You're just starting. You're just jumping into this. But that's one question I've heard a lot about. And the Sustainability Commission, a very active commission, a lot of people are here tonight. We adopted their plan as a city board almost a year ago now. And the wetlands was part of that. So that's why the question. Understood.

Understood.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Wirt.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for your presentation. You've been very open to questions. I think I heard in your presentation that you're having to resubmit for wetland permits. Correct. What was the reason for that?

So again, we're doing, we're constantly doing various studies and kind of, uh, analyses of how the infrastructure can fit, what the building footprint may be. And so this was based on new data from a utility routing study, um, that we had received. And so we, you know, basically how the utility routing might reach the site. is different than what we might have originally thought. And so we would have to do a reconfiguration of the building. And if we do that, that might have, you know, it's an opportunity for us to find a more sustainable approach. to doing our building and configuration. And so we have to resubmit a permit to align with some of the new designs that we would have to evaluate.

Okay, that makes sense. In one of the presentations, we were told that there would be 6,000 trees to be planted. Are you familiar with that? Maybe 29 acres and 6,000 trees?

I would have to talk to the team, so I'm not. Okay. I'm not saying that it's not happening, but I would have to talk to our technical team to better understand.

I may have some more questions after we have the individual speak. So thank you.

Director Lewis.

I won't be long. Thank you, Loretta, for your presentation. And I appreciate your time, your whole team this afternoon. What I want to know is, I know you have the website available for the public to check in and get updates.

Yes, ma'am.

But how do you, and this may be for the utilities as well, plan on updating the public? Because I feel like, yes, while there is a website available, the public is not going to be checking the website daily. They're not going to. Is there a set of, let's say, alerts or something in place that can keep them on track or target them when you all are in various stages? of the project so they'll know it's time for them to give input.

Yep, that's a fair question. So the way that the website is set up is that people can sign up to get alerts. Perfect. Yes, ma'am.

Perfect.

Thank you. Director Miller?

L'Oreal, this is not for you. You can sit down.

If you want to go get some water, L'Oreal, this would be the time to go do it. And there's a bathroom too.

I got one question for Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority. Thanks for your presentation. You mentioned that you did a treatability study.

That's correct.

Is that study available to the public?

It is. So we just recently released it under a FOIA. So it is, it has been released to the public.

Thank you. And when was that released under FOIA?

It was late last week, I believe.

Okay.

We received a FOIA for that study.

So the public can see this study that was done?

Yes, it is available upon request to the utility.

Okay, thank you. And that's all I had for you. To the other utility companies, have you done studies that are available to the public? CAW, let me ask that question of you.

Everyone go to the microphone. Okay. Sorry about that.

Our study was, is there water available at the site? No. What would we have to do to get the water? And we have an engineering map that says you would have to go to here to be able to get the water.

So that was something that's a study that was done, a public document, some type of report. There is a map. There's a map. The public can get this map.

We will figure out a way to make sure that map is available. Maybe it can go on the Little Rock website.

Perfect. All right, thank you. Let me ask Entergy the same question.

So when we go through the process at the Arkansas Public Service Commission, specifically for transmission type facilities, we go through a process where we have to get certification from the APSC. Those dockets are public dockets, and you can go to the website and request that information or look it up online.

So do you have any studies that were done for Google that's available to the public now?

Not for this project, no. Okay. All right.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Director Webb.

Thank you, Mayor Scott. I have a question, and I guess it's for Entergy and for TAD. And this was one of the questions from the Sustainability Commission about water and electricity use when approaching peak usage. So if we are at a point, we are at peak usage, will we have to curb our consumption? What about the data centers? I mean, is that burden going to be on us?

First of all, in order to make sure that we're meeting all of the needs of the customer, we're going to do studies before they join the grid to make sure that we have the adequate supply for them. But they're also building their operations to have flexible operations so that when the grid needs the power, they can flex their operations so that you don't have to as a customer. So the answer to that question is they're building their operations in a way that's flexible. So when the grid needs the power, they can provide that power. And in what my partner, John Bethel, was telling me is that those those provisions are in place in West Memphis. When that facility gets up and going, there's going to be operate their operations are going to be flexible enough so that when the grid needs to power, they can flex their load.

We

build and maintain water capacity to make sure that we have enough water to meet the demands, including peak demands of our customers, all our customers, and the data centers are not getting any favorable treatment.

I have one more question for, I guess, John for Entergy. And I mean, one of the questions that we get is, I mean, you all have talked about this fair share thing, and I am going to finish going through as many of these public service commission things as I can so I can articulate the question more carefully. But what about, OK, they're going to pay their costs. Google's going to pay 100% of their costs. And then what about maintenance? You know, all of those kind of questions.

Yes, ma'am. The Google contract that we have with them for serving them in West Memphis doesn't include any discounts. It was approved by the Public Service Commission. As a part of that review, the Public Service Commission had various tests that they performed, and one of the tests is to demonstrate that the revenues that they will pay over the term of the contract exceed the costs of serving them, and that includes the day-to-day costs, the maintenance, everything. It's the entire cost of providing utility service, to Google. And what the test showed is that the revenues from the contract over the life of the contract exceed the cost of serving the customer over the life of the contract. And what it showed was for the Google contract in West Memphis, that results in $1.1 billion in benefits to other customers Over the life of the contract, those calculations were reviewed by the public service commission staff by the attorney general's office, who is the designated consumer advocate by law in Arkansas and the the filed proceeding. showed with evidence that that was the case. And that demonstrates that over the life of the contract, that customer pays more than what it costs to serve them, which helps reduce the cost to serve other customers. And as Ventrell said earlier, it puts downward pressure on rates for the other customers and enables us to make those investments in our system to make it more reliable and better able to serve our customers at a lower cost to our other customers. And that's the benefit that the Google contract in West Memphis provides and that's illustrative of how we would contract with other data centers and with the Google data center that would be built here in Little Rock we would include similar contract provisions that's part of the fair share plus pledge that we will contract in a way that the customer covers not only the incremental cost to serve them but all the cost to serve them plus providing benefits to customers.

Thank you, John. Can I ask Brad Jordan a question, Mayor?

Yes.

And Brad, this is going to be specific to our ordinance that we're going to be talking about tonight. Yes, ma'am. And I've got a couple of questions and I've tried to look at I mean, Little Rock is separate from the county. We're separate. We're not the same as other cities either. But one of the things that it can help me do as I can look at what other places have done and try to see if we're missing things in ours. So I want to bring up a few things that are not in ours and ask you for an explanation on why they're not sure if that's okay. And one of the questions is like, there's not a detailed fee schedule in ours. And can you in our specific ordinance, but can you explain

sure yes ma'am this so this is just uh going to be in addition to our ordinance there's already a fee schedule that exists that regulates any commercial construction any industrial construction so it would fall under that under that fee schedule that already exists currently okay and do you believe that our planning department

has the capacity to monitor the things that we're hopefully going to put in place with this ordinance?

I know our planning department can do that.

Okay. And there are some things that, you know, like we've got the planning manuals that are thick. And so I would imagine that we'll have to write out some protocols for some of the things that might not necessarily be in an ordinance like e-waste and things like that that I didn't see. I could have missed it, but do we have protocols already in place for handling e-waste?

For e-waste, I'm not sure if we do, ma'am. I'll have to check into that and get back with you.

And maybe that's a DQ.

Yeah, that's again, that's that's nothing that's part of our zoning ordinance currently.

Material subsidization. That the. That the company will agree, and this is not in our proposed ordinance, and maybe we don't need it because we've been guaranteed that they're going to pay for everything. Right. And so in some of the ordinances that I've seen, there is a clause that's a material subsidization that says project specific infrastructure costs would that that will not be paid for, that we will not have to pay the right payers. But we have already heard from CW intergy that we will not have to pay any of these costs. Therefore, we don't need a material subsidization section in our regulatory ordinance.

I would agree.

Okay. And I realize I didn't say that real well.

I think you said it perfectly.

Thank you. Thank you. That's all for now.

All right. Any more questions for board members before we go to the public?

All right.

Tony Jones. And if they don't show up, immediately just walk up, I'll come back to you. Robert Nunn. Bertone Joan and Robert Nunn. Yes, sir.

Thank you. I'm hard of hearing. I want to make sure I understood what was going on. No, sir. Mr. Mayor, members of the board, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Regulation of the burgeoning LLM industry is sensible. We are witnessing the emergence of a narrative that paints those who are skeptical of data centers as irrationally anti-technology, or worse, somehow unpatriotic, even disloyal. It is entirely rational. inquire as to exactly how many will pay the price for whose profits. It is entirely rational to question such a massive proposed reallocation of resources. And to demand transparency and accountability from those who seek to shape our society is, dare I say, the very cornerstone of this country's greatness. I hope members of the board see for themselves that those speaking tonight are doing so out of a concern for the future of a city we all love. We don't want our communities to suffer deprivation in the name of quarterly profit reports. The stakes are too high to leave any questions unanswered. For example, why has the process been so secretive thus far, especially given that it potentially affects everyone who pays a utility bill. Precisely how many decibels will these centers produce both at normal and at peak operation during the hottest months of the year? Perhaps most importantly, what benefits to Little Rock can we negotiate now, not as potential gifts, but as rights? I urge the board to take the word and promises of those representing the largest companies in the world with a grain of salt. I urge that development be approached with a sober, measured view of the future, one that looks to the benefit of all, not just a few. Thank you for your time.

Brittany Jones.

