Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Please rise. Remove any head cover. I'm going to call on Commissioner Smith for the invocation and the pledge.

Please bow your head with me. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity to gather today in service to our community. Grant us wisdom as we consider the decisions before us, integrity in our discussions, and respect for one another even when we may disagree. Help us to always seek the common good, to be faithful stewards of the public trust, and to make choices that strengthen our county for current and future generations. We ask for your blessing on our first responders, public servants, military members, and all the families who call this county home. In your name we pray, amen. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Commissioner Smith. Commissioners, inside your packet, you'll find your minutes of the work session as well as the regular session minutes of July the 14th. If there are no additions, deletions, or corrections, I'll entertain a motion to approve those minutes.

Motion approved.

Do we have a motion to approve? Do I have a second? Second. Do I have a second? Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call the vote. All in favor, signify by aye. Aye. Any opposed, like sign? Hearing none, the motion carries. Agenda item 5A is one of our appointments. It's actually two appointments on this agenda item, but it is 5A and it is for the Valdosta Lounge County Parks and Recreation Authority. Ms. Dukes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, Commissioners. The term of Ms. Suzanne Garnett has expired. Ms. Garnett is interested in continuing to serve. She would like to serve another term. Also, the term of Mr. Timothy McCoppen, who was a City of Valdosta appointment. If you all remember, we have a rotating appointment there, so it's the commission's turn to appoint that position. But Mr. McCoppen's position has expired, and we have several candidates. One, Mr. Brent Moore, Mr. Herb Reinhart, Mr. Timothy McCoppen, and Mr. Brock McDowell are all interested in serving as well.

Okay. Any questions for Ms. Dukes? All right, at this time, I will take nominations for the seat that Ms. Garnett currently holds. Do we have any nominations?

Nominate Ms. Garnett to re-serve.

Okay, we have a motion for Ms. Garnett. Are there any other motions? Nominations? Hearing none, we'll close the nominations, and Ms. Garnett will be reappointed by acclamation. All right, the next seat is the one that is held by Mr. Tim McCoppen. I'll open the floor up for nominations.

I nominate Herb Reinhart.

OK, we have a nomination for Mr. Herb Reinhart.

I nominate Brock Howell.

I'm sorry? Brock McDowell. Brock McDowell. Are there any others? All right, hearing none, we'll close the nominations. And I'll call for the vote on Mr. Herb Reinhart first. Any in favor of Mr. Herb Reinhart? OK, that's one. Mr. Brock McDowell. OK, so three. Ms. Evans, you voted with Mr. McDowell. OK, so four to one. Mr. McDowell will now be the newest member of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority. Thank you, commissioners. Our next nomination or next position is for the Lowndes County Library System, the Board of Trustees. Ms. Dukes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At your July the 14th meeting, the commission appointed or reappointed Mr. William Booth to serve a one-year term. However, Mr. Booth no longer lives in Lowndes County. The library constitution requires that members reside in Lowndes County. So this leaves a vacant seat for a one term beginning July 1, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2027. Dr. Deborah Carruth has expressed a desire to be reappointed to the board. Ms. Sarah Fitzgerald has also expressed a desire. And we have two additional candidates, Mr. Dave DeSalvo as well as Ms. Kimberly Clyett have also offered to serve that one year term.

OK. Any questions for Ms. Dukes? All right. Hearing none, I'll open the floor for nominations.

I nominate Kimberly Clyett.

All right, Kimberly Clyett. Are there any other nominations? All right, hearing none, we'll close the nominations. And Ms. Kimberly Clyett will be appointed by acclamation. Again, thank you, commissioners. Agenda item 6A is our public hearing item. I apologize. The public hearing item. I'm gonna let somebody throw this out the window for me. We got it. I apologize. I normally turn it off, but I failed to do that. Our public hearing item is the 2026 Comprehensive Plan Transmittal. Mr. Dillard.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good evening, Commissioners. The purpose of this meeting tonight is to notify the community that a draft of the 2026 Comprehensive Plan has been prepared and is ready to be sent to the Regional Commission and the Department of Community Affairs for review. Staff from the Regional Commission, Heihara and Valdosta, as well as Lowndes County have worked on this plan in addition to hosting public meetings for the past several months with input from local elected officials, stakeholders, community partners, and have therefore prepared a substantial update to this draft, substantially complete, ready for state review at this time. So with that being said, staff recommends the chairman to sign the attached letter of transmittal for the regional commission, authorizing them to review the plan and submit it to DCA for their review, during which time the residents may also make suggestions, additions or revisions by submitting written comments to appropriate staff persons. A copy of the plan is available on the county's website as well as the regional commission's website. Any questions for Mr. Dillard?

There'll be still time for the local cities and elected leaders to review and edit based on their needs in their municipalities. Correct, sir. Along with the unincorporated county here.

Correct. Any other questions? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion.

Motion to approve.

OK, we have a motion to approve. Do I have a second? We'll have a second. Any discussion?

We've got a public hearing.

Oh, it's a public hearing. You're right. It's a public hearing. All right. Hold that thought just a minute, commissioners. All right, this is a public hearing item, so I will open the public hearing portion of the meeting open. Is there anyone that would like to speak in opposition to this agenda item? Anyone that would like to speak in opposition? Hearing none, is there anyone that would like to speak in favor? Anyone that would like to speak in favor? Please come forward and state your name and address for the record.

John Quarterman, 6565 Quarterman Road. And no, I'm not here to complain about anything.

Well, that's a surprise.

Well, it's got to happen sooner or later. I'm here to compliment the county planner for putting the draft comprehensive plan on the county's own website so people can see it. That's what I have to say about that. Thank you.

Thank you, John.

OK, is there anyone else who would like to speak in favor of this agenda item? All right, hearing none, I'll close the public hearing portion of the meeting, and commissioners, I'll turn it over to you for your consideration.

One more time. Motion to approve.

Motion to approve. Do we have a second? And we have our second. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call the vote. All in favor, signify by aye. Aye. Any opposed, like, sign. Hearing none, the motion carries. Agenda item 7A for your consideration is the resurfacing batch. This is PI number 0020532. It is for the local project delivery, and this is the application for the Transportation Investment Act. Mr. McCloud.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Resurfacing batch number one is on the T02 approved list. The local delivery application starts the process for staff to be able to manage this project locally. This project does include resurfacing a total of 36 roads at 52 total miles. The project is estimated right now a little over $13 million, and staff will let this project open three separate projects over three years.

Any questions for Mr. McCloud?

The three separate sections, is that what's bands? Band one, two, three, or is that something different?

That's something different. This is band one, and then we'll have three phases in band one. There's still a band two and a band three.

Thank you.

More to come.

Good. And this is completely paid for by the penny from the T-spot?

Yes, sir, 100%.

Are there any other questions? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion.

I move we approve the application and authorize you to sign the document.

Here we have a motion to approve the application and authorize the chairman to sign the document. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion?

DeMarcus.

Hearing none, we'll call the vote. All in favor, signify by aye. Aye. Any opposed, like, sign. Hearing none, the motion carries. Agenda item 8A is the Hickory Grove Road Widening as well as the Skipper Bridge Road Widening and this as well is a Transportation Investment Act project. Mr. McCloud.

Yes, sir. Hickory Grove Road Widening and Skipper Bridge Road Widening are tier two projects. The project mainly consists of widening the width of each side of the road by two feet as well as the work that goes along with that. Hickor Grove Road will begin at US 41 and end at the Eccles County line for 7.8 miles. Skipper Bridge Road begins at the end of the curb and gutter, section north of the bridge at the Vailasa City Limit lines, and ends at the Cook County line, which is 8.8 miles. The contract time is 180 calendar days. Bids were opened on June 25th. 2026, and we received two bids. The low bid was the Scruggs Company, $5,039,798.50. The other bidder was Reims & Son Construction, $5,248,172.38. Okay.

Any questions for Mr. McLeod? Chad, this doesn't include like a rumble shoulder, rumble strips or anything. It's just flat pavement widening two feet, right?

