Board of Directors - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. I want to welcome everyone to our Tuesday, May 26, City of Little Rock Board of Directors agenda meeting to set the agenda for June the 2nd. Any questions on the consent agenda? The consent agenda, Director Webb?

Thank you, Mayor. I had a question on item number six, which is the amendment to the bylaws of the Little Rock Public Safety Commission about agenda. Is there...

Yes, Lynette.

And Lynette, I've got a couple of questions about it. First of all, I mean, we're all on several boards and commissions, and we have our attendance rules, and the state passes laws about attendance. And so are we setting? And basically, in my thoughts, that attendance should be made about the commission, not about a particular individual. So I guess I would just like an explanation of this.

This since a little more than a year now. And kind of their, if I were to summarize kind of their discussion on it, is that they were very concerned that if you had an individual that had like a family emergency that took them out of town for like three consecutive meetings, that the way the bylaws were written, that person would no longer be a member of the board. And they felt that they would rather see it if a person missed 25% of an entire year, that that would be disqualifying. But to have three consecutive be the thing for volunteers they thought was a little harsh. And the municipal code allows that the boards can bring forward proposals to amend their bylaws. So they went through that procedure and they're bringing this forward for consideration. Okay.

Is there an advantage or a disadvantage to having all of the commissions be consistent or do you think it matters?

I think every board is unique and I think this particular board that meets evenings, some boards meet at 7.30 in the morning, some boards meet quarterly, this particular board meets monthly and so They've created subcommittees and taken on other additional projects and they have really gelled as a team looking at public safety, not just in the lens of LRPD, but within a global context of other issues. that all make up, including juvenile justice interests and all of those types of things. And so they wanted to just make sure that if one of their colleagues had something that caused them to miss three consecutive, that that wasn't disqualifying. And so that was their proposal.

Director Webb, you have a resolution that sets a policy of 25% or two consecutive meetings. that applies to all commissions and also has a provision in there that if somebody is subject to being removed, they can ask the board not to remove them at that time. So as a follow-up to your question, if you want, for next Tuesday, we can just make this more than the Public Safety Commission and just extend our own policy that way.

I mean, I don't know what the thoughts are from everybody else. But I mean, I'm on a commission. One of the ones I'm on, last year we had somebody who I think appealed to the board because she missed a whole bunch of meetings in a row. And I like being consistent. I just am waiting for some of the commissions I'm on for the people to say, hey, why did you all do this? Or what about us? Or something like that. So I mean, if it were the will of the board to make it consistent, I haven't thought of any downsides to that in the last one minute.

We can definitely make it consistent, Director Webb. I don't think that's the issue at all.

And one thing that Lynette pointed out that's important is that you've got more than one commission that will break up into subcommittees now to take on certain issues. So the concern that raised this one would be one that would apply to all of them that do that. And if that's what you want, then we will redraft this for Tuesday night and just make it all across the board.

THANK YOU FOR THE EXPLANATION.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

DIRECTOR LEWIS?

WE PLAN TO REDRAFT IT, RIGHT?

YES. OKAY. DIRECTOR HINES?

YES, THANK YOU, MAYOR. DIRECTOR ROB, I'LL GIVE YOU MY THOUGHTS. I THINK THAT WE NEED TO BE CONSISTENT ACROSS ALL OUR BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS. I understand why some people may think it's harsh, but if you miss three consecutive months, then I don't think that's very harsh at all. I just think we ought to be consistent in whatever we're going to do across all of Oregon. Most of the time, it's just been 25% of the meetings, which if you're meeting monthly, that's three months. I appreciate that our folks volunteer. I'm on volunteer boards, but Part of the thing when you volunteer is there's an understanding that you have to show up and be present. And I don't think that's asking too much of our volunteers on our boards and commissions. That's just my thoughts.

Thank you, Director Hines. Any more questions on the consent agenda? Director Miller?

Thank you, Mayor. I just had a question on resolution number 10. As we do a lot of training, small businesses already. Is this the organization that we've used to train our staff? Am I looking at this right? Or is this something new to train our staff, to train small businesses who can?

This is, if you'll recall early in this year when we did our disparity study and based on the recommendations of the disparity study as well as the law changes as it relates to technical assistance for small and local businesses. You all asked that, okay, we spent, you know, half a million dollars on this. How do we move forward? This was the recommendation, and you all requested this recommendation early in the year, so this is in response to that.

Okay. Thank you.

All in compliance with state law. Director Webb.

Thank you, Mayor Scott. And I have one more follow-up on this, and then I have a question about another one as well.