Hello. I am Brittany Jones-Miller, the founder of Halt AI petition that raised over 65,000 signatures. I'm here to express my concerns about the data center. I'm a science teacher at Pinnacle View and I am honestly disappointed of the conditions that we are in. I am born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I take pride in my natural state. Now that, now, I'm a little scared and frustrated about the upcoming threats that my state is facing. While AI is innovative, it poses a threat to job security and the environment. As much as we want to show off AI data center being the next big thing, putting a bow around it, we have to be real with ourselves. The booming of AI isn't really going to end well. AI is known for producing contaminated water, air pollution and increase in noise pollution. We do not want something like this in a natural state to help billion-dollar businesses that don't even care about us. They do not want to disclose information or say the names of people that owns it, just in case if it goes wrong. My question is, why is it a race to see who can build the biggest data center that consumes a lot of water? That doesn't make sense to me. Why can't we put regulations on these companies that are trying to use our lands for their benefits and not for the people? What will happen when our water runs out? If you continue to Move forward with the data centers. Are you willing to look into the children and grandchildren's in their eyes and let them know like this is your decision that can affect them for the rest of their lives. These data centers have proposed the same story time after time, and it's the same thing. It's not eco-friendly. You can look at other states. You can look at Memphis, Texas, and Georgia. They're not doing well with the data centers. It's affecting water pressure. It's affecting water bills. It's contributing to climate change, disrupting wildlife, and again, affecting water. We really don't need the data center. If I could do it, I would ban it myself. But of course, it takes steps. We were good before the data centers and we will do better without the data centers. However, I know it's a tricky situation with the bill. that was in place in 2023. But that's why we trust you all to make the decision and do right by the people, even if it costs us. If you're going to build a data center, please make it be eco-friendly, either wind power, solar base, anything that doesn't tap into the water. I believe they can do it. If they have enough money to invest billions and billions of dollars into the data center, they should have enough money to invest in eco-friendly alternatives. If these entities is willing to Oh, I'm sorry. It's other states that already set the standard of banning or prolonging the AI data center until they have more information. So hopefully we can do the same. I don't want these data centers to come into the communities. And I just don't want the same story of, yes, these are promises, but I mean, it's just promises. It's not guaranteed facts. So please halt the data center. Um, thank you so much.

Alicia Watson. After Alicia, Thomas Dickinson.

Hi, my name is Alicia Watson.

I am a frustrated citizen. In the last two weeks, this is my second meeting that I've had to go through to talk to people who I have voted in to represent me who are not representing me. I've already seen the show once at the quorum court, and today we had to sit through it yet again. I'm coming today to y'all to say that we need a moratorium. And the reason why we need a moratorium is let's go ahead and let's see what they do in West Memphis. A great idea today is a great idea later on. Constituents feel like they haven't been part of the process. We feel like we have, we don't know what's going on. We have people with NDAs. We have people knowing things that we don't know what they know. And then all of a sudden we're permitted. like a VAIO site with the quorum court. While we all value technology and it powers our digital life, the footprints are massive. And if you do some research using AI, you can see that the reports about data centers aren't good. You're seeing the customer complaints, you're seeing the water problems, you're seeing the lights, you're seeing the disturbance of bees with data centers. And that was told to us at the quorum court meeting that they were putting a beehive. Bees don't like data centers. Hitting the pause button or a moratorium does not mean that we are permanently closing our doors to business. It means that we are choosing to be responsible stewards of our community. A moratorium provides the essential time that the city planners need to study the long-term impacts and draft strict guidelines on water use, energy efficiency, noise limits, and allowed locations. A bad decision today will be a bad decision later. So this is so amazing, like you guys are saying and what you're saying, and we have enough water because we can drain the gray. And the man from Entergy at the Quorum Court said, if you've heard bad things about data centers, ours is going to be different. I don't believe that. I look at what has happened before to be the predictor of what will happen today. Cities across the country from Denver to Reno and across states like Virginia and New York have recognized the need to step back and legislate. I urge you to join them. Please pass a moratorium on new data center applications so that we can put safeguards in place before it's too late. What's the problem about doing your homework? doing your due diligence and not screwing up I don't really get what that problem is and that's what I'm asking you to do and putting constituents last like we had to hear all this again and then the constituents got to talk people people can't come here with families people don't have the time to do this people can't read about what we don't know so I'm asking for a moratorium

Thomas Dixon, then Richard Bell.

Mayor, city directors, thank you for your time and leadership. My name is Thomas Dickinson. I'm serving as the president of the McGeorge Contracting Company. Our company is comprised of 500 team members that reside in Little Rock, Pulaski County and Central Arkansas. We were incorporated in 1946. We support productive, environmental conscious economic growth for Central Arkansas. We support the professionalism, the process and the strategic decision making of the team at the city Little Rock Port economic development arm of the Little Rock Chamber, Entergy Arkansas and Central Arkansas Water. This economic development team has been successful in attracting a wide range of businesses large and small to Central Arkansas for many years. This is another project that's now hopefully in the queue. We support Mayor Frank Scott's proposed framework and structure when it comes to any proposed data center project. Again, thank you for your leadership, time and consideration. Thank you.

Richard Bell. Richard Bell.

Mr. Mayor. City directors. I'm not going to belabor the point other than to say, I've got about 60 years of IT experience. I've built out multiple data centers. And it ain't rocket science, but it ain't easy. And you are not going to have hundreds or thousands of employees within those data centers. So that's one thing I do want to bring up. Yeah, you'll have people who will install equipment and then they're gone, just like you're going to have plumbers, laborers, you'll have people building out the buildings. I'm not, again, I'm supportive of having data centers, but I'm also supportive of full disclosure. We as taxpayers, as citizens of this community, we need to know what's going on. We need to understand what's going on. I appreciate the opportunity. I'm a Google user, so no problem. But thank you again.

Richard Mays.

Mr. Mayor and members of the board and Mr. Carpenter, I don't want to neglect the lawyer here. I'm Richard Mays, Richard H. Mays. I'm an attorney. A large part of my law practice is environmental law. And in a former life, I served at the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, or what is now the Department of Environmental Quality. And then I served eight years with the United States Environmental Protection Agency. And for about four years of that period of time, I headed up the agency's enforcement program. During that period of time, I had a lot of visits from members or representatives of the Fortune 500 companies in this country. They were regulated by the EPA, of which I was the representative doing the enforcement against them. And they would come in inevitably and say to me what great citizens they were for the environment of the country and would we please overlook their 40 or 50 violations of various hazardous waste regulations or water regulations and so forth. And I learned in that experience that companies may always say that they're good stewards of the environment and then go out and really get occupied with what they really, their one goal in life, which was to improve their bottom line. I'm not saying that these people here from Google and from any of the other companies or agencies not sincere in what they are saying. I think they believe that they are going to comply with environmental laws and they are not going to create the problems that a lot of people believe are going to be generated as a result of this data center. But you have a dilemma here. You have a large facility, one that we've probably never seen the likes of before in the state coming into the state to do things that we're not familiar with in terms of data whatever data processing is on a large scale we've heard about the noise we've heard about the water use we've heard about the electrical use all of which disturbs me greatly being a person who's concerned about the environment For you, the dilemma is this facility offers jobs, they offer money, they offer a lot of benefits for the community. At the same time, we hear about these terrible things that could happen. I have learned by working for the Environmental Protection Agency that you can regulate agencies. if you have the right laws and the right enforcement mechanism. I want to congratulate the mayor and the board for coming up with the ordinance that we're here to talk about tonight. We've had a lot of discussion about a lot of things. We haven't really talked much about the ordinance. I'm here because I've had a lot of experience in reviewing laws or proposed regulations that would affect the environment and determining whether or not they are enforceable and whether they're adequate in terms of enforcement. I would say that your ordinance is very good. It has a very good purpose. It has good intent. It has some good things in it with what is required of the data center if it's built. That's a key element. That's a key thing. They need to have restrictions on what they can do and what they don't and what they may not do. And you've got a lot of that in the ordinance. The problem with the ordinance is it doesn't have any teeth. If they violate it, there's nothing in there that says they have to suffer any consequences. I have learned that the best way to obtain compliance from a corporation is to make it expensive for them to violate it. I would suggest, and I'm here because I thought we were going to talk about the ordinance primarily. I'm here to give you a couple of suggestions about what you might do to put some teeth in the ordinance. And I think that that would go a long way toward your being able to give some assurance to the public who are your constituents and the people you're here to protect that in all likelihood that Google is going to comply with your requirements in the ordinance, because if they don't, they're going to have to pay penalties for it. That's the best way, in my opinion, to get compliance. There are no teeth in here. It's strictly voluntary at this point. I would suggest this, and I don't mean to imply that the city attorney's office has not done a good job on this. They have, but I'm just throwing out my suggestions to you. First off, I think to avoid a possible conflict with Act 851 of 2023, you need to delete F references in the whereas clause, the first whereas clause, to cryptocurrency processing facilities. The ordinance refers to data centers. It also refers to cryptocurrency centers. And they are similar, but they're different things. And what you want to do, as I understand it, is to regulate the data centers Act 851 focuses primarily on crypto centers. They're different things, although they have similar elements. To avoid a conflict with Act 851, I would remove any references in the ordinance to cryptocurrency data facilities. In fact, you may want to consider adding a provision to the ordinance that expressly says that it does not apply to cryptocurrency facilities. I would also add some provisions for consequences for the violation of the requirements that you have in the ordinance. I would insert some per day penalties for violation of the monitoring and reporting requirements. You require them to monitor their water usage, you require them to monitor other things and to report those, but there's no penalty if they don't do it. You're putting the burden on your agency, the Planning Commission, to monitor these things, and yet if they do, there's no penalty for violations. I would certainly urge you to put penalty violations in there. I would put per day penalties for a violation of the substantive requirements such as non-installation of the required equipment that you provide for in the ordinance. I would make it mandatory that operations be suspended for specific periods of time in the event of repeated violations by the entity. If they're going to operate in good faith, as they say they are, and the lady here has made a very good presentation about their intentions, and she's a very credible-sounding person, and I'm sure she believes exactly what she's saying. But if they don't do it, and believe me, I've seen a lot of gaps between what people promise and what they actually deliver. If they don't comply with the ordinance, if they don't operate properly, then they need to pay the penalty for doing that and get them back into compliance. You may also want to consider provisions that in the event of emergency shortages of electricity or water or any other essential service, that the, The facility would modify their operations so that the public does not have to cut back on its usage of electricity or its availability of water. In other words, the facility is a massive user of water and electricity. At this point, before they built this facility, every citizen in this town, every citizen in central Arkansas, has a reliable source of water and electricity. If that should change on account of the operation of the Google facility or any other data center, they ought to be the ones who first have to cut back and not allow them to continue until the shortage is corrected. And finally, you may want to insert a provision in there that prior to submitting any new applications for data centers, not Bitcoin, we're not talking about Bitcoin, data centers, or any major alteration of an existing data center, that the facility would have to conduct an independent, have to get an assessment by an independent consulting firm regarding the direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental effects of that center being built or of the major alteration of this facility. That way, and that, and that, and that data, that assessment be made available to the public and to the board. for review and consideration before any authority is given to construct the facility or the major alteration. Those are simply comments on the specific ordinance and I think it may help to bridge the gap between what you want to do, that is, or what everybody, some people want you to do. They want you to get the facility in here and get it operating and so forth so you can get the benefits from it, but yet at the same time, protect the public interest and the environment. Thank you. Thank you.