That is correct. And the restriping that goes along with that and rebuilding the shoulders.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Hearing none, Commissioners, I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve the Scrubs Company as the low bidder and authorize you to sign the contract.

Okay. We have a motion to approve the Scruggs Company as the low bidder and authorize the chairman to sign the contract.

We have a second. Any discussion?

Hearing none, I'll call the vote. All in favor, signify by aye. Aye. Any opposed, like, sign. Hearing none, the motion carries. Agenda item nine is our county management report. Ms. Davis.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening again, commissioners. In the interest of time, I'm going to steal Ms. Davis's thunder. You all may remember several meetings ago, she updated that we had received very positive comments from our CALEA recertification years ago. Almost 30 years ago, Lowndes County was the second local government in our area. I'm certainly one of the first in the nation to be CALEA certified as a 911 center. So Ms. Davis and her team just returned from officially receiving that reaccreditation. And we will have her talk at a later meeting about what that really means from a customer service standpoint. But there's some pretty heavy lift as far as our operating requirements and our customer feedback and the training of the dispatchers and our audits and all those things that go into that process. So Ms. Davis, congratulations. We are very proud of you and your team. Thank you. And the only other thing that I have this evening is the 100 black men organization are hosting their barbecue on the historic courthouse square this weekend that begins on Friday, and extends through Saturday. And if you all want some of the absolute best barbecue that you will ever get the opportunity to eat sometimes only once a year, please go check out the event. Also, the 100 black men do a phenomenal job with their philanthropy and some of the organizations that they support in our community. So If you don't like barbecue, which I can't imagine, drop by and give those gentlemen a donation because your money will go a long way here in our community. They do fantastic work. So if there are any members here tonight, thank you for what you do, and we look forward to seeing you gentlemen this weekend. That concludes my report, Mr. Chairman.

Commissioners, any questions for Ms. Dukes? All right, hearing none. We are going to, or I am going to take the liberty on making a couple of changes tonight on the citizens wishing to be heard. As most of you all know, after the meeting is adjourned, we're going to kind of have a discussion session. Ms. Dukes has a presentation that she'd like to make, and then we are going to be able and make ourselves available for any questions that you may have. Now, we're not talking about going all night long. We're talking about three to five questions, probably. We would be able to cover most of it. And then as we have opportunities in the future, if this works out very well, we will continue this on this particular subject matter. There again, so that we can let you know exactly what we know as we progress through this whole process. So again, please understand that I do have three citizens that had filled out sheets to speak on data centers and I think we can cover that unless there is any strict objection to doing that. I'm going to hold these and we will save any of that comments for the meeting after the session. But I will go ahead and get these done. The first ones we have Mr. Charles Dennis If you're with us, please come forward and state your name and address for the record, sir.

I'm here on behalf of the citizens that live Howell Road that they want to annex in the city. There's plenty of places in Miller Park.

Mr. Charles, would you please pull? Thank you so much.

That they can put that, what they're talking about doing. We don't need to bring nothing in the city back in the county again. There's plenty of places already in the city that have land that they can use to do what they're doing or they want to do. I think it's more dangerous to have it right there because the intersection where the bridge is at is too close. I done talked to GDOT personally myself. They can't even put a light there because of the intersection where it's at compared to that bridge. Utah might put an industrial traffic there too. All it's going to do is cause more problems for us and kill one of our citizens. That's mine.

OK. Thank you, sir. All right. Our next speaker is Mr. John Quarterman. Please come forward and state your name and address for the record.

This part may sound familiar. John Quarterman, 6565 Quarterman Road. And I'm not exactly here to complain about anything. I am here to recommend Like many other counties in Georgia and Florida, larger and smaller, could y'all please put your board packet on LowndesCounty.com so I don't have to file an open records request. Your staff doesn't have to satisfy it. I don't have to post it. You could just slap it on the website where under agendas and minutes for the particular date, you already have a pull down that says packet. You could just put it right there. That's what I'm suggesting.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, that will end our citizens' wishing to be heard. And commissioners, unless you have any questions or comments, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Our meeting is adjourned. Ms. Dukes?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dillard or Aaron, go ahead and get the presentation up. Do you want to start the conversation?

Yeah, sure, we'll come down there. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

No, just a minute.

Can y'all hear me? If I just talk? Are y'all good? Because I'm, I'm a walker and I'm a talker. And if I get glued to that microphone, and I'm not as comfortable and I'm gonna hold it. If someone cannot hear me, let me know. And maybe if we can just just do this, then we can talk. Sit. So this process was sent out to the media. I've already got some phone calls today and seen some traffic online as far as public meeting and the advertising of and all those things. So we sent out our notification last week. There's many more people here tonight and we crave this engagement. So we're glad that you all are here. But we've had kind of a core group that Dr. Noel and the folks that have been protesting and that have been emailing us, some of them we have met in smaller groups. I know some of you have also spoken with the commission. I know from some of the information that we've requested from Pope Langdale that some of you have spoken to him as well. But what we wanted to do is, many of you have come and spoken during Citizens Wishing to be Heard. And being that that's not a communication exchange, We wanted to provide an opportunity tonight for some of that, for you all to ask some additional questions. You know, we have told you during my report that we have talked to other local governments. We've been watching what's going on with the industry and all kinds of studies and all those things to be able to find more information to make sure that we protect our community from future industry. And I spoke with Dr. Noll this afternoon, and I think this is a positive conversation, not just where data centers are concerned, But if you look at, for instance, power consumption, there's three other types of industry that use way more power that could be of a concern if that is your concern. There are things that are much more toxic. I mean, there's heavier manufacturing that lives in other communities. So I think this is a positive conversation so that we can look at how Georgia is growing, particularly how rural Georgia is growing, and is there additional regulatory that we need to look at where those industries are concerned that we might also apply our data center conversation and process to. One of the things that when we'll talk about this in the presentation that we're also looking at is a standalone ordinance. You all may know that currently, if you go to the ULDC, there's a use chart there that talks about the zoning category. And then within that use chart, and we'll look at an example here in a second, it talks about what can occur within that use chart. I think that part of the concern that you all have had is that right now, because of the way that property has been rezoned, that a data center basically by right could come in and develop. And that's one of the reasons why you all have asked for a moratorium. And the commission has committed that even without a moratorium, if they come in with permitting, we're not going to allow a data center prior to an ordinance actually being in place. Nothing has changed to where any of that is concerned. Am I working? I don't think so. Oh, it's on. Yeah, we're good. Okay, technology. All right, so the purpose of us being here tonight is to share information and the county's concerns as well as hear more about your concerns. I have some cards here and some pins if you guys want to Pass some of these around if anyone is interested in writing a question down. We've got some cards and some pens where you all can do that. And then as you do that, we're going to ask that you forward them over to Dr. Noll. Dr. Noll will read them in. So if you'll forward your questions if you would like to write them down to Dr. Noll. I know that while some of you are very comfortable coming before, and asking a question. Some of you may not be comfortable doing that, and you might rather me read the question than the commission can or us providing more information. We won't be able to get to everyone's questions tonight, probably, as the chairman said, but we will follow up with all of them. Dr. Null is going to kind of be our screener for the priority tonight. But also, again, we appreciate your willingness to help us with that, Dr. Null, but we're not going to ignore anyone's questions.

So we'll move through that.

also i want to make sure this is very clear from the end this conversation this conversation in this presentation is not meant to make the case for or against a data center what it is meant to do is to start to kind of encapsulate the conversation of data centers, acknowledge what everyone's concerns are, and then how can we possibly put that into an ordinance that as many people as possible are comfortable with. And it's also something that, from a policy standpoint, the commission feels is positive for our community. So that's why we're here. We are here to facilitate the conversation, not trying to convince you that data centers are good or that data centers are bad. or that we need one or we don't. The purpose is to say this is an industry that in the future, like any other industry, could be interested in our community. So how do we put the parameters together to either say finally, this is not a good idea and we don't want to do this at all, or to say we think that we could and this is how. So that's what we're here to talk about. All right, so currently, this is where we are.