On what directly?

I'm sorry, on number, on the boards and commissions. Yes, ma'am. So it's strictly boards and commissions. It has nothing to do with if we make it consistent, but we're not getting, we're not even assuming that it's going to apply to, like, the city board.

No. No. Yeah, it's only for this particular board.

Okay.

City board is different because city board is elected.

Um, and I, I do have a question about number nine.

Yes, ma'am.

Um, when we, you know, when we redistricted, um, we put a small part of board three in what is in the, uh, no, there's a small part of word three that is now in the targeted area. But I don't recall that we have allocated any funds to that. So it's really as much about number nine as it is a question about should I meet with some department to talk about some of the needs in that small part of Ward 3? Because we don't ever talk about Ward 3 in the targeted community development.

Well, based on the ordinance, the targeted community development is for Wards 1, 2, 6, and 7. so it wouldn't apply. However, we'll definitely always talk to you and figure out ways to be helpful as funds are available, but the ordinance is only based on Wards 1, 2, 6, and 7, not Ward 3.

Because Forest Hills and that area that abuts on 12th Street would definitely, through all other metrics, would... No, definitely don't disagree, and we'll figure out.

If you have some ideas, Chief Hubbard and I know. I just want, based off the ordinances, 1, 2, 6, and 7. Thank you. But you are correct. That's one of the areas where you don't let the perfect be the enemy of the greater good. Vice Mayor Warrick?

I think you may have clarified it, but what I recall from it was when we did the 1, 2, 6, and 7, then we went through and redistricted the wards. And so part of Ward 3 was originally in the Ward 2. And so there were already some, I think, some projects that were approved in Ward 3 that should come out of the Ward 2 TCD dollars.

Director Adcock?

No, I was waiting on number 11, please.

Yes, ma'am. You can go.

I would like a presentation on that.

On number 11, okay. Brad, and I think you had photos as well, Director Adcock?

No, I don't have any photos.

You want to keep looking?

I think, yes, ma'am. We put up them at...

It's underneath. It's underneath your, yeah. Yes, ma'am.

And if it be the board's will, it was asked for Mr. Whitener to be here at the meeting tonight. He is here, so may I ask him to approach?

You may. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

If you'll just kind of give us a brief background of how you've been involved in this, Mr. Whitener. Essentially, the applicant is refuting certain things based on notification, but if you'll just share with the board how you've gone through this process.

Okay, well, I kind of took over from Mr. Givens. Before you do that, is that what you would like to know, Director Miller and Director Adcock as well? First off, I took over from Mr. Givens less than a year ago. And I had been to this property before, but never inside, never really looking at it, so to speak. So Mr. Baldwin, it works for me. I know it went for the board like in December of last year, and they gave a 90 days to do something. Well, on the permit application or that address, we had a hold on it. They had to get a hold of me. Mr. Gibbons or Mr. Baldwin before any permits was tried to be pulled. So I was notified and I asked them to give a plan and everybody should have a copy of it. After looking at the plan, I asked them to go out there and take a look at the structure before I would agree to it. This thing is in a lot worse shape than siding's going to fix. I mean, it has no insulation. The top floor has no electricity. It's probably got an oven tube from the 1930s. I don't know. The plumbing's bad. It has no heat, no air. They're using it right now to store motorcycles. And so what they're plan, when I met with them, I told them that somebody has put stucco on the building a long time ago without any kind of vapor barrier behind it, which all the stucco's got to come off. The whole back of the building's got to come off. And they're thinking they could just put some vinyl siding, put lipstick on the pit. And that's not going to get it. I mean,

just won't I mean it'll take so much money to bring it up to code that it's not gonna be worth worth doing that so Thank You mr. Whitener questions director Miller thanks mayor thanks mr. Whitener thank you can you tell us what we're looking at I mean we got a bunch of photos here I don't want to go through each one of them but I What I see here is a one-page plan for development. Does it address anything specifically in wiring? Does it address any of these things? It's just three paragraphs of just very general things, but these look like very specific issues that need to be addressed, and this one-page, three-paragraph renovation plan doesn't seem to address any of this. No, sir.