And Mr. Mays, if you'll submit your document to the clerk that you were reading from, if you don't mind, but I do just for. You said 1 2 in the morning, but just just I want to make sure we're all clear because I think some things get lost. And Director Webb asked a question earlier about material subsidizations and a fee schedule. I know a lot of people are have watched what's going on at the county level. I want to share with everyone. The city is a bit different because the city has existing zoning rules and regulations, whereas the county does not. So we already have things in place. So when we do a new zoning ordinance, we already have a fee schedule. We already have citations. So we do have penalties if someone does not apply to this. And so we actually have books upon books of all of our rules and regulations for all everything from office to neighborhood to industrial one, two and three. So we do have penalties if someone does not comply. That's already in place. That's the reason why it's not in this ordinance, because it's already the comprehensive ordinance that we have for all of our commercial construction in the city of Little Rock. So we do have penalties. All right. Next up, Miss Velma Smith. We will take that feedback on those other items. I just want to make sure we do. You will be fine if you don't obey rules and regs in the city of Little Rock. All right. Now we got Amber Kincaid as Ms. Velma is coming. Amber Kincaid. All right. May have left. We'll see. All right. Connor Tethy. They're not here. All right. Thank you so much. Connor Tethy. All right. Blake Tierney?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, City Board. I'm Blake Tierney. I am from Ward 1. I'm here to talk about this ordinance and the data centers overall. Thank you, Mr. Mayes, for covering a lot of what I wanted to say in terms of enforcement and teeth to this plan and what the monitoring is going to be. Not knowing fits into what many of us have said, not knowing what the plan is. What is actually going to happen? What is it that the public can trust is going to be the next step if we have complaints? What can the public really depend upon to say, this is what the resolution is going to be. This is when we will have a remedy to issues that come up. So that is one of the many questions that we have and from this plan and many others. Talk briefly about just that topic of transparency. There's been statements that the city board and the city and other folks involved have been transparent and open and upfront. And thank you, Director Webb, for saying that that's not true. I just want to take us back to April 29th, 2025. A special call meeting was made that day. I believe less than 12 hours of notice to the public. about the three issues before the board at that time, the MOU, the sale of the land, and something else that I'm forgetting. That is not enough time for the public to substantively be involved in that decision. That is not enough time for us to be able to come to the board to express our opinions. And that decision has locked us in to where we are now. Had the land not been sold, we might not even be talking about Act 851. So I ask that when we're talking about transparency, it's not just, we've done the minimum that we needed to, we gave the public notice that was within the however many hours that we're supposed to give it, but go farther. A representative from Google has said that Google is aiming to go farther and above and beyond what is asked. I ask that of the city as well. I ask that of everybody that's involved. Go above and beyond. One of the representatives from one of the utilities said, well, this study is available upon request. We're asking for you to publish it. We're asking for all the information that you can possibly give. We're asking to know answers to our questions. We're asking that if you can share anything about the contracts that are being negotiated, that are being made, anything at all. Redact whatever business that is proprietary that is in there, but let us see what is going on. So that we can see whether there are loopholes. We can see what the agreements actually are, what is actually covered. Right now, from my understanding, the contract between Google and West Memphis and Entergy is still a secret. We don't know. The actual truth, because we just have to go on people's words. And that is not enough in this situation. We know that there is a solar, a Cypress Solar is being built. We don't know how much of that has contributed to Google, how much of that has contributed to rate increases that we know that have been seen, that are continuing to be seen. Because Intergy has lobbied for the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act that allows them to for infrastructure builds in the future, we know that that is happening. So it is very hard for us as the public to trust what is coming for Intergy. We also heard last week at the quorum court that Intergy said that this is a 20 year contract, at least with Aveo. We don't know about it with Google, but maybe it's 20 years as well. What happens at the end of 20 years? Is the agreement that they're going to pay for everything going to go beyond that? We don't know because it's not something that's been public. And so when we're talking about this ordinance, when we're talking about what we can do as a city, what are we going to do differently when it comes to transparency? What are we going to do? What are we going to impose into ordinance ourselves to say the public will be involved in this process more substantively? ahead of time where we can pause issues like this before a vote is made. Can we institute an ordinance around community benefits ordinance? This is an aspect of community members are brought to the table for negotiations with businesses once a business contract or proposal meets a certain threshold. Whether that's size, cost, or taxes, sorry, keeping my words together. Can we do a community benefits ordinance? Port Washington, Wisconsin passed a ballot measure that was around if tax incentives reach a certain threshold, then the public gets to vote on it in a ballot measure. What can we do around that? This is so much money that yes, we're going to get a lot of benefit. But we already know reports that are saying actually the tax incentives aren't that necessary for getting data centers into our communities because they need to build them. And they know that they want to build them in places, and we have a pretty good place to build. I'd rather it not be built, but we have a good place. So let's lean on the assets we have and not just rely on sacrificing our tax base in this way for 30 years. And not just for this center, but for future data centers. That's in MOU. It's not just this one, but future builds. So that's one aspect of this. What can we build into this ordinance or other ordinances or other parts of the city that actually provide transparency for the public and provide meaningful input from us? I have a list of other questions that I have for the centers that could be hopefully addressed in the ordinance. Maybe it's around ambient heat. We know that data centers create a map of a heat spot in their location. What is that going to do to the surrounding area? How does that affect what we already have in terms of an urban heat island and already sweltering temperatures? We know that Things are getting hotter and climate issues are getting much worse. So are the projections that we have from the utilities covering those bases? What we know, a recent study, a recent, I can't remember the words, but a new plan that was passed recently was talking about shifting from a 20 year to 50 year or a 20 year to 100 year plan of what the worst rain could be. That's shifted. So has the utility study shifted? Has that covered it? Is it covering drought conditions? Is it covering not just maximum use per day, but maximum use hitting that on consecutive days? How many consecutive days can we handle? When it comes to noise, there was a comment last week at the agenda meeting around comparing it to downtown noise levels. Downtown noise levels are intermittent. Data center noise levels are constant. It is a different beast when we're talking about constant noise levels at a certain decibel point versus intermittent sound at that same decibel point or different ones. Those have different impacts on health of our community. So is the noise part of the ordinance meeting what we actually need? Have we talked to folks that are doctors in this area of how sound affects health? Have we touched on what chemicals and materials are used that may or may not be hazardous? We know that the ADEQ does not have any rules around PFAs or forever chemicals. And so as long as we're talking about, yes, we're going to meet standards, but if the standards don't cover something that is affecting our community, then we are still going to be hurt by it. So can that be included in this ordinance or other ordinances? To what extent can we look back at the zoning map and say, hey, these places are going to be affecting wetlands. Maybe those don't need to be zoned for certain things. And it isn't the entire truth that this area that has been zoned, I3, has always been that way. It was proposed last year to the Planning Commission to annex it into the city and then to rezone it as I3. So let's be honest about what we're actually talking about and what is going on in this situation. And another question is, the hyperscale data centers are currently listed as permitted under I3. Major ones are listed as permanent at that level, but they're conditional use permits at I2 and I1. Why is hyperscale not a conditional use permit at I3, which would allow more public input into this process? I have a list of other questions. I've sent it to some of the directors. There are many more that keep coming up because people are talking about this and sharing it and having useful discussions. Because we love this city and we want it to be the best it can be and we want it to stay that way. So what can you do to protect that? What can you really do to change this ordinance to go further? Can you do a moratorium? Can you do something that can actually move us forward in the community we want to see where this energy that we have from the public around this can be harnessed towards continuing to better it? So I ask you to really reconsider this, to really consider what can we do? Where can we push farther? Where can we go above and beyond what is already required of us? Where can we set the bar? Thank you.