So I'll be coming around and go back to what you have. I feel a little bit uncomfortable in terms of determining what will be the question, but all the questions will be considered, and we're just going to share those We're going to have more meetings than that. So I'm not on anybody's payroll, just to make sure we understand this too. That is true.

He's a helper. I called him this afternoon to explain to him how we were going to provide this information, and I asked him to do this. So Dr. Null's not having secret meetings for the county that you guys don't know about. He is still very much a member of this conversation from the community standpoint, and we're very grateful for that.

Can you quickly explain what the ULDC is?

Yes, so the ULDC is the Unified Land Development Code. That is the county's zoning ordinance. Prior to 2006, We had a book of county ordinances that contradicted each other. They were individual ordinances. They were all over the place. They didn't have all of our supplemental standards that needed to be included. So the commission at the time, in 2006, created a consolidation of all of those founding ordinances, and that's what you'll be seeing. All right, so there's a lot of traffic in question about NDAs. No one's telling us anything. No, there's secrets. There's things happening because the county signed an NDA. The elected officials have signed an NDA. SAG has signed an NDA. I'm here to tell you publicly tonight that no one with Lowndes County has signed an NDA related to that parcel or a data center in general. So I just want to clear the air. There's no NDAs, nor do we expect that to be the case. But currently, there is absolutely not NDAs in place. Browns County does not intend to offer or approve any type of tax incentive, recruitment incentive, tax abatement, or any of those things here locally. We've heard that from you all as well. That is absolutely not an intention. Now there can be some state and federal incentive there. Locally, we don't have any control over that. If the state of Georgia decides to do something, or if the federal government has programs available that any industry is welcome to apply to those things and possibly be awarded. But as far as local tax abatement, that is not on the table, correct?

Correct.

Okay. Also, we have not received a request for any kind of plan review or permitting This is still very much a conversation with a local property owner. Now what we do know as far as that process goes is that there was a request that had to be made by anyone within a certain period of time to Georgia Power. If Georgia Power was the geographical supplier for a particular area, they had a system in place where people had a deadline or they had to make a power request. And then Georgia Power decided which of those requests might have a study done and so it's our understanding that the property in question has been approved for a study also very unofficially my understanding that study is supposed to start sometime around september and will take several months so as soon as we know more about that we will update you all as well To our knowledge, the development authority has not received a request either. The county works very closely with the development authority. The commissioners have routine meetings with them in the afternoon. I'm sorry, I've been stammering for y'all. And we've not had a today's request from the development authority either. Private landowner has shared publicly that they're speaking with DC blocks. I think that you all are already aware of that. DC blocks has built several data centers in the Atlanta area. I think most recently they're building one in Birmingham. There's an entire educational website about the Birmingham plant that you guys can find with an easy search online. We are in the process of considering your request, best and worst practices, other local government ordinances, and we have a pile of them, environmental concerns, and then this is very important too. Has anyone ever needed a little more property than they might have, you needed a little more room for your fence, or maybe you had an accessory structure and it didn't meet the county's setback requirements and so you went for a variance, basically you went a flight lane, went through another process to break the rule? We don't see there being room for variances where a data center ordinance is concerned. He did not say what I tell you. And the last part of this presentation is where we're moving from here. But one of the bullets on that slide is that the commission has asked staff to go ahead and move forward, working with the county attorney, all of you, all the information that we had gathered to start up developing the data center. So we will continue to look at that. But as part of that, unless we run into some legal hurdle, and if we do, we will explain that to everyone as far as the what and why it is. But we do not intend to let data center regulatory to be open for . And as soon as the ordinance is drafted, it's in draft format we will share it publicly so that the citizens of our community can go ahead and take a look at it and provide additional feedback before the commission decides to vote currently the timeline that we're on for that is we would like to have something ready for the commission to consider maybe at the second meeting in august or during the meeting in september so this is not something that we plan to let

run for months and months or even into next year unless again there's some legal hurdle that comes up that we need to take a look at there commissioners do you have anything that you'd like to add you're doing great you're doing outstanding uh which is the purpose that we're here because uh we all attended a lot of training seminars and talked to other commissioners that have made bad decisions some questionable decisions but at the end of the day There was a growing thing that we heard that they wish they had done throughout the process, which is transparency. And that's what we're going to guarantee you here today. You're going to know everything that we know and everything that we've seen.

The only thing I'd also say, and you can come in if I'm wrong on this, is the industrial authority, we appoint members and the commission to that, but they're independent. They're working with decision-making and we don't have direct oversight of their ability. We just appoint people there to that.

Commissioner's point there is if a project does come into the development authority, there could be discussions about that project before we're notified because the development authority is legally created authority that the commission to construction appoints citizens to. However, they understand the quality of this. I'm very confident that if they did hear from someone, that they would come to us and say, hey, we've got some data centers that are asking a question, or one of the data center developers is asking a question. So that could happen. There could be a discussion that we might not be aware of until they let us know. So back to the development authority.

Let's hold all of our questions right now and comments, please. Finish the presentation.

Let me give you some more information on the structure of how that works. All right, so zoning. What has actually happened as far as zoning goes? So on July 8th of 2025, so as you were here at that meeting, Hope Langdale, who owns this property in question... requested to be 719 acres to be rezoned from Crossroads Commercial and Conservation to M1 Lightning Manufacturing. There were seven conditions that were placed on that approval. Also for everyone who is trying to take pictures and all that, this presentation will be up and active on the county's website before we leave tonight. So no one needs to file an open record request for Mr. Boardman, you're welcome. For the presentation, it will be on the county's website, and I will tell you how to get there before you leave tonight. But I wanted you all to have these conditions in the presentation and somewhere that you can have a copy of them. They're already on the website in that meeting from July of 2025. But this just kind of brings them into the conversation as far as this particular presentation is concerned. We will, before we end, also at the end of June of this year, uh... uh... uh... uh... are more stringent than what you didn't even ask for and we'll talk about that near the end of the presentation but i will say and he and i had this conversation earlier today they're still not as stringent in some areas as the county plans to be especially when you look at buffers and distances and things like that you guys have anything to add all right so what is m1 zoning mean um i have listed Some of the uses that are allowed in M1. So if a data center never had to own this property, then these are other things based on that M1 zoning that could occur on the property. Now, each one of these projects can have additional parameters to them. I met with staff this morning, and we went through the parcels in Lowndes County that are currently zoned by RAPID, which is a data center to come in now.

And, Jay, what was the count on that? There's somewhere around 20 parcels, probably? Yeah.

And more rated areas.

I thought we zoned them, too.

yeah and you made a good point there please know that whenever we're talking about this geographically in our area we are talking about unincorporated lowndes county because these five cities that are in lowndes county they would set up their own regulatory and ordinances and restrictions for non-credit data center the lowndes county board of commissioners for the purposes of development and resolving they only address them in the incorporated area does everybody follow And there are tracks. I mean, we've spoken with our city counterparts. There are tracks that currently could provide for this inside city limits as well. So those conversations would come from the city. So if there's, not saying that there is, don't know, but if a project did come inside the city limits about Austin, you would hear from the city council about that. not from the Board of Commissioners. So I just want to be clear that if that happens and you all aren't notified as quickly as you thought you should have been, and then you want to come back and say, well, Paige, you said we were going to find out. Well, that would be a city project. However, there's a lot of conversation between the city and the county as far as sharing information. to make sure that we're consistent across the community, because you all are therapists in the city, you're in the county, you just want our environment and community respected overall. Our city is extremely responsible as far as conditions and going through this process as well. So, but there's no worries there. Over to the right, you'll see this use chart here. We put this here simply so that if you all want to go to the Unified Land Development Code on the county's website, or if you need a hard copy of it, we can print that for you as well. This is what the use chart looks like. So I just didn't want you wondering what that looks like. We wanted to give you a representation of that. All right, so there are also other zoning categories that could provide for a data center based on the current EULDC, heavy manufacturing, high intensity industrial, non-residential plan development, and then the supplemental standards for data centers will be ineligible for variance consideration. We've already talked about that one time, but I think that it was worth repeating. Also, the zoning categories that allow for data center development currently M1 provides for the least amount of impact. So if you go back to those things that could happen in M1, and if you're someone who lives in a residential area and you don't want anything related to commercial or manufacturing near you, all of these categories here can provide for uses that are much more intense. than the dates.