That's why I did not issue them a permit. I told them to apply online so we could go ahead and turn them down or get us a better plan. Because anytime you have a commercial building with this much structural damage and electrical plumbing and mechanical, usually there's mechanical engineers and there's an architect involved. So They do not have ADA bathrooms. Somebody a long time ago, it looks like they had tried to make a daycare out of it. It's got some little small toilets, but you couldn't get a wheelchair down to get back in there. But anyway, the block wall, there's a block wall on, it would be the back side if you was from Asher. There's a block wall there. That is not a structural wall. I have no idea why it's there. I mean, there's a crack between that and the original structure about that wide that water just goes behind. It's going to end up rotting in whatever hadn't been rotted out yet. The windows are busted out. It has no insulation value in it. The roof is shot. The whole back part, as you can see, there's some pictures of the cracks where it had some, it's what we call OSB. It's not plywood. It's more like a particle board. And once it gets wet, it starts swelling. And stucco wicks water without putting any kind of a vapor barrier or felt paper or something behind it. It's just going to wick the water in. So there's There's no telling what's rotted behind it. And so all of the stucco was cracking almost everywhere on it. It's just in bad shape.

So let me ask you, to your understanding, they hadn't had a structural engineer draw up any plans for this?

Nothing.

I have this three-page. This is all you've received? Nothing from any kind of engineer they hired or? Talk about electricity or foundation or anything like that? No, sir. Now, they said that they had applied for permits during this 90 days and we didn't grant it to them.

No, sir. What I do know is, like I said, there was a flag on the property. And when I seen the flag, my name was on it since Mr. Gibbons is not here anymore. He retired. And so I asked for a plan. That's what I got, was this three-paragraph thing.

And this plan is dated today? I mean, no, it's April 27th. Was that within the 90 days? No, sir. That was after the 90 days that we said we wanted to give them? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you.

With the Neighborhood Association Saturday, And they want this item to come down. It has said they're in the beginning of their neighborhood. They've got new homes being built. I think they've got either four or five new homes right down the street from here. They have waited excitedly for this to be torn down. for something else to be put in its place. So I would like to ask the board, please, let's let the neighborhood have something pretty. They've got new houses, which they're very excited about the new houses they're having. And it's time this came down. I've lived in Little Rock the majority of my life, and it seems like this has always been there. And it didn't look much better than that when it was Mike's Grocery, and people would go by there and eat a bologna sandwich for lunch. And it's time that we gave the neighborhood what they would like to have in their neighborhood. Thank you.

All right. Item number 12. Let me go ahead and bring, I'm just going to bring Brad up. Let's see if we have questions. I was going to let Brad do an overview.

The ordinance online does not have the most recent changes.

Just go to the website. If you go to the front page of the Little Rock website, you'll see it there. All right. Yes, sir. Director Miller, before we give an overview, did you want to ask a question? I was going to go straight into the overview. Okay.

Maybe the overviews first, but I have an even bigger question. Just where are we with this? I mean, are we at the point as a board where we can, have we already said this was going to happen? I mean, I don't know. I get so much from people that are saying, what are you guys doing? You've already approved it or you hadn't approved it. Now we're putting some regulations in about what we want future developments to look like, which I think is great, and I certainly support it. I just don't know what we have the power to do or not do at this point.

Well, first and foremost, you should know a couple different things. We're full within our local authority to do this. Our city attorney personally drafted it. We've also worked with our utility partners throughout even this weekend to make sure everything is in compliance from various regulatory governing opportunities from that standpoint. It does, driven in the lens of Act 851 as well, And so it's on the agenda. It's up to the city board to vote up or down. I do know many people, we also have scheduled even before there's a vote on, before this vote takes place next week, that our utility partners will be here to answer any questions. What they're directly involved in being Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority, Central Arkansas Water, as well as Google will be here as well. So All questions will be asked and answered on June 2nd. It's up to the city board to decide if they want to regulate the data centers or not. But it's on the agenda. And public comment will happen there as well.

Now, when you say it's up to the city board to regulate, it's not up to the city. We're not voting to say if it's going to happen or not.

Well, you're voting on the ordinance. So, yes.

Okay.