Lee White. I know she spoke earlier, so. India Jackson? And make sure, did Connor Teffey ever come in? OK. I don't think they did.

All right. OK. Hi. Oh, sorry.

What?

Hi, I'm India Jackson. I live on 145th Street around the area where they plan on building this data center. And I speak for all of us when I say we don't want it, okay? We really don't want it. The mission statement on the agenda says that the city of Little Rock is dedicated to improving our residents' quality of life. Having done some research, this and seeing other areas that have been infected, We've come to the conclusion that this is against our best interest and our well-being. And you, sir, were absolutely right when you said you need examples, and I will give you some examples. And the residents of the Washington, Michigan are currently filing a class action lawsuit about the Dana Center between the noise pollution and the air pollution. The water pollution residents are miserable. Older residents and pregnant residents are being greatly impacted via their health. Texan farmers have reported 30% decrease in the health of their animals and noise can be heard for miles. Up to five mouths have been reported so far. And you're talking about, he said the downtown area constant 24-7, 365 days a year. right in your home, no sleep, lights coming through, so it's basically daylight 24-7, okay? We are the natural state, and we want to keep it that way. If that comes there, they drive away wildlife, and we hunt. So if they're gone, they kind of get rid of that option there. We have Mansfield, Georgia, they have to store water in jugs just to flush their toilets. You can visibly see the metals, their water turn brown, the metals in their water, they can't even drink it. The pressure is basically a drip at this point, so of course they have to keep buying bottles of water. So no, it may not increase our energy bill, which I doubt that it won't increase it. But we can't even drink the water, we can't use the water. We have to shower with this, we have to do all types, and we're living right where it's supposed to be built. So what everybody else says, that's awesome because it's true, but this will affect us on this street even more. Because we're living right next to it, right next to it. West Memphis, speaking of that, they've had increase in pollution, nitrogen oxides into the air. The list goes on and on and on. I'm not against innovation, and I'm not against progress, but this is not it. Data centers require a huge amount of resources, and they require a lot of water, they require a lot of energy. And that will put strain on the current infrastructure, so they're going to have to build more. And when these energy companies and these water companies build bigger, yes, we will have to pay for it. That's not going to come out of Google's pocket. That's going to come out of our pocket. That's going to come out of our bills. So no, that's that, no. Also, let's go with facts, okay? People have been testing these data centers, the ones that live in these areas that I was talking about, and there's more, you can look it up. But there have been reports of up to 120 decimals being outputted from these data centers. Now, if you look it up, humans, they start having hearing loss around 85 decimals. Animals, they start having hearing loss around 70 decimals. And with the extended exposure, Permanent hearing damage. So us living right next to it, and it can go up to 120. We're listening to it day after day after day. That is going to affect hearing. We have a lot of elderly people on 145th Street. That's not okay. That is not okay. I like to look after my elderly. I like to look after my people. My grandmother, she already has respiratory issues. I don't want to add on to that because as much as they say they have safety guards, history shows that they don't. It is continually showing between everything that I looked up that they don't have it in place, and they said they haven't figured it out. I don't want to be their test dummy. I don't. So I understand that this is going to bring money to these companies and stuff, but money isn't good if we can't spend it. If we're sick or we're dying or anything of that nature, what good is it? We want to keep our community quiet and peaceful, and with that being there, it won't be that way again. Guys, I just want you to really think this thing through because if you had to live right next to it, I don't think you would like it either. You wouldn't want to put up with the noise. You wouldn't put up with the wildlife. You want to go hunting. You want to go fishing. The animal's gone. So really, please, guys, think this through. And I know we can't get rid of data centers altogether, but we don't want it on 145th Street. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Mr. Mike Poe, I believe you share with the clerk that you want to yield your time to Judge Wendell Griffin.

Yeah, in respect of everybody's time, he's a lot more eloquent than me. And I would rather him get the time since he wasn't able to sign up earlier.

I'll accept this. I did earlier today during citizens communication for Angelica Lorica.

You want to still allow me at the end?

No. Either one or the other.

Tomorrow. You know me already.

Yeah.

Judge Griffin.

Good evening, Mr Mayor and directors. My name is Wendell Griffin. I'm a resident of Little Rock, Arkansas since 1979. I'm a lawyer who would concur with what you've heard from Richard Mays. I often tell people if you want to get the wrong answers, ask the wrong questions. There have been a lot of talk about electricity rates. Wrong answer. Wrong answer. Please. You're talking about a land use issue. Land use issues is about impacts, and you've heard nothing from any of the people before you talking about these about the impacts. What are the health impacts of the diesel generators that we backups for these data centers? What are the health impacts for children? What are the health impacts for adults? At what range will those impacts occur? And how will those health impacts be monitored? Where will the monitoring infrastructure be Who will pay for it? How often will it happen? And what will be the sanctions if those impacts occur to health persons? And how will the city reinforce the penalties? That's not in the ordinance. There's nothing in the ordinance about advance notification. If there had been an advanced notification requirement and you had an ordinance, then within a period of time after 2025, there would have been a requirement that the community know. For instance, within a certain period of time after land was purchased, that community would know that this land, which was previously agricultural, would be rezoned industrial for the purpose of a major use that would be incompatible with the surrounding uses. Impact. Land use is about impacts and regulating impacts. And quite frankly, you have heard nothing from any of the people. You didn't hear it last week in the county. You haven't heard it tonight. As I told him respectfully and privately, what I heard was a lot of stuff. I'm not going to say what I told him it was, but it was bovine stuff, okay? Now let's be realistic. Pledges on websites are not certifications that you can enforce in any courtroom. I ten time double dog dare you, I'm a law uniformed judge, to find a single case where any agency has been able to enforce a violation alleged based upon a website. Ain't ever happened, can't happen because quite frankly it isn't a duty to certify anything on a website. If you want to regulate something, it has to be in the regulatory scheme, and your current regulatory scheme does not have that requirement. So you need to have it amended. Now, I know nobody wants to hear that, but quite frankly, that's what you have to have if you're going to keep faith with your obligation to protect the health, safety, and well-being of the people, because we're talking about the exercise of your, my good friend, Mr. Carpenter knows what I'm about to say, your police powers. your police powers. You can't police a website violation about a health impact that has not been certified and you have an obligation to test. You cannot police a violation about a noise impact that you haven't required. You cannot police an electrician. You're industrializing rural areas. I know you're talking about the Port of Little Rock, that's industrial, but Sweet Home is the unincorporated area and the Sweet Home community is not in the Port of Little Rock. So what is the impact on your neighbor in the... in the county from an infrastructure that you know is going to have impact because they told you they plan to fill 17 acres of land that is already a wetland. What is the impact on flooding? What is the impact on flood control? What is the impact on drainage? Who pays for that impact when the flooding happens? Will Google? That's not in your amendment, in your ordinance. I've read it. I'm a lawyer. I'm paid to read. I'm pretty good at it. But let me suggest something. I've read it and you don't have it there. You cannot enforce what you don't have and you won't enforce it if you don't input it there. Lastly, because I know you're tired and I don't want to belabor your time and I am a preacher, so I will not say I'm going to my seat twice. There is a legal way for you to do what you want to do without shoving it down the constituents throat. It's called taking the time to do it right. It's called taking the time to study what you don't know. I have told you what you don't know because it isn't there and they haven't told you and they won't because they can't. The PSC doesn't do this. They don't have a mandate to do this. The reason why the Data Center Act leaves local control to land use is because the PSC cannot, will not, shall not do land use. You do, you have a planning body. And yes, Mayor, you do have an enforcement protocol, but your enforcement protocol does not carry a provision for this kind of use because you have never had in the history of Little Rock a use like this. You've had an heavy industrial, but one data center, one 150 megawatt data center has enough electrical load comparable to an entire city. There is no factory, no plant in this city that has the electrical load of one of these. We talking about one in Google, on top of those already here, and then Avail. So respectfully, you do not have a history. that prepares you to have your present enforcement protocol apply in a realistic way to what you're about to see. It's about saying, like saying, hey, we're going to apply speed limits that you have set for donkeys for cars that are designed to go 150 miles an hour. You haven't seen it. Guess what? You don't know how far they're going to build out the Google one. I did say I pause for a bit. These are expandable. They are expandable. Is there going to be an impact for the expansion and how you regulate the expansions? Will that be a new application? Or will that be a penalty settlement for the application? These are ways you can do this. So please, ma'am, please, sir, please, y'all, take your time to do this right. It's called a moratorium. Now, a moratorium is not a ban. I had to correct a lawyer last week who could not read a dictionary and said a moratorium is a ban. I ten times double-dog doubt you. Moratorium and ban are not synonymous. You cannot find ban as a synonym for moratorium. It's cause of pause, of delay. You've had two years before folks knew this was coming, talk. You can take half that time to begin to study and implement a change to address this. according to the Google representative, they still got 18 months before they get ready to go. So a moratorium will not stop them. I'm not trying to stop them. I'm trying to make sure that what they do does not cause irreversible harms that none of us will be able to compensate our people for. And we will not have any power based on this ordinance to regulate. Please, ma'am. Please, sir. You can do better than this. Please try. I thank you for your time.

Susan, Susan Leon.