As an example, isn't paper mill like the M3? So just so you would know what the M3 is. All right, so let's talk about water.

I think that, you know, there's kind of a big three. There's water, there's electricity, and there's waste. Those aren't the only three priorities. I mean, there's also things related to environmental and other things that are conversations. But I think that when you talk about sinkholes, and we will, the biggest issue is the water consumption. And a lot of you who have said that data centers pull millions of gallons from the aquifer and that there's been other communities, either in Georgia or in the country, that have had water issues because of data centers. Everyone who has said that, you are 100% right. That has absolutely been the case. Keep in mind, they've been building data centers for decades. It is just now, because of the need for more, and because they got into higher scale and they can be so large, that it's become the conversation that it has today. So current data center water technology that can be required, the county intends to require through the ordinance, is a closed-loop system. So closed-loop systems do not discharge into a wastewater system. They work very similar to a car's radio. You fill it one time and it recirculates. When you say, what happens if you have a leak? We're going to talk about that consumption here in a minute. You want to talk about what happens in a discharge? We're going to talk about that as well. But it is a one-time fill. It is closed-loop. The initial fill can be required by ordinance. to be brought in outside of Lowndes County's aquifer. So whenever we talk to you all about all of the policy calls that we have been on, one of them was with officials at a federal level from the state of Texas. And Texas, the state controls the majority of the water in the state, whereas in the state of Georgia, you have local community control over your water. Texas is not built that way. And so one of the suggestions and one of the things that Texas had done to try to protect their water supply is to require water to be trucked in. That can absolutely be a part of Lowndes County's ordinance. We don't have to allow them to do that bill here locally at all. Also, any wastewater or discharge for maintenance can be required by ordinance to be collected and disposed of outside of Lowndes County. This is an accepted practice in other ordinances. This is no different than the current solar decommissioned conversation that we're having. We've got solar going up everywhere, not just solar fields. But also, you know, private citizens are putting them on their roof, so what happens when those solar panels are no longer needed? We don't need a landfill here in Lowndes County full of solar panels, so we need to make sure that those are disposed of outside of our area. Also, the water consumption for data centers that use closed-loop systems can be no more than that of a normal office for irrigation activities. I think that some of you were in a conversation that we had about the DC blocks visit. There's a smaller data center that's not yet operational, which is probably more of what they might be looking for for our community if the power is approved. and the conversation does move forward, if that were to happen, we ask them what the water bill was for that data center monthly, 60 bucks. It was basically the minimum billing for the office folks flushing the toilet and the kitchen folks using the break room kitchen sink and all those things because that data center was built with a closed loop system. And I want to make sure you all know these are conversations that we are verifying with people outside of the DC blocks area. I don't have any of their telephone numbers. We're not calling them directly for any information. If we need a question answered, then Coach Langdale is our point of contact. And then he sends me that information back in writing. So all of that can fit into that can be put into the ordinance. And I see everyone's faces standing here. That's a benefit that I have. The minute I say Pope Langdell in communication, everybody starts shifting and faces start moving. We have to work with him. Now that doesn't mean that we take what he says as the gospel and we don't, from an engineering standpoint, verify that. But every Tuesday, half of the staff in this room, most of the commissioners and myself, or in a meeting on the second floor. That is where development comes into the county for the initial conversation. It's called a TRC meeting, and they are advertised publicly. We have to have that same level of trust and conversation with every single person who walks into the county and says, I want to build something in your county. So none of them are bad people for having those conversations. Every single one of them has to be held accountable, and that's what the creation of the ordinance is for. So we have to keep an open mind where accountability is confirmed that all of this is going to be done in the light of day, and we have to verify those facts. All right, so let's talk about water consumption in general in Lowndes County. Y'all, this is fascinating information to me. So we've heard a lot about how much water data centers are gonna use. The average closed-loop system uses somewhere down here at the bottom, 600,000 to a million gallons for the initial fill, and then there can be a 60,000 gallon usage for just maintenance purposes annually if you should have some problems or need to do some maintenance. So let's look at who's using the water. So I went to, for the unincorporated area, it's our utilities department, I asked Mr. Stolle to poll me the five highest industry consumers of water in Lowndes County. So you will see what those top five are using here annually, where water consumption is concerned. This has already been occurring. Most of these developments have been in our community for decades and decades and decades, and this is what that current water consumption looks like. So then, I live off Skipper Bridge Road in a subdivision that has a private water system. So I have a flat rate water bill. So I'm not as familiar with what household consumption looks like, all the time, running irrigation or not. So I also ask utilities to go back to our utility billing system and pull out some samples of residential use that is residents that are in the vicinity of the property in question. So I'm not calling numerics, I'm not calling street names. You all can decide what you consider residential around the area to be, but we pulled actual water usage from those areas, and this is what we see. private homes in the area that are using 23 gallons a month, 20 gallons a month, 16. 20,000. Yeah, I'm sorry, 20,000 gallons. And this is not annually. This is per month. And this is not just five households. There are multiple ones that are using 23,000 gallons a month, multiple ones in the 14 to 16 to 17 range, and multiple ones in the 9 to 10 to 12 range. So we already use a lot here here here here here here here here here here here here here here So I asked DC Blocks this question face-to-face when we visited a data center that was under construction. And then this is the only piece of information that I have asked CODE to verify with them. And they sent me back in writing that they use nitrogen generators and compressed air for dry pipe systems. And then their administrative offices are sprinkled with CODE. The second question I have asked that I have not gotten an answer back on yet because there's not been time is, is there any PFAS or is there any other forever chemical that is used as a part of this development or in this development? Now, my product research, and what I think Mr. LaFaus will tell you, is that there absolutely is some, but it's not 55-gallon drums of it. It's small particles that are a part of the hardware technology that these servers are made out of. So I don't think that anyone can honestly say that there's absolutely no PFAS in a data center. But I think what we can say is that it's not used as a part of the fire protection system, even though that was a very accepted practice years ago where fire suppression was concerned. It's not a part of this project or their approach. But it wouldn't matter if it was some other developer. That would still be a part of the county's ordinance if we draft that moving forward. So I think I covered all that. Good. I practiced, right? So we're going to get it. All right. Sinkhole risk. There are a lot of experts. Some, like Mr. Fisher, who are legitimately an expert, and then we have others that, you know, we've all done a lot of Googling and decided what we think about sinkholes. I have spoken to several civil engineers. I'm familiar with all of the studies that we've done over the years. I think one of you spoke in a meeting several meetings ago about the sinkhole that opened up on We are very familiar with sinkholes. All of Lowndes County is at risk for sinkholes. We are built on that karst material, which is limestone. We have a lot of underground water. As it moves through the limestone, it can degrade, it can cause washouts, it can cause caverns that you never see. until they get so big, and then because of the either lack of rain or because it hasn't rained in a long time and now it does rain, the cover material can collapse and those holes open up. That is a crayon explanation of what a sinkhole is. Like I said, there are experts in the room that are going to be in one of them that can give you the finer points of the science, but for the sake of time tonight, that's how sinkholes happen. But that karst aquifer is not just at this location. It's not just on the north end of the county. It's not just around our rivers and streams. It's all over the county. It can be one of the challenges that we have with pulling water quality out of the ground. And we talked a lot about that some of you get those notifications. The treatment systems that we're working on are gonna help address that. So let's talk about sizes. A hyperscale data center can be 100,000 to a million square feet for a large campus, which would be more than one building. A shopping mall, you all can do the math and look at the comparisons there. We still have a lot of large buildings around areas where we have rivers and other things here and around the county. That's not traditionally where we can see the sinkholes open up. But could one open under this building tonight and the next morning we come into work to rubble? Absolutely. The only thing that you can do to get ahead of that type of prediction or to be responsible in planning where that is concerned is to be very familiar with what is underground, that geography throughout your county, to make sure that you're mindful in practice and in ordinance in how much water is pulled out of the ground. And then to require the compaction and the soil testing studies that we would for any other industry to make sure that there's not a vulnerability that could be discovered. Those are all components of the ordinance that we have discussed so far. And this is a conversation that will move forward. I will say, and Steve, if we need more information on this, can back me up, but we had one of our citizens speak during a recent meeting about a sinkhole that opened up in a driveway in the Foxborough subdivision. That was not a simple. There was a contractor that boards through that area and they board into a cavern and it opened up. The folks went out to look at that and verified that that was not an actual simple. That was a contract.