Well, just one second. Correct So the ordinance is now giving us I guess the jurisdiction to have the regulations Yeah, let me maybe if I repeat it back this ordinance First and foremost, just like any other business within the city of Little Rock that has to deal with development, the city of Little Rock has planning and zoning ordinances and rules and regulations. The city has the right to put those rules and regulations by law as long as it does not conflict with state law. And so, A, there's nothing in this ordinance that conflicts with state law, per our city attorney and his entire legal team. That's number one. Because this, we've decided through this to, as I shared last week with everyone, when I shared the proposal, this now has, due to a lot of the contention that we are seeing here in our city, this state, this region, this nation, that we have clearly defined how data centers at three different categories will operate within the city of Little Rock based on our rules and regs that, again, do not conflict with state law and are within our authority based on the three levels, whether it's accessory data centers, major data centers, and hyperscale data centers. For everyone, all intents and purposes, everybody has a data center. The city of Little Rock has a data center. Ours would probably be, yeah, so ours would probably fall under what they call, would be considered accessory data center. UAMS has a data center. Baptist Hospital, Dillard's has a data center. There are data centers in the city of Little Rock today. The main contention has been with primarily hyperscale, some to some extent, Major, but more so the major is all based on where they're located. This clearly defines that if there is to be a data center in Little Rock, going forward, be very clear, hyper or accessory, it talks through this and then we'll go through the overview. Going forward, they will be in specifically in industrial areas and not in neighborhoods. It makes certain that that doesn't happen. If anything, that's the key indicator here is to ensure that there are no hyperscale data centers in the South End or in College Station or in Hillcrest or Heights or in Pleasant Valley. And so within their neighborhoods, that is what this does. Again, it does not conflict with state law. It goes forward. And I also want to be very clear because we do know We have data centers that are in place with some of our partners that take care of the life and safety of people like UAMS. They have a data center. And so we also make certain there's any convolution or any discrepancy that the existing data centers that are here, that have already been built, been operating, many of which 20, 30, 40 years, they're grandfathered in. They don't have to be a part of that process because they're already here and they operate and they take care of our medical facility. That's more from a medical standpoint. And so I hope that answers everything. Does that answer? Awesome. Director Hines.

Thank you. And to be very clear, we've already approved the Google Data Center. It is approved. We approved it last year. When we came out, we were very upfront with everybody that it was a hyperscale data center. We just couldn't tell anybody who the actual customer was. But we were very open and clear. You're going to find out in the coming days and weeks that all of this opposition to these data centers and energy is being ginned up in China. They are trying to stop our progress in AI and win the AI race. That's where all of this is coming from. We were very clear on what we were doing. We just couldn't tell you who it was until I think it was either November or December. And the legislature took measures to restrict and preempt us. So I think you ought to take a look at who's funding these groups that are in opposition to this. It's coming out of China. They're being funded. It's all going to come out in the next days and weeks. And I find it very odd that... Everybody acts like we did. And the current Google data center is in an I3. It's in our heaviest industrial use. So it was regulated. That's where we fit it within our current zoning. This is just another layer of zoning that specifies that's where they're going to go. That's where they decided to put it. Much of the mystery surrounding this is people don't want to believe the facts, the truth. All right? No matter how much you tell them, they just don't want to believe it. They want to believe what they're reading for some troll farm out of China or some of these left-wing socialist communist groups that are stirring up all this opposition. That's where it's coming from. I'm going to call it out for what it is. It's socialism and communism trying to stop this country from advancing and probably it's going to be the biggest frontier we'll see in our lifetimes. And please, everybody's acting all these emails. Oh, we have a public. We have a public hearing next Tuesday night, 6 p.m. Please come in. Sign up cards. Talk to us. But I plan on voting on this. It's regulations that I'm pretty sure the Google struck facility already going in already meets all these requirements or exceeds them.

Thank you. Excuse me. Director Webb, your hand up.

I mean, I'll wait till after Brad makes the presentation, but with all due respect, I don't think my friends in the Sierra Club are getting paid out of China to be opposed to it. But I'll ask my questions after Brad makes his presentation.

Vice Mayor Weir.

I'll wait for Brad's presentation.

All right. Brad, one, give a... Brief, not brief, go, just go.

I will be as brief as I possibly can, sir. I tend to cannibalize this podium. But again, the purpose is really to establish a clear regulatory framework for data center development in Little Rock, responding to the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure, cloud computing, hyperscale facilities, and crypto operations. It balances economic development opportunities for protections for Utility reliability, residential neighborhoods, environmental quality, and long-term infrastructure capacity. Provides predictability for applicants and the public by defining what is allowed, where, and under what standards. So just real quick, we broke this up into three different tier classifications. The smallest one being the accessory data center. The next would be the major data center. And, of course, we've spoke about the hyperscale data center, which would be the Google data center. We have put where these uses can be allowed. Accessories are CUPS in C3, C4. They are permitted in I1, I2, and I3. Major is a CUP in I1, I2, permitted in I3. Hyperscale is only permitted in I3. They are not permitted in any other district. We go through things like air quality, water cooling, noise, setbacks, buffers, parking, all of the things that you've probably all heard about. Me and my staff, we have done a deep dive into all of the available reference material from across the country that helped us. And we worked with APA, we worked with the city attorney's office, and Tom, thank you you and your staff, to come up with something that fits Little Rock. And I agree with Director Hines. This is the next frontier. And if we do fall behind, we will be lacking in the next 20 or 30 years.