Good evening. I will not take long, I promise. My name is Susan Leon, and I'm here on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Pulaski County. Thank you, Board, for taking the initiative to develop the draft regulations to apply to data centers and other digital infrastructure. My principal question for you with regard to the ordinance is whether it will apply to Google since there's already been purchase of land and presumably contracts and stuff. If the ordinance comes after those conditions, Will it apply to Google? I look forward to hearing the answer to that. The League of Women Voters urges you to postpone the vote on this ordinance until such time as the general public has had ample opportunity to weigh in. Up to now, the public's opportunity to do so has been minimal. And the League further recommends that you schedule multiple public hearings over the next couple of months to share your fact finding and decision making process with your constituents. They want to know that you're taking their concerns to heart. Thank you very much. Please postpone this vote.

And Miss Susan, the answer to your question is yes, it will apply to Google. Google has yet to get a permit yet, but it will apply to them. Mr. George Wise.

Mayor and directors, Mr. Carpenter, Vice Mayor, thank you for allowing me to speak. I first came to speak to you in January when a reporter did some snooping and told me that that land purchase was for a Google data center. And I ask you in my three minutes to hold a hearing for the public to address a Google data center. Didn't hear anything. And I'm here today and I should identify myself. I'm here on behalf of the Arkansas Sierra Club. I'm chair of the executive committee of the Arkansas Sierra Club. And I was here in January on their behalf. I've written you a letter expressing our concerns about the data center. You have that letter, and I'm not going to go over all the points in that letter. Many people have already discussed those. I sent you, I heard that you were going to take questions, that we should submit written questions so I started typing, I quit at 50 questions. You have my 50 questions. The time that's been allotted here today is not enough time to answer all the questions that people have about data centers. I'm asking you to postpone a vote on this resolution, but I also want to offer you some suggestions. About additional things that should go in the data center and by doing that I want to address some of the issues that we heard from the representatives of energy and Central Arkansas water. The first thing I would ask you to add to any resolution or any regulation land use regulation on data centers is to put something in there protecting the Fish Bayou watershed. I've seen the footprint. I've seen a map of the footprint of this data center and the entirety of the data center will destroy wetlands of the Fush Bayou. I've given you my concerns in my letter about the importance of the Fush Bayou. I had an email from a birder friend of mine. She was out on the property where this data center would go. She found 42 species in one birding day on the property that this data center will go on. She won't be able to do that anymore. So that's one suggestion. Regulate whether any hypercell data center can destroy wetland in the Fush Bayou. The next suggestion I have is that any data center ought to pay for its own power plant. with their own money, and that power plant should be with renewable energy. And I want to address some of the comments by Energy about the energy supply to this data center. I've not heard them say whether they have the current capacity to supply the power to this Google data center. I don't think they do. That means they're going to have to build new power plants to supply energy to this data center. And if you look at their, you can go on their website, it's transparent what their plan is before the PSC to develop new facilities to generate electricity. And it's primarily fossil fuels. It's primarily fossil fuels. Climate change is real. Yes, Director Heinz, climate change is real. The planet is getting hotter and hotter, and we're losing ground with the rest of the world where they're developing renewable energy to power things like data centers, like homes, like schools. We're losing ground to the rest of the world. So if they're going to have to build new facilities, and if those facilities are going to be powered by fossil fuels, that means we're going to be paying. Your rates are going to go up to power this Google data center. Don't let them. I heard, I didn't get to attend the presentation at the quorum court, but I heard Mr. Bethel say, oh, we pledge that rates won't go up. What's a pledge? What's a pledge? I don't believe it. They're going to have to raise rates. They're an investor-owned utility. They have to make money for their investors. They're going to raise your rates. I've looked at data centers across the country, and there's not a single instance where rates went down when a data center was built. Rates are going to go up. I want to talk about water. Tad Bohannon is my friend. We spent a lot of time on a soccer field. He's the best youth soccer coach in the state. And I'm not going to stand here and dispute what Tad tells you about the availability of water. And I would challenge anyone, if you're going to come up here and dispute what he says about the availability of water, get the data to do that. We've not had a chance to get that data, but I believe that that there's water available for this data center. That's going to make some of my friends mad when I say that. But what I want to talk to you about is a regulation that would require any data center to be cooled by a true closed loop system. In other words, there are ways to cool data centers that don't use water. They use refrigerant. But that's going to be more expensive for Google to use a closed loop system. Now, I heard, Tad, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to disagree with you. At the quorum court, you said that the Avio data center was going to be a closed loop system, that they'd recycle the water four or five or six times and then discharge it. That's not a true closed loop system. The other way that they could cool the status center since we've got the Fush Bayou treatment plant, I'd like to know how much recycled water is discharged daily from the Fush Bayou treatment plant because you can use recycled wastewater to cool a data center. That's another option and it's We wouldn't have to build out a line all the way out to the Wilson treatment plant. And we wouldn't use our good, clean, drinking, bathing, cooking water to cool this data center. We have, I agree with Tad, we have the best water in the country. I've traveled a lot, and I've not been anywhere that has better water. I don't buy a bottle of water. I drink water out of the tap. Let's preserve that. I'd like you to reconsider the tax incentives in some way with the regulation. And I don't know quite how to do this. But Google is one of the, I think they're the second largest, second biggest company in the world. I looked it up, and their market cap in 2026 was $4.6 trillion. Why does Google need tax incentives to build this data center? And the reason we need time to look at this, at those incentives that have been given, this data center is been publicly stated will produce 50 jobs once it's built. There was a data center in Virginia that the tax incentives that they gave away to the data center ended up working out to $250,000 per job. Is that a good investment of these incentives to use this land and create 50 permanent jobs? I'd also recommend that you include a regulation that no data center can use backup power from diesel generators. Mr. Bethel and the other representative were talking about, oh, if there is not enough capacity, the Google Center will use its own on-site power so that there's not a blackout or anything like that. Go over to Memphis. and take a look at Elon Musk data center over there and the problems is powered entirely by natural gas and diesel generators and it's in a minority community and the rates of asthma and respiratory diseases are going up in the communities next to that data center. The other regulation I'd like for you to include is that they be required, and I think somebody else mentioned this, that any data center be required to pay for an environmental assessment. We know that they might have to get an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement, but you can require that they get their own, do their own assessment so that we know what the health costs are going to be. And the last thing that I'd like for you to do, and I have other suggestions, but I'm going to limit it to just a few because I know everyone's ready to get out of here. I'd like for you to put in there some sort of requirement that Google disclose what this data center will be used for. I just had knee surgery and the x-ray that my of my knee before and after was probably involved some use of artificial intelligence to generate that x-ray. And there are good uses of AI, but there are bad uses of AI. Google already has worldwide 130 hyperscale data centers. How many more do they need? And what will the purpose of this one be? Will it be surveillance? Will it be just collecting data? I have a concern that our civil rights and civil liberties are at risk with the proliferation of these data centers. And I would like for you to require them to say, what's this data center going to be used for? And I'll end it there, but I do ask you, things are moving so fast since it became public that this hyperscale data center and the one in the county are proposed to be built. I think we need to slow down. Mayor Scott, you've been to our Sierra Club meetings. You were kind enough to come to a monthly meeting and answer our questions about the environment. I would ask that y'all slow down. Give us a chance. Give more people a chance to ask questions. Give me a chance in an environment where I don't feel rushed to ask those 50 plus questions that I sent to you. And I thank you for your time today. Thank you, Mr. Weiss.

Miss Kathy Wells and Lake Smith.

Thank you, Mayor Scott, city directors. I'm Kathy Wells. I'm president of the Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhoods. We've heard a great deal of useful additional material tonight for your consideration in your ordinance. I would point out that about a month back, the coalition requested a public discussion on data centers from this board and this mayor. No reply came. Then this ordinance popped up and now we are conducting a variety of public hearing tonight, which is a good beginning, but I think clearly is not finished. Our questions never got answered, for example, and we would like you to continue with public discussions on this and more than one. One of the factors about the speedy passage path has been the Sustainability Commission that you folks had created thoughtfully some time back got totally bypassed. And they've raised their hand and said, we should take a hand in this. You should delay for that. That's good government. One of the things that no one else has brought up, I will bring to your attention, is apart from building anything new of whatever variety for power, One of the most imminent authorities in this land, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, has an article in which he describes thoughtfully how the power needs of a large hyperscale data center can be met from the existing community it's building in if you pull energy efficiency from your existing electric ratepayers base. We have lost sight of the fact, we once were a lot more attentive about every bit of energy needs to be conserved. Every bit needs to be carefully protected. Once we had factories running open steam lines that just spewed heated air the length of football fields and we stopped that because it was loss of valuable resource and it got to be too expensive. We've kind of lost track of that. We need to bring that back. Somebody needs to press your authority to see about what can be done to pull energy, especially when we're talking about peak loads, crisis situations, disaster situations, and who might come up short. This should not be a neglected issue. One of the other things that I would like to point out in all of the talk about transparency and paying their full load is exactly what this board voted unanimously to do in April of 2025 in the memorandum of understanding. You reduce the electric franchise fee they were going to pay the city to 0.25%. You reduce the water franchise fee to 0%. You reduce the sewer franchise fee to 0%. You agreed that all the standard permit fees. We've been hearing about fees tonight for electrical, plumbing, mechanical, firework and buildings will be kept. The total standard fees will be kept for each data center at $200,000. So that's the incentive package that you agreed to. and they did not pay their way, we obviously may be asked in budget preparations of this board in future months to make up what isn't being collected here and there. So I finished by saying, please take into account all the material you've been presented and thoughtfully delay, incorporate the material and have some additional public hearings. Thank you.