They put that crap on Facebook like it was a simple area.

Lowndes County does intend to allow data centers to use cooling systems that were require water usage outside, does not intend to allow data centers to use cooling systems that would require water usage outside of a closed-loop system, and the sinkhole should not be greater for a data center than any other large development. I know that you guys are going to want to re-attack that point, and I look forward to the information that you bring to the table as we continue that conversation. Power usage. This is what you're going to hear me say the least about because I know the least about it. And I don't think that we know what that could look like until Jordan Power completes that study later this year. But this is what we understand. That our study has been approved possibly to begin in September. It is approved. The developer is required to fund the needed infrastructure. There are many of you that follow the Public Service Commission. There are laws and requirements and agreements in place now that are wholly regulatory there. There is not a process, and again, this is a question for Northern Power to answer for you, not Lowndes County, but what we have heard is that if there has to be a large investment here to bring power infrastructure in, not just for a data center, but for any large industry, the cost of that development would be on the industry. and not something that would be migrated back to residential customers or other commercial or industry in a way that would satisfy that initial need.

I'll just say that the federal government, the state government, the Public Service Commission are probably going to continue adding laws and more regulations to that in the next year. We'll all be learning what comes out in the next session or from or from Congress. Yes.

And I also think that based on our conversations with Lord Howard, there are other types of mistakes that are doing and putting together more study information and more things that we can put our hands on and read and take a look at related to this. So our ordinance will be in place before the council. Yes. That's the goal of trying to work off of an August-September timeline as far as reconsideration of the ordinance is because we want to get everyone as comfortable as we possibly can and get the ordinance in place before the powers change. The power study is not something that obligates. I mean, it is, I mean, certainly something that there's an investment related to. I've never seen a consultant power study done that didn't cost someone money.

I have no idea what the math are or how that works or what the process is at all. Again, that's a question for...

Noise. This is a big one. So, some of you... may have had friends or family, or maybe you lived at one time on the 84 West area where we've had some industry that we've built there over the last six, eight, 10 years. We learned a lot about not just the waste from a vegetable level, but what I believe we have a greater risk for where a data circuit is concerned, and that's a frequency. So a decimal is something that is just how loud or how quiet someone is speaking. And we all hear that differently depending on our heredity and our age and how good God will show our ears. Frequencies are things that people who might even be hard of hearing can still sense. If you've ever stayed in a hotel, which maybe it's not a hotel, it's a motel, if you've ever laid your head down at night on a pillow under a roof that was not yours and felt some sort of hum in your ear, that's most likely a frequency. And you might not hear it when you lift your head up, but when you put your head down, you can definitely hear that noise. And so one of the things that you all asked for, that Dr. Noel presented back in June, was some parameters for this, and we are still working on Best management practice is related to that as far as the work goes. We are willing to look at any recommendations or studies or actual information that you all have related to that. But this is a big conversation because we believe that it shouldn't be that if you can hear the noise beyond the property line that it should be so low that it doesn't bother you. What we believe is that you shouldn't hear it at all. If those systems are in place correctly, then there shouldn't be any noise that extends beyond the property line of the parcel into anywhere else, whether it's just the next parcel over that nothing but the birds and the bees live on, or whether it's an office building, or whether it's a residence, or a church, or a school, or anyone else. So our ordinance will strictly address both decibel and frequency. Also, the conditions that were approved, that list that I showed you early on for this particular property, it covered noise there as well. DC Glocks has demonstrated their approach to eliminate this noise by now putting this type of heating and cooling units on the roof and then using noise canceling panels to go beyond that. That's part of what we have to consider as far as the height of the building and what's allowed in the order that's concerned there. But I think this has been such a conversation in other communities. Probably what we've heard number two on the list after water consumption is the issue from the noise. So this is something we're paying a lot of attention to. There are also other uses than Gimlin that have the potential to create noise or frequency issues, which again goes back to my earlier conversation, but I think this is a really good conversation for some of our regulatory in general related to our manufacturing for those plane development categories that you saw earlier. Lighting. When everybody wants to lay down at night and see that street light coming in their bedroom, or front room or wherever the case may be. There's been a lot in our ordinance that has developed over the last 10 years as lighting has developed and improved. We can require directional lighting. We go straight down. It only lights those parking lots. It can be shielded. One of the things that we discovered in our research is LED lighting can be great, But if you're someone who's sensitive to that blue type light like I am, I will dig in the furthest corner of anyone's attic if you tell me that you might have Christmas lights that still work, that are 10 years old or more, because I don't want my Christmas tree to glow blue. I want those old school soft white lights on it. That soft light, warm light, can also be required when we plan to as a part of our ordinance. So that bright bluish LED lighting is not something that's even on the site. But the lighting will be maintained to a site. By person distance. Again, this is something we're putting a lot of thought into. So this can be addressed beyond the current M1 requirements. Resulting in a property in question, address additional buffering. Now we're gonna look at the map here in a second, because what we did was we picked a place on that map to say, okay, if a data center develops here, how close is it to the nearest residential properties? There's also a buffer in place that you'll read in those conditions. We believe in our recommendation as far as the orders go that those buffers are not wide enough, so there will be a bigger buffer conversation as we move forward. But it's difficult to determine exact distances prior to the submission of a site plan. So if something were to develop on any parcel that would provide currently for a data center without getting that site plan, and site plans are things that we routinely work with developers on, to say, okay, if you want to build 100,000 square feet, it can go this part of the parcel, but it can't go over here on the property line or it can't go all on the right side or whatever the case may be. So we have some SAC regulatory already in place for that and it will be a part of the ordinance. Also, I know I mentioned this earlier, and I know that there's a lot of residents in the Foxborough subdivision, the surrounding area, here in the room tonight. Back North Foster Road corridor from Foxborough Boulevard to I-75, there are a lot of those property owners there that are interested in commercial and retail development. There is, as I said earlier again, we're expecting an application August, September, October timeframe for a large box retail grocery type facility. In our meeting, the developer did not tell us the name of that grocery store. It's just they said big box retail and we kept it. him and hon back and forth with them and they said grocery store but we expect that application to come in very soon and it will be on property that is very close to the foxborough boulevard area so for those of you that are excited about having a grocery store very close this could be a positive thing For those of you that are not looking forward to any additional traffic or noise that that could cause, then certainly you will go through the process and make that information available to the public about that project. All right, so whenever I said the what if, we have a hypothetical location. that is in the middle of the parcel that has been rezoned. And we took our software in our planning department that we have and we drew distances to the closest residential parcels through the buffer from there. So you all asked for a thousand feet in the list that we got at the end of June. This is the actual footage based on our hypothetical location. There are still wetlands to be delineated on this property. There are still buffers to take into consideration. There are still many ordinance. But I did want you all to see that the distances that we have here are much greater than 1,000 feet. And our intent as far as those tax codes and the ordinance is concerned would be consideration of that as well. I'm not sure if you all have anything to add.

There's so much train track here.

That's the train track that runs right through the middle.

The narrow strip, the narrow white line coming through the bottom.

I don't think I have a point on that. But if you all see the 2,941 feet, the white line that's closest to the number, that's the train track that runs through the middle of the bottom.

Instead of a line of noise, it's noise already.

So this is purely a visual to demonstrate what 1,000 feet would look like versus what is currently in place. If that was a actual location, and to tell you all that those distances will continue to be discussed. We will all talk about that as far as reports go.

The striped line, that's the original buffers. That's the buffers. That's only the 200 foot buffer. Yeah, that's it. Thank you. All right.