Melissa Shork. I can't make it out. All right. Marissa Pavin.

Thanks everybody for coming, that came to speak. It's kind of all y'all's job to be here, so thanks for being here. I know everybody wants to leave, but again, everybody should have their time. I am a resident of West Little Rock since 1979. I have lived in other parts of the country on and off in those 47ish years. But always came back to Little Rock because it's where my family is and it's great. I mean, I can say everything about everything that everybody said. The water's great, everything's great. And I'm just not understanding why we were trying to spoil that. I will say, as a West Sutter Rock resident, I have been going to Lake Maumelle weekly, if not daily, since November the 5th of 2024, election day, to try to get away from the things that are happening in nature. And that is one of the good things about the state, is that you can go within five minutes of where I live and Loon Point, Buffalo Head Point, Central Arkansas water has put great things in there for residents to use. I would say of the times that I've gone to the lake, I have a 90% success rate on catching largemouth bass. And my question is, the state is tied up in water. goes to the water, has kayaks, has lake houses, has boats, has things even if they can't, that they don't own, they go there. They go there just to sit in the water, to cool off, to reconnect with the land. So I think everybody here kind of understands, and it's not gonna be tomorrow that we don't have water. It's gonna be 20, 30 years from now. Because the CEO of the water company told us last week that if Maumelle is low, then we'll go to Lake Sylvia, or we'll go to Lake DeGray. And now tonight he says Grove Ferry, the White River or the Red River, the White River. I mean, there's so many opportunities for people in this state to get out and have a good time. So what's next after that? When we don't have Maumelle, I don't have Maumelle to drive through. I can go to Connor Park near my house. I can drive an hour and a half to Gers Ferry maybe. At what point will we not have anything left? And it's really hard to have natural stuff in a natural state without water. Thank you.

Hello.

All righty. Director Adcock, Director Webb, Director Wyrick, Hines, Director Miller, Director Andrew Lewis, Director Peck, and Director Comperse. It has been 399 days since you guys voted to sell the land to Willow Bend. Almost a year ago, in my belief, you guys sold us out. And I don't know how to feel about that. Honestly, I feel passionate, I guess, For the way we're supposed to be, this is supposed to work. I don't blame the corporate interest here, the corporations, because that's what they're doing, right? They're looking for their own interest. But you guys are public servants. You guys are supposed to serve our interest. And I don't think you did so a year ago. And I think hiding behind Act 851 isn't going to save you guys either, because that was 747 days since you did that vote. Two years, knowing about it and still going ahead with this project. But here's another number I want to give you guys. It's 154 days till most of you are up for election. And I think I'm just part, not of a silent minority, But of a majority of people, of residents, of your constituents, that are a little bit mad about this. About how there was no discussion, public meetings, or anything since April of last year. I believe this ordinance doesn't have enough teeth. I hope and pray that you guys keep us involved, keep putting ordinances, keep putting whatever you can because the public wants it. And I hope you guys also know that a lot of the other municipalities that are pro data centers, pro development, they're getting voted out. Why? Because that's how their system works. That's democracy. It's we the people, not we the corporations. So I'm a minister. I look out for my flock. I hope you guys look out for us too, because we put you in those chairs and we can put you out of those chairs by grouping up together and registering and voting. So I'm not as eloquent as Reverend Griffin over here. I hope to be one day, but I just want you guys to know that there is a large amount of people that couldn't come here that are willing to To do something, to do something in the way that 250 years ago our founding fathers allowed us to do. That we vote for you to represent us. And when you don't represent us, you're not there anymore. Thank you and God bless.

Matthew Oba.

Good evening, Council. I'll make it real quick. I'm coming on the back of a lot of people who, coming behind a lot of people who have a lot of facts, who have a lot of information. I came here to speak as a fourth generation citizen of Central Arkansas of Little Rock. My great grandparents grew up around Perrin, West Pulaski County, out in Lake Maumelle, Lake Winona territory. I grew up spending a lot of time out there. I grew up learning how to fish at Lake Maumelle and was listening to what our other speakers said and a lot of what they said is what I came here to say, but I do regular checks out at Lake Winona and What I see, I haven't seen water flow over the spillway at Lake Winona in years. Been two or three years since I've seen anything but a dry spillway. I go out there all the time. I took my kids out there on Saturday after the biggest flood rains that we've had of the year. There was no water coming over that spillway. This data center may not eat up enough water to make a difference in Lake Winona. It may not drain Lake Winona out, but the next one might or the one after that might. How many data centers are we going to build before these lakes get drained and before the wonderful water quality that Mr. Bohannon came up here and spoke about is degraded? depleted to the point where the citizens can't enjoy it anymore. I want my boys to be able to grow up and do the same thing that I do and take their children to enjoy something that we're so lucky to have here in this here in central Arkansas, something that I can leave my house in North Little Rock and in 30 minutes be in one of the most beautiful areas of the state. And I'd like to see it kept that way. And I think that you guys are in a unique position right now to at least slow this down and stop it for now and Like everyone said, let's really look at those facts and the data that I don't have. I just know what I see with my eyes and what I feel in my heart. Thank you.

Jenny Norrisi. Did you want to? I know you spoke to us. Is this different? All right.

Thank you again. I have three things I will try to make as quick as possible. The first thing, many people brought up the issue of finding the corporations involved if regulations are not met, which yes, 100%. On that note though, I think it is worth looking at the notorious history of megacorporations when they have violated certain any regulations, particularly environmental. The fines are usually not heavy enough to stop them from doing things again. These are companies, especially now, we've heard these amazing numbers quoted for salaries of people that will work there, the money behind that. doesn't blink at fines, I would imagine, if we look at any other corporations in the past. This is another one of those situations, if we look at history and we don't see anything else, like what do we have to go on here? This is a bigger entity than what we have also dealt with in the past. So when that's being considered, I would like that to also be considered. What would be the number that would be an appropriate fine to do the job of the regulation? Additionally, a woman who had wanted to speak here tonight, she had to leave. There wasn't enough time. I believe her name was Perry Doubleday. She may have had a card in there. She had had some things she wanted to say. I just met her on the way out, but something about the number of data centers was misquoted for the US. She said it was something like 500 and that Canada's already ahead of us with 532. I cannot verify that, but I wanted to pass that on for her. Additionally, when we're talking about these wetland credits, And this is something I had heard about, but immediately me and my friend were on our phones like, what does this translate into? Technically, what does that look like, boots on the ground? What is a wetland credit? What does it translate to? How is it used? This is all something I'm still learning about, but I would like it to be stated that if you remove a 500 year old tree from the ecosystem it has evolved in, And then you think, I'll just plant 500 new saplings in its place. Easy, it is not the same thing. You have taken out a pillar in a thing that stands because you don't understand the role it's playing. You have removed an organ out of an organism. It's not going to be equivalent. So in this conversation of ecological credits and so forth, I would like that zoomed out perspective to be considered. Whoever you all are bringing on to be a part of that conversation, the people that are actually experts in that field, who have no ties to the profits that come from any of these other organizations. Additionally, the last thing, am I allowed to ask Lorraine a question?

No, you have to speak to her.

Okay, so well, in that case.

But if you have a question, I'm sure somebody may ask.

Let me think how to phrase this. If I were able to ask her a question, I would like to invite her to join me to visit these places. I would like to know how she personally visited these locations, seeing what grows there. Does she know what is there from her own personal stance? Or is it all information being relayed to her? I take people out to connect with our natural spaces because we live with this false dichotomy that the wild is somewhere way out there. Not right here in our backyards. If we're the natural state, we have to fix that. I watch people light up and like their lives are changed the second they can identify what's around them. It changes your world. And so if that is not something, and I extend that to anyone in this room, honestly. I think that will change the way we regard the land and how it's used for policy going forward for the betterment of everyone here. Not for some idealistic cause of saving the monarchs while we should also still do that, which was one of the things that Perry told me on the way out. She said, this isn't the path of a monarch migration pathway. So that is what I would offer up as something to consider. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And I'm sure if you give your card information to L'Oreal, she'll take it.

Thank you.

Erin Mitchell. Erin Mitchell.

Hello, everyone. Okay. So before I came in, I pulled together a little bit of data and maybe I'm misinformed, but it is from a government website. Central Arkansas is listed by, I believe, the National Oceanic Association as an extreme drought. We've been in drought since July of 2025. There are about 398 farms located in Pulaski County. And that is per the 2022 census data. That also doesn't speak for the water that those who are dependent upon well water for their drinking water would require. I've seen in videos that the president of Central Arkansas Water said on the hottest day, one data center or maybe the two that are supposed to be in Little Rock would require maybe up to four million gallons of water. I mean over a year and because I mean it's hot through the summer now until like October. It's going to be very hot and it gets hotter every year and I feel as though I mean, we don't know. We don't have the transparency. There's non-disclosure agreements involved. So someone can come up here and say there's going to be more water, which doesn't make sense. There's going to be more electricity, which also doesn't make sense without that transparency. And we're just supposed to take that as it is. And I don't believe that and I don't trust that. There's been a lack of transparency here, and it leads me to believe that there are some people who are benefiting from this, which is why it is shrouded in secrecy. So I saw in the Democrat Gazette, I don't know if this is to be believed, but apparently some people who are sitting here tonight have signed NDAs. Which I think that as a public official, your duty is to the public. It is not to personal, it is not to yourself, it is not to a corporation, it is to your constituents. And What else? I think that we deserve transparency. I mean, the underlying statement that I wanted to make is transparency is needed. I mean, there was a woman in here earlier who made a case for wanting a permit and I don't think that she understood what was needed. And we looked away, but a permit was granted to Google with, I mean, no oversight is what it seems like, I mean, the information has become available now, and now we can speak on it. But at this point, what you're going to be voting on is whether or not to regulate them at this point. And it doesn't seem like the interest of the public was really considered at all. The woman from Google earlier said that she wanted to, Google wants to work with us. instead of making a decision for us. And I don't think that that is what has happened. I mean, it's evidenced by the way that this has taken place. Um, so I just asked you guys, please consider the constituents. Please consider us. This is your community as well. Um, and that is all. Thank you.

Thank you. Karen Sykes.

Good evening. All right, we've heard lots of numbers today, so I'm going to throw one out here for you. It's 47 seconds. That is exactly how long it took you all last April to vote for the data center. 47 seconds. I did go back, watch the YouTube video, and count it. So you also called it an industrial project and not a data center. That is not transparency. And yet here we are listening to our Google representative talking about how wonderful they are and all the benefits they have. So why is it shrouded in secrecy? Why are we just now, after a year, able to provide comments to you? I'm not against technology, I'm not against economic development, but I am against being excluded from the conversation. And that is exactly what has been occurring. Now with all the texts, the phone calls, you decide you care. You're putting articles in the Democrat Gazette talking about a quick vote. How is that leadership? How does that prove that you care about the people that vote for you? Again, no responsibility, but I will give credit where credit is due. And I do thank you, Kathy, for saying that earlier today. So far she's the one and only who has talked about transparency and it not being given to us. So in closing, I just have one question, and that is for the Google Center rep, which I know I can't ask her this. But I want to know, will this be used for national security? That is all.

Tobias Peoples.

Mayor, directors, thank you for having me. My name is Tobias. I am a citizen of Little Rock. I live in Ward 1. And I'm not going to waste too much of you guys' time. What I'm calling for is a moratorium on this. I want to see us just step back and take the time that we need to put real strong regulations in place. And I think that we should be bold with what we ask from them as far as these regulations go. We can't ban it outright, but we can require that they meet some standards. And it's great for them to say that they want to meet those standards and they want to exceed those standards. Let's just make that the standard for data centers across the board if we're ever going to have them. I don't want to see the wetlands touched. I don't want to see fossil fuels being used to generate massive amounts of electricity and putting particulates and emissions into our home. I mean, they're going into the air when they have these diesel generators or natural gas turbines. There have been studies that show massive amounts of particulates coming into the air, and those are not going to stay in the port of Little Rock. The wind will carry them, and the water will carry them as well. I don't think it's outrageous to demand that any electricity that they generate on the premises be done with renewable resources. I know that they have to generate power there because I don't want to be paying for it out of my utility bill. We may or may not be doing that anyway, but I would love to see them generating clean electricity on site and how we prove that it's not their fault. How do we prove that it's not their fault that our rates are going up when they are pulling energy from the same place that we are? Is there any sort of record saying that we can point to to say that it's not their fault? Even if there is, is anybody going to believe it? um trust is not very high with government right now i don't want to put too much blame on anybody in particular um i think we all kind of play a part in that but i think that the government is going to have to do some they're going to make some pretty major concessions to get the public on board with this project if it's going to happen. Otherwise, they're going to see their rates go up and they're going to immediately think about this data center and they're immediately going to think about the mayor and the board of directors that let it happen. Whether or not that's grounded in reality doesn't really matter. That's the way people are going to feel and that's the way that they're going to vote. Thank you so much for your time. That's it.

All right, members of the city board, we've heard all of the from all of the members of the community that wrote out cards for citizens communication as well as the agenda items. Are there any more additional questions that anyone would like to ask?

got a bunch of director computers first mayor i wish you would define for the people here what we're voting on tonight what we're trying to do and what you brought up while we're trying to do this and secondly i think that we need to let the people from google have a response time to respond to some of the things that have been said. We have a very orderly system that you run, but in the end we've had two hours now of people talking about different things, and I think that it's only fair that they have a chance to respond to what's been said.

Sure. I'll do it on the back end. Do you have any response to anything that you've heard tonight?

Yes. And I want to thank everyone for their comments. And I want to just kind of point out just a few things. And I think that maybe people think there's a lot of distance between where you all are and where we are, but I actually don't think so. So one of the things that I've heard consistently tonight is people want to have more information. And what I hope I was trying to impress upon people is we're just at the beginning. And so the rest of this process continues with public processes that you all will be able to participate in. The studies that people are asking for, that is part of this upcoming process. So I want you all to know that we get that, and that is part of the process that we will engage in. Also, there were comments about having conversations with the community and taking tours. Sign me up. So that is real. I'm happy to go on a tour with anyone and understand better the community from you all's perspective. That is what I do. That is what our team does. And I just do want to point out, and I won't talk too much, but the team that we have, our water lead for Arkansas has a background doing consultancy for the EPA. Our energy lead previously prior to Google worked with energy advocacy groups, some of which are in this room. These are the people that come here and understand the impacts, and then we talked about the impacts. We come to Google, and Google hires the human beings that care about these issues to advise the projects that we build, and then we talk to communities that is part of our process, so I don't think there is as much distance as you all think. And then to the last piece about transparency, and I appreciate the comment about our website, and the website is not the final determination of where we have our information. Again, as I talked about above and beyond, the website is there to provide more information on a real-time basis to communities, the public process, which again is still unfolding. We could, again, if we were just doing what the permits say, and it's not just for the director, it's not just at the city of Little Rock. There are a number of different organizations that come in to regulate us. If we just did what the ordinances were saying, you wouldn't hear from us until the next permit. We don't have any permits just yet. The process is just beginning. And there's been a lot of conversations about gas turbines and things like that. I also, don't want our project in West Memphis, where we announced that we were building a 600 megawatt solar power in partnership with Entergy. I don't want that to be confused with the project in Memphis, that has a different operation. So I do, you know, there were some things that said, I just want to clarify those things. I hear what you all are saying. I think there are continue to be opportunities for us to converse. This is the beginning of the process. You know, we have an MOU. There was no other secrets that were hidden. This is the beginning of the process. The process reveals itself. There are studies that continue to have to be done in order to get to the next permit. We have to do things like acoustic studies. We have to do things like energy studies, water management studies. Those are the next parts of the process. Those haven't happened yet. We don't have any permits to speak of at this point. So I just wanted to clarify that I really do appreciate the feedback from everyone. We are listening. Again, and I invite you to check in on our website. Put all your comments there. It is helpful. It is helpful. And again, I'm happy it was Miss Narisi, not Narisi, but the young lady who said that I think you know, that we have those opportunities to continue these conversations. So I welcome that. Thank you.

Vice Mayor Ward.

Thank you, Mayor. Last week, I brought up the water use effectiveness, WUE and the PUE. And when I was looking at it, it looked like that we had 0.5 was the measurement that we were supposed to put in there. And then also there was a PUE. And I'd heard that the PSC actually monitors this. Brad, do you know if they do or not? Because what I was concerned about was that you get this data for a year and then there was no impact. But I'd heard that the PSC really did monitor those items.

I do not know that, ma'am. You'd have to ask them if they monitor that.

OK. The other question I have is I talked about the the noise part of it, the DBA part of it. And there were some that if there was an issue, if there was a violation, then it would take 30 days for corrective action. And then someone would have to comply within 180 days. And I stated I thought that was too long a process. And then I got concerned about the monitoring on it. And it didn't seem like it was real time monitoring. So have you thought about that anymore since last week?

There is on site monitoring at these hyperscale centers. So they have to report back to us. So we're not out there monitoring just on a day-by-day basis. They're monitoring it on their side.

The mayor said that there were penalties that were already set up in the I-3 zoning. Are you aware of penalties that were set up if they didn't meet those, the water and the power objectives and the noise?

There are penalties for any zoning violation.

are there specifically for the items in this ordinance that we're identifying with data centers ordinances that are violated or comfort under the general ordinance which is up to a thousand dollars a day uh five hundred dollars a day for multi-day fines so these items are covered then under our ordinance because it's an ordinance violation yes okay okay i just wanted to know that all right um this is a This is a resolution. This is an ordinance, but our MOU that was done in April of 2025 was a resolution. How binding is that? And by the way, I'm not under NDA.

Are you asking me?

Yeah.

Okay. Memoranda understanding usually agreements to agree. So there are things that have been done by the city and things that have been done by corporations with this MOU that they have steps they have taken in reliance upon what the city has said it will do. To that extent, if the city just said you can't put it here, not only do we have the violation of the state statute potentially, but we also have Did they take a step? by detrimentally relying on that. And are they deprived of economic value? And then we would get into a struggle of, well, you paid X for the land. So until you show us you can't sell the land or you can't sell it for X, then you really haven't lost anything. But that puts everybody in a battle, which is why lawyers are hated.

OK, so we have lawyers. OK, so the ordinance that we have before us tonight does apply to Google that we're talking about tonight.

It applies more to... My understanding is that Google's got a very strong argument about the 300,000 foot building and what can and can't be done with it. It doesn't have as strong an argument about any regulations being put into place that do not violate state statutes or federal statutes. that would deal with any expansion from Google. I mean, we've heard that there's going to be five buildings. We've heard that there's going to be outbuildings. There's a thing in the MOU of an accessory building, and I don't think another data center would qualify as an accessory building. So I think that we can take actions that will definitely apply to those. And the types of actions that I think we can take would end up being the very types of things that have been discussed here tonight. You've got different agencies that may look at certain things. Judge Griffin was right that the PSC isn't going to be looking at zoning violations. But on the other hand, the Planning Commission isn't going to be looking at water quality violations.