We talked a lot about the end of June, and I'm grateful for this list that Dr. Knowles submitted because it really helped us start the conversation as far as ordinance development goes from the expectation of our citizens. So you all bear with me. This was a lot. We would have had a lot of slides if we had tried to get all this in here. So I'm going to read through this list and just let you know where we are with it. So data centers, according to the request, shall be located at least 1,000 feet from structures of any residential dwelling, school, hospital, place of worship, or park. Distance will be measured from the nearest point of the data center building, including HVAC equipment and backup generators, to the structure of any residential dwelling, hospital, place of worship, or park. Our M1 setbacks already are in place. And then again, that distance is a conversation for development of an ordinance. The next point is lane use for the construction and operation of data centers shall have a 200 feet vegetation buffer shall be included for year-round visual screening. We see no issues with that, and there's already buffering requirements in place that are greater than what GLDC currently requires. Data centers cannot be in a sensitive groundwater recharge area with underlying harsh terrain and potential technical development. Per the Georgia DNR, significant recharge areas Hydrologic Atlas 18 and the Georgia Pollution Susceptibility susceptibility map hydrologic atlas 20 this is not a ground recharge period so we've already met that requirement however that would definitely be a consideration for other areas in the county data centers must be outside any thema designated special flood hazard area which is 100 year flood floodplain according to this list the western track is five 2021 FEMA maps. Some of you know, I might be aware that there's been some new maps that have come out where that's confirmed. If you go back and look at the right side of the railroad track, there's quite a bit of wetland in that area. So those wetlands would have to be delineated as well. That's part of the study that happens before any development reason. All exterior and At all exterior sites and building lighting must utilize fully shielded zero uplight fixtures designed to maintain existing night sky darkness and prevent light trespass onto adjacent properties and streets. The mounting height of all exterior site and building lighting shall not exceed 20 feet above the inch grade. At any property line abutting residential areas, the lighting shall not exceed 0.05 foot handles at ground level at night. So that is in line with condition five of the rezoning. So that regulatory was already in place there. Operators of data centers shall not cause or commit noise exceeding 60 dBA daytime 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. or 50 dBA nighttime 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. at the nearest occupied residential building or sensitive receiver. That was satisfied by condition six, but the county's take on that would be not at the building but it would turn it around to say it should not extend beyond the property line. Because what if you had a parcel large enough that it could be subdivided, and whenever the data center was put in place, maybe you had a structure on the far side of that parcel, well then you subdivided it, so now we have an additional parcel that I mean the data center met the requirement whenever they first built because you couldn't hear it there but now we have a new building that's built so we want to make sure that we look at not extending beyond the property line does that make sense okay um testing a backup generator shall only be allowed on birthdays Monday through Friday between 9 a.m and 4 p.m and shall not occur on federal holidays That is also an ordinance consideration. We have massive generators in most of our industry across Lowndes County, and this is not something that we traditionally get complaints about. There is a generator to this building that sits right outside my office. I lived in Naylor for 15 years with a train track that ran practically in front of my house. I heard that train when I first moved out there, when we first moved into this building. I heard that generator is something that you can get used to. You guys are absolutely right as far as the regulatory of those powers. And so that will be a part of our board consideration there. Prior to a certificate of occupancy, data center operators must submit a report from a licensed noise control engineer demonstrating performance. Costs are borne by the applicant. Barriers or mitigation devices may be required at the county's discretion. That was a conversation of condition six of the rezoning. We also have a noise ordinance in place, and those specific guidelines will also be a part of the ordinance draft. Use of backup generators that exceed the maximum sound levels is only permitted during emergency power outages. Again, that is language for the ordinance. As much as it costs to run a backup generator, I can't imagine someone voluntarily wanting to run one. But I don't think that that's an issue at all as far as the ordinance consideration is concerned. The maximum building height for data centers shall be 40 feet with an additional 15 feet for parapet and rooftop equipment not to exceed 55 feet. Our current standard for M1 is 60 feet. So we're not looking for some triple story building here or something that extends beyond that limit. But I think whenever we're also gonna put extra regulatory in place to make sure that if the mechanical that could make noise is on the roof, we want to make sure that we allow them to put up enough of a barrier there that it protects that noise from traveling. So I don't expect the ordinance to get much further, but this will definitely be a conversation as far as whether we drop to the 55 feet or whether we leave it at the current minimum standard, the new ordinance of the 60 feet, which is pretty standard overall. Data centers may only use cooling methods like closed-loop cooling systems and directed-chip liquid cooling to minimize the consumption of water. Super excited to see the direct-to-chip liquid cooling because that's really the newest method. It's not used widely. It could be a proposal for projects here if that's the direction that the conversation goes, but certainly beginning with the closed loop would absolutely be a requirement of the ordinance that you all have instructed us to draft here. There shall be no discharge of cooling liquids into public sewers or into the ground. We will require that material or that water to be disposed of outside Lenton County. We covered that earlier in the conversation. Also, we have a list of discharge requirements that are already in place as part of our ordinances, and that can be a part of the state and federal requirement as well. Any wastewater and its appropriate treatment is safe disposal, especially regarding PFAS, wherever chemicals shall be responsive. job you're talking to me at the center operators uh... back all day and work more and not only there So the last item on the list was prior to a certificate of occupancy, all data centers must submit a hydrogeologic study conducted by an independent third-party engineering firm showing estimated annual water usage, a wastewater treatment plan showing that any wastewater will be treated and disposed of appropriately, and assessment that the data center will not be located in an area with underlying harsh terrain and potential sick pool development. So most of that, absolutely. The karst terrain, as we said earlier in the conversation, it's all over Lowndes County. It's already under, it's that lime rock, it's under many of our developments already. Our color works and utilities folks can tell you how many times they go to dig a hole or we dig a well and we hit that material. And so I think that if we were to say nothing builds in Lowndes County, if it's going to be built on karst terrain, that would have a tremendous impact on not only could anything build in the future, but the consideration for what is already built. I mean, that's just a part of how our county, geographically, is created here. But again, can we make sure that all the regulatory is in place, that that doesn't matter, because we don't allow data centers to pool, or any other large industry in the future. We make sure that if that water use is done responsibly, certainly we don't let data centers pool out of the ground, because they don't have to. There's other systems for that cooling. That does not have to be a case in this conversation. So that's also standard practice for civil engineering. Some of the plans we already require those studies to be done for existing development as it would be. All right, so next steps. Where do we go from here? And this is my next to the last slide, and there's only a few words on the very last slide. So we're almost done. Next, the county, as I told you a while ago, the commission has instructed staff to move forward with a county attorney to begin drafting an ordinance. And while the ordinance is not being drafted to eliminate the overall development of data centers entirely, ordinance components will be drafted primarily with the protection of the community. not based on what is good for this industry. And the commission will pledge that to you. They all feel very strongly about that. I think you will hear that again from them in their conversation. And I think that there are some of you that have been so patient and have listened to me through this entire process, and God bless you for that, because this matters to me. I mean, I wish that we had a running for every commission. So thank you all for being here. But you all are the priority. And for those of you that want to hear from the county that an ordinance is going to be drafted, that just says no. We will never have a data center here. Lowndes County is closed for business. There are two things I think have to be considered as far as that conversation goes. Industry is important. Our average wages here in Lowndes County are lower than they need to be. We've talked a lot about affordable housing. It's important that we recruit industry with higher paying jobs to raise those average wages. That's important here to our local economy. Also, because of all the things that have happened in other communities that we already have information about, this can be done responsibly moving forward with the right regulatory whether that is a good fit for our community is still very much a part of the conversation will be part of the feedback that the commission gives us as we move forward but that is very important because i have worked here a really long time i have watched these six people hold expenditures as far as our general fund goes for the last five years. You can take a look at our budget. Lowndes County is currently operating at the same general fund expenditure amount in 2026 and moving forward in 2027 that we were in 2018. I've watched them get us through two, three hurricanes, a snowstorm, a flood. We are less than $3 million in finally recouping taxpayer dollars back to Lowndes County. That doesn't happen easily. And there's a lot of counties in our region that the taxpayers will never see that money returned. And Mr. Bill Tinney with ACCG is in the back of the room and he can tell you a lot about that because he's called myself and our emergency management director, Ashley Tye, and some of the commissioners to say, hey, can you go to your neighbor or can you go two counties over and talk to them about what they're doing to respond. I mean, the leadership that we have here and the responsibility and the concern and the conservatism on these things, I mean, that's something that as staff, we live with every single day. And even though these are my bosses and I appreciate them, I can say all that to make them feel good. The point that I'm trying to make is that you don't get that same level of the staff that we have here or elected officials across all of South Florida. Data centers are coming to Georgia somewhere. They are going to continue to build. We are saying here in Lowndes County that we are going to require a closed loop system. We are not going to allow water to be removed from our aquifer for a data center. Not every county in South Georgia is going to say that because from a local economy standpoint or maybe from a lack of understanding or research, or maybe they don't have a staff. There's one county very close to Lowndes County that our second floor, our planning and zoning and permits and inspections and code enforcement people will tell you that they get a call sometimes daily asking for copies of our ordinances or what do I do about this rezoning. That type of leadership and capability, education, and experience does not exist across South Florida. But guess what we do share with them? We share the office. I think there is a conversation, again, this is not a for or against, but if data centers are coming to South Georgia, they're gonna land somewhere. Is it here because the power folks will tell you they can only put in so many because there's only so much power, or does it go to a neighboring county that doesn't have this type of regulatory in place, and then we do suffer the benefits of our offer there. Again, that is not a for or against. That is a part of the conversation that has not occurred yet. And I think it's a part of the conversation that we ask for as we make the work. So in that, Dr. Knowles, I'd like to give the commissioners some time to take a few words. You can come on up. I can take your questions. If they've got anything they would like to add, and then I will...