OK, so what are the what are the city storm water requirements in regards to this application or this location?

That would be for any industrial site that is at the port. Same thing.

But specifically, what would the storm water requirements be for? Because we've talked about floods and we've talked about other things. What specifically would that apply to with this ordinance?

I think

The stormwater manual would deal with that. And basically, in this instance, I think the major application is going to be that as they build it, they're going to have to build it in such a way that they're in compliance with the loss of waters off of impermeable surfaces and everything else that's already a part of our stormwater drainage program.

Okay. Okay. I think that's all of my questions. I'm thankful that we're finally talking about regulations or processes that are required with Google, but I'm like some of the people that have been here. I don't think it's quite gone far enough for us, but it could be the fact that Google hasn't gone far enough. You know, they're in the beginning stages of putting things together. And I do hope that as we go into this, that there's more dialogue and possibly amend the ordinance for some other things that might need to be applied here and here as people have talked about. So I guess that's the end of my questions. Thank you.

Thanks. Director Webb.

Can you come back to me?

Director Hines.

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate everybody's input. I think we find ourselves a little bit tethered to some germane issues, but we're talking about our zoning regulation further refining our I-3 use, which is where this business would have fit anyway. a heavy industrial use our heaviest industrial use where we're further refining this and putting some regulations intact in place may not be strong enough for some maybe too weak for others but it's a starting place they can be amended at any time they can be changed and i can have my economics professors blaring in my head. You never perceive the unintended consequences of legislation that you have. So you have to be able to amend it, change it as you go forward in the future. As we go through this process with Google, I look forward to working with them. I think I think I think our community is going to see a much, much better process going forward. And I think with all things, they bought over 300 acres at the port. the fact that 17 acres has potentially impacted wetlands. If you would listen to what the Google representatives have said, they're pulling down their Corps of Engineers permit to recalculate based on some transmission updates that I'm sure Energy and their partners have looked at a different way of bringing power in. So I would agree that this is not the end all be all. It's the beginning of a long process. There will be lots of cussing and discussing, and I'm sure we will hear from everyone again. I am ready to put this into place tonight. It's a good first step, although I know some of you don't agree it's quite adequate enough, but it's better than nothing because they could proceed with no regulation under our I-3 use. This is a further refinement. That's what I want to remind everybody of. We're putting more regulations on this particular business And I can probably promise you that if we had a steel mill here, it would be much more impactful to our environment than what these data centers are going to be spread over a 300 acre site. But that's just my amateur opinion based on 30 years of being in business. But I appreciate it. I'm ready to vote for any affirmative on this ordinance. Director Peck.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to everybody who Has been here for now four hours and 15 minutes. Not that I'm counting. Just a couple of things. There are some of us on the board that wanted to request a six month moratorium because there are so many questions that need to be asked. But frankly, we don't have no pun intended. Mr. Mayor, we don't have the votes to do that. Um, you know, a moratorium is certainly not a ban. It's just an official pause, an opportunity for more discussion. Uh, I'm very pleased, Brad, you and the planning department, all of your hard work that you've put into this. Uh, there's still there's still so much so many questions and I'm sad report that we don't have enough votes to go forward with the moratorium. But there are four or five of us on the board that wanted to do that.

Director Webb and Director Miller.

Thank you, Mayor Scott. And George and Susan and Richard and Judge Griffin and all the people who asked us to wait. I mean, Lance and I often disagree, but I'm going to vote for the ordinance, not because we didn't hear you and not because we don't share the same concerns. But if we put something in place, we can amend it. And we can. And I just wanted to make that statement.

All right, Director Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. And I also want to thank everyone for all the input they've had here tonight. It's been very helpful. As Google has stated, They're at the beginning of this process. I support this ordinance just to put some parameters in place. But I fully expect that once this process is going down the road and other oversight agencies are talked to and the public, like what they've done here tonight at the city board, will be at the PSC, will be at the Corps of Engineers, will be at the state agencies. We're going to probably learn more. And as you put your questions into Google's website, littlerockdatacenter.com, we're going to learn even more. So I fully expect, as we learn more information, we'll come back and probably do some amendments to this ordinance. But I want to have something. to have some parameters, just like Director Hines has stated, to start with. But I fully expect that we'll probably have some amendments as we learn more, and I think that's prudent.

Thank you.

Tonight, could we amend this number 12 city attorney and put some strength in here, some penalties in here, or should we just hold this and come up with those within the next two weeks and then add it at that time?

Director Adcock, there are penalty provisions in here. This is made a part of your zoning code. Violations of zoning ordinances are covered by the general ordinance violation provision. I think it's 9-1, but I haven't quoted it in such a long time. I might be wrong. And that's the one that allows us to charge, and we charge the maximum. It used to be $1,000. It may actually be $3,000 for an ordinance violation. And then if it's a continuing violation, there are daily fines that you can impose. So they're already applicable to this ordinance. OK, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Director Capiris, and then I'll give my comment.

Well, I appreciate everybody being here tonight. I appreciate Google working with us. I think there's a lot of issues going forward. I'm going to vote for this tonight. I support it wholeheartedly. I think you're going to be a good corporate partner for us. I think you have the will to make this community better. I appreciate what Brian does at the port, and I'm sure he will watch out after this. But I look at this as just the first step in a dialogue. And the dialogue, as you mentioned, is 18 months or 20 months or 25 months. It's 2030, you said, that we probably before we're going to know anything. And I also think we need to say thank you to Jay and Randy Zook. I mean, y'all have been here all night long, have not done anything but smile and kind of smile. try to help us. We have to always find a balance between having a corporate partner that I think will be a good corporate partner and satisfying what the people feel like in this community is not going well. And I think this was a great dialogue to start with. I think we've got great partners to move forward with. I think we also need to thank the mayor for doing this in one session, bringing it up, talking about it, and then getting us off, I think, on the right foot. So I think all in all, after four hours, it was a successful evening, and thank you.

All right, members of the board, I know it's been a long night, but I know there was a few questions. I just want to set the stage, and then we'll just take a vote for everyone here. I want to make sure everyone knows how appreciative we are of everyone who spent their time here tonight to ask all these questions. We were prepared to be here to midnight and we want to make and just want to make sure, as you said, the spirit of appreciation. So thank your prayer was answered. Secondly, I really there's a lot of information that's out there. It's it's particularly my job to make certain that I share the facts. Right, wrong and different, whether you support it or not. Act 851 prevents cities and counties from banning data centers. So there is a concern. About banning data centers, this body. And the county court did not put that in action, the state legislature put that in action, so there is a concern, please. reach out to your state representative and your state senator who enacted that. And so the only way it can be repealed is at the state legislature. We cannot do that. Hence the reason why this order is before us, because what we can do is regulate it. I can tell you that this team over here spent a lot of time and attention on these regulations. And because we have an existing framework, because cities have zoning, land use and zoning regulations already in place that we do day in, day out, whether it's Amazon, Trix, HMSS, HMS Manufacturing, Avco Steel, they have to go through a very litigious process to get approved in the city of Little Rock. And if they do not obey by those ordinances, they are fined. So Again, Act 851 preempts our city. This is our way of protecting residents within the framework of what we can do. It's easy to say no data center. The fact of the matter is the law won't allow you to ban it. This is our opportunity to do what we can. And oh, by the way, I won't be surprised. And so I want to encourage people to pay attention to the legislature. I won't be surprised what may happen in January. because of this debate right now. So let's make sure we understand that. Secondly, in regards to the inspections, we will uphold the process like we do in any other business in here in our city and hold their feet to the fire if they do not comply. From that standpoint, I want to make sure that's clear from that standpoint. Then moving from that, this creates a framework. I think many cities, I've talked to other folks around the country, They're grappling with, particularly mid-sized and larger cities are grappling with this. I think you've seen different things across the nation as well. This is, as many people said, this is a start. It's going to be a journey. If there's something else that we need to do to protect our residents, we will protect our residents. And then there's other opportunities through the other process that we don't even control, whether it's the Public Service Commission, whether it's the EPA and things of that nature. All we can do is control what we can control. That's our job. And that's where we're moving forward from that standpoint. So I'm glad we are able to regulate data centers here in the city of Little Rock from that standpoint. We've had three readings. All those in favor please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay. Ayes have it. Is there a motion to go to executive session?

Before you go, there was a request made by some about sponsorship of the ordinance. And if there are members who wish to do that in accordance with our things, if they would let Ali or me know tomorrow, we can get that on the final draft.

Yeah, I know definitely Directors Webb, Peck, Miller, Lewis, And had already shared that they wanted to be a sponsor, I believe, Director Phillips as well. Anyone else that I did name, if you want to be a sponsor, just share. I know you voted for us. That means you're sponsored as well because you voted for it. So but just share with if you want to have your name on the ordinance with Ms. Ali. Is there a motion to go to executive session to discuss boards and the commissions?

So moved.

There's a motion to second. For everybody to understand, that means you all can leave. We can't leave yet. We got to discuss boards and commissions, and then we'll be right back. So we're taking a recess. We're coming back to the session we just met on boards and commissions. We'll be appointing Tracy Cooper to the airport commission. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those in favor say nay. Aye. Meeting adjourned.