I'm going to ask the commissioners first before I make any comments. Commissioner, do you all have anything you'd like to add to it?

I don't have anything to add. I'm educated on this right now.

Not other than what Paige has said is the truth. She has spoken for each and every one of us.

Yeah.

You know, I was just saying that, you know, I want to I want to clarify and reiterate that what Paige said is absolutely correct. She speaks for me. I guess I can't speak on behalf of every commissioner here tonight, but everything that she said, I agree with 100%. So again, I'm happy everyone came out.

As I said in the initial part of the presentation, We talk to those who have made bad decisions, questionable decisions, and experts. And the one thing that kept lingering that we kept hearing is the need for transparency. And that's what we want to make sure that we deliver to the outstanding. It's about safety. It's about doing the right thing. Because at the end of the day, you all know we live here too, right? At the end of the day, some of the same areas come across and considering we have relatives in those areas too, right? And all I'm saying is, you know, what I want is for everyone who is against it or for it to know why they are against it or for it. Because a lot of people are repeating what others are saying. A lot of people are trying to make this partisan. This party or that administration, our people, this ain't about that. This is about Lowndes County and the safety of our citizens. And we're gonna make sure this whole process is transparent. Everything that we know, you're gonna know as soon as we know it. And I think we'll all benefit from it at the end of the day. And so just know why you're against it. Know why you're a fool. Because you'll hear everything from, I don't want AI, partisanship. You heard about NOAA. You heard about these other issues that we addressed. But I'm just telling you, know your reason why. So therefore, when we look to incorporate or speak to it, Your voice is heard. It's your opportunity.

That's all I have.

I want to say back to what Paige finished up. You know, Lowndes County, we're the economic regional hub for South Florida. We have the size and scope to manage this correctly. We have the staff. We have the ULDC. We have zoning. We have permit departments, which you don't see in other counties and communities. Just like when we passed the burn ordinance, many counties around us took that exact thing and then implemented it because our attorney, our staff, our leadership can create the documents and hold people accountable to what is created. We've also all are getting great updates from NACA, the National Association of County Commissioners, going on visits and trips, touring, watching webinars. The chairman is very involved in every discussion with the State Association of get we're getting access to moratorium ordinances community agreements that other communities and counties in georgia and other states but mainly focused on georgia have implemented and some of these very now professional and all-encompassing ordinances didn't even exist six months ago so there's a lot of stuff that's coming out along with what the public service commission is doing the state and other regulatory so we're in a good position to do this right, and Lowndes County has the professionalism, the staff, and the size to make sure things are accountable.

Well, first off, I want to thank everybody for being here. And we do know that you have a huge interest in this subject And we're going to continue to gather the facts as we move along. We're not going to have all the answers tonight. We're not going to be able to give you every answer that you've got. There may be some questions here that we may not have an answer for. But what we will do, it'll give us a source to do the research to try to come back and get you an answer for whatever that question might be. We want to just be able to separate the facts from the fiction, and I promise you there's a lot of fiction and there's facts out there, but it is our responsibility to be able to sort that stuff through and be able to provide you with the information as we move forward to create an ordinance that's going to be good for the citizens in this community as well as also not slamming the door on industry that may want to come here whether it be a data center or any other industry that may be looking at our community our children and our families are my grandchildren I want them to stay in this community with good-paying jobs. I want those things to happen here. I don't want them to have to go off to Atlanta or another area to be able to get what they feel like are fair wages and a good job. I want them to find that right here in this community, and that's here. Now, we're not going to tell you. I'm a long way from telling you that we're going to give up the community just for the sake of industry because that is the furthest thing from the truth. We all live in this community. We've been a part of this community for a long time. A lot of it's as yourselves. raised your families, you've built businesses. And this community has been as good to y'all as it has to me. And I'm not going to turn my back on this community. I can promise you that. Now, are we going to be able to satisfy every single person in this room? Absolutely not. It will never happen. And so we have to understand that. But what we have to do is do everything within our power to make sure that we get all the information that you need. All of this information is factual. that we can then formulate it into an ordinance that will protect you doesn't matter where you live at in Lowndes County. We've already addressed a lot of those. And so as we move forward, we hope that this is just the beginning of good conversation, good civil conversation on this issue. And I feel like by doing this, this gives everybody the opportunity. Dr. Knowles I'm going to ask you if you've got questions on something that maybe has not already been addressed tonight in tonight's presentation then please let's hit those questions first and we'll do everything that we can to answer them for you. If we can't we will tell you that and we will tell you that we will get the answer for you.

And if there's anyone's questions that don't get addressed then Dr. Knowles is going to give me all the questions that are written down so that we can work those into the presentation.

okay first of all personal comment i really think that two words are important transparency and communication and if i can be honest please don't take this personal that has sometimes to be a problem in a way and it's not this is not the only place so this is a good beginning for developing a different kind of style how we talk with each other so that we can avoid the kinds of tensions that we don't need in the community. I just needed to say that. You said it. Okay, good. All right. This is a legal question, actually, for the county attorney. What if a data center application comes in before we download the ordinance?

So that's not a legal question. He advises, he doesn't decide. These people decide. And these people have said if a data center ordinance comes in, or a request, or a permitting request, or any plans, any of that, comes in prior to the ordinance being drafted and approved by these six commissioners, or five commissioners and chairmen, it will park until the ordinance is approved. There's, you all do not have to worry about somebody sliding in over the next four, six, eight, 12 weeks. However, that timeframe is, and there being something that gets in before that.

Let me add just, absolutely. Ms. Dukes or the county attorney does not have to speak on that issue with the commissioners. That, again, is our commitment to you. We are not going to move forward with a data center in Lowndes County until we have an ordinance in place before we will even consider it. So again, there has been no transfer of property. There's been no change of ownership on this site. Nothing of that matter has taken place. So we're talking about, at the very best, you've made it come out two or three years down the road before we ever even see site plans or anything like that. But as I said right now, we're not going to allow a data center until we have everything in place to regulate a data center here in this community.

And that was an important question. I knew you talked about it. I wanted to make that clear. You, as it was mentioned, PFAS, forever chemicals. And you will probably say yes, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Will the order specifically disallow the use of PFAS chemicals?

If you're referring to some liquid chemical, something other than what we know to be a standard practice and a part of, absolutely. And then what could be a part of as far as those small PFAS components, we want to know more about that before we put the language in the ordinance. I think we've got some very educated, incredible people here in this room that can give us some additional information on that and we can verify that as well.

I would say the newest things that are coming out is addressing the people and the vibrational frequency things are the new things you're seeing as what we're seeing in my studies.

Yes.

And added to more, you know, ordinances and regulations.

So they have to ask, are you going to get this information yourself or are you going to get left?

Oh, you know, you know, you know, the department

Let me clear up something. That's the very reason why we're believing the questions with Dr. Noll, because it is hard for some to be able to understand what others are saying. So please hold your questions if you've got one, but right now we're going to address the questions that Dr. Noll has on the cards.

I think I can combine the questions. I think I can combine the questions. I'm not doing it further, but there's another question sort of like How do we know that there's no interference when it comes to the decisions you all make You want me to speak up? OK. Sorry for that. I have to use a different voice. How do we know we, as citizens of this community, whatever ordinance entities we're dealing with are created independently from the influence of outside forces that might want to trick us into the kinds of experiences that you mentioned, I'd like to have some examples of those, that we want to avoid? Is that clear?

Yeah, I will add this. Again, we're still doing our research, as we've mentioned. NACO, the National Association of County Officials, HCCG, the Georgia County Officials Group, they're all working on this subject matter, and they're all trying to pull all these best practices together. To create an ordinance, I'll give you an example. At NACO, there was three of us that were at the NACO conference two weeks ago.

Which is the National Association of Counties for Ecoveterans.

Correct. And so with that, the big discussion there was just exactly what you were talking about. They're working with the Brookings Institute, which is honestly, and I'll just say, they're a liberal-leaning organization. but they're working with that group to create ordinances, templates, that all communities will be able to utilize. So we're gonna have resources that we'll be able to look at for best practices, not only what we've already learned, but also what may be coming and what other communities are discovering at the same time.

And I would add to that trust but verify, and I mean no disrespect to anyone in the room that may listen to or see this presentation, but from a staff perspective, whenever we get the information about a particular development, it doesn't matter if we just met you, if we've known you for two months, two years, 20 years or more, we verify everything. I mean, everything is verified from a study or from a written plan or from a reported deed or a survey or a platter or whatever the case may be. Staff has to go through the process of verifying all of that independently before those projects ever move to the planning commission or to the commission. There's a lot of accountability there, and it's never with just one person. We have an entire team that meets in that for the TRC.

Can basically just summarize some of the things that are, because they were already addressed to the degree. And it's all about. Who pays for the water? Who pays for electricity? Those are the kinds of questions that came up. And then also a concern about property values. How would you address that, for instance? Because if you're in the vicinity of a data center, however close that may be, that happens something to your property values. Are there any mechanisms to address that?

So at the request of the commission, staff is working with Lisa Bryant, who is our chief appraiser here. She works with the board of assessors. here in Lowndes County, and she is talking to her counterparts. There's conversations going on between our state associations as far as what those impacts have been in other areas. I think one of the things that we didn't talk about tonight that I have seen very unfairly used as part of community discussions with other communities is, well, let's just let it be worth the angst because we're gonna get so much money in property tax, right? That is not a single conversation. The only thing related to the financial impact that we have had so far related to that has been that there would be no tax abatements or any of those things where a data center project would be concerned here in Lyons County. So that is one of the things that we are still looking at there. There are some recently built data centers in Georgia that are built across the street from established residential. I mean, there are some communities, and even in the Atlanta area and the Rockville area, I mean, we saw in Douglas County ourselves, that the, I mean, you walk out to your mailbox, you cross the street, and there it is. I mean, it is right there. You can't see the sky, all you see is concrete. Yeah, we don't really see that to be an issue.

To be honest with you, as a commissioner, I can't remember a call that I've gotten that somebody's complaining because their value of their property has gone down. I get complaints because the value of their properties is increasing. That's when I get a call. So reality is, we're in a great community. We don't see properties here losing value. And so we're going to continue, again, to work hard so that we don't harm any of those subdivisions that's near a potential data center. It doesn't matter whether it's in this location who knows they might flip and they might pick another location here in our community we don't know that because we don't we haven't had those conversations or they may not get power and they may not get power you know that's the other conversation on that end so again there's a lot of things that's got to be addressed as we've said earlier before we can ever even think that there's going to be a data center coming to this community but what we're doing at your request we are preparing ourselves with the ordinances and with the regulations in place so that if one does show up then we'll be ready for it here in the community that's the last question i have from all of you and all y'all i'm looking obviously

No, I'm German. Sorry. Combined question, basically. Can you give us an example? This is kind of also in combination with community agreements that you may still be working on, too, when we get to the hall. Can you tell us of any town here in the state of Georgia that had a great experience with data center moving in, in terms of benefits? Do we know any example of a town that was happy to have a data center?

I think that that is a two-fold question. I think that you can make a column of happy to have it, and I think you can make a column of benefits, and I think that it's all subject to everyone's personal opinion. But those positive impacts are something that we want to look at moving forward. But I'll tell you, there's not any in this presentation, and you probably won't hear a big public discussion about that, because I feel like the minute that someone with a level of government starts talking about how to repeat positives then the community as a whole is going to feel like that government is trying to sway you in one particular direction or another so i think positives are very opinion related and we're trying to stick to the actual regulatory impacts of creating this work

actually one last thing I have to ask, I'm sorry. The question basically is that I got indirectly and I just translated. Are you looking at the data center application in a way as if it could potentially become your neighbor? That's basically the question I got. It's not in my backyard issue in a certain sense. Are you looking at that from a point of view of it could be me. We've said that all along.

We've said that all along. We're citizens in this community no different than these folks are right here. So we have a special interest in it. I live probably by the crow flies a half a mile from Interstate 75 where my home is. I can hear it. I can hear it all the time. know cars passing out there especially during the wintertime you know so railroad traffic comes right there by there as well i hear it so yeah we will never be able to be in a position to where total quietness or making a perfect ordinance for everybody as i said we're not going to be able to satisfy everybody we're going to try to create an ordinance here that if a data center chooses to come to lounge county that we're going to be best prepared to be able to protect the citizens. Not only, it doesn't matter whether you live all the way at the south end of the county or whether you live next to the data center. We're going to do everything that we can to make life as good as we possibly can for it.

I grew up on a railroad track and I know it dies down at night. That's the interstate too. So we're talking about a course in Northeastern that's 24-7. which is why we need to control that.

I get calls from folks in Foxborough. I get calls from folks in Stone Creek that says, can you please stop that train from blowing its horn? And the answer is no. I can't. That's a safety thing for them, and they're going to come through those neighborhoods with those horns squealed. And there's nothing I can do about it.

I feel like that. Also, they do have a strategic map that they're considering. different data centers are considering. However, it's based on main routes, highways, proximity from highways and state lines. And so I can honestly tell you none of the map that we saw at NACO looked to be way off, away from 75 or any main route. It was really on main routes. let alone trains.

Railroad tracks, yeah.

Does it exist in the infrastructure? You would have to build new infrastructure if you wanted to go further out into the rural areas, further away from residential areas, right? Great. Yeah. 18 points.

Commissioner Stevens, do you all have anything else that you'd like to add?

I'll add this. There's no way that I would do anything to hurt Lowndes County. My family's been here day one. and love Lowndes County. I'm going to protect Lowndes County, as everybody else is.

Thank you, Commissioner Weisbacher. This concludes our conversation this evening. We will take a look at the rest of the questions. We will have additional conversations like this after a meeting as more information becomes available. Anything in particular that you want to send to us, we will take a look at it. If you all have research or you have links or you have papers or studies or any of that that you want, if you want to schedule that private meeting with any of us, whether that be staff or the commission or a combination of, we've already had some of those meetings, we are glad to have more. I will tell you, though, if you send me an email and you ask for 20 things, it's going to take me a few days to get there because we still have, you know, 20 inter-services that are running the accounting body that we have to take care of there. But we are grateful for your time, your attention, your input. And as the commissioner said, we will continue to move forward in this conversation.