And so members of the board, again, for those who love planning and zoning, there's a lot of meat in here. That hence the reason why it's 12 and Also to Hannah and Mark, if you all would raise your hand. They played a role in the entire legal team with Tom. So Tom, just again, thank you all. I know there's been a lot of effort put in this to hopefully create a model for the state of Arkansas from that standpoint. Any questions? Director Webb?

Mayor, and I appreciate that, Brad, and I know next week we're going to have folks from the utilities and stuff. I do see somebody from Entergy here, and is it appropriate, do you want us just to hold the Entergy questions until next week?

I mean, you're a city director. I mean, normally we do not, but if you want that, I'll extend that privilege.

And I can certainly ask the question verbally and then ask for a written response, if that would be okay? Okay.

Yes, but let's just bring Mr. Bethel up. I'll just extend that privilege.

Sorry. Sorry, John.

For those in the room, Mr. John Bethel is one of the leaders at Energy Arkansas and more than 30 years as the Executive Director of Arkansas Public Service Commission.

Hi, good afternoon, board members.

Yes, sir. Some of the main questions that we get are about electric rates.

I think you ought to start asking them right now.

And I asked, and I read the press release about fair share plus, but that has not stopped the emails from coming in about electric rates. And so, I mean, do you, is fair share plus, and also there's a lot of skepticism about some of the things that you all are saying. So would you address the fair share plus, and then could I ask you about the issue that's going to be on the ballot in November?

Yes. I'll take your first question, then I'll- One sec.

What's the issue on the ballot? What are you talking about?

The issue that the legislature put forth about utilities and economic development, I think that is going to be on the ballot in November.

It's the- Are you talking about issue three?

Yeah.

That's more on development, not utilities.

That's not a utility issue. I can address your first question. I don't think I can address your second question because I think as the mayor pointed out, I don't think that's exclusively utilities and I'm not prepared to, I need more information before I would be comfortable.

I'll address issue three for the board.

That'd be great. But Fair Share Plus, and I can tell you that our CEO of Entergy Corporation, Drew Marsh, our President and CEO, Laura Landreau of Entergy Arkansas, both spoke to the Economic Development Foundation a couple of weeks ago, and they both stressed that under our Fair Share Plus plan, our pledge to our customers, We are going to contract with and serve data center customers in a way that ensures that those customers pay the costs of serving them, and those customers will provide benefits to all other customers. They will pay the direct costs. If we have to build facilities to serve them, they're going to pay for those. They'll pay in direct costs that are necessary to serve, incremental costs that are necessary to serve them. And they will pay rates that result in benefits to other customers, and they will bring other benefits to customers. By way of example, the Google Data Center in West Memphis is going to provide about $1.1 billion in benefits to other rate payers over the life of the contract with that customer. In addition to that, that customer has announced plans to provide a $25 million investment fund, energy assistance fund, that will help weatherize homes in and around West Memphis and Crittenden County. That is over a period of years, and they've established a board that includes local representation to help determine where that money is going to be spent and how that money is going to be spent. They have also agreed to provide funding for Arkansas State University, the University of Arkansas, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the community college in West Memphis, community college in Forest City to provide programs to educate students to take the jobs that will be available at school. that data center. And so those are representative of benefits that those customers bring to a community. I would encourage you if you have questions, contact your peers at West Memphis, see what their thoughts are on their experience. But as far as the fair share plus promise from Entergy is we are going to contract with those customers in a way that they pay their cost of service and they bring benefits to other customers. And an example of that and the most recent example of that would be our contract with Google. And if we have to enter a contract with a customer, the Public Service Commission has to approve that. We have to show the Public Service Commission that that contract is reasonable and in the public interest and benefits other customers. The established tests at the Public Service Commission for a contract with a customer require that. And so we've met those. The Public Service Commission approved our contract with Google and West Memphis. And so I would anticipate going forward we would contract with other data centers similarly because that's what we've committed to do. Our top officials have made that commitment publicly. We've issued, by way of example, when the president held his ratepayer protection summit at the White House and called in all of the tech company executives to make the pledge that they were going to take steps to protect customers in the communities that they operated in. the one utility that was called out in all of the United States was Entergy Arkansas. And there was a comment by the chief, I think it's the chief customer officer, chief operating officer of Google that pointed out that what's happening in Arkansas with Entergy Arkansas and Google is representative of the right way to do things for customers and to benefit customers from an electric utility standpoint.

So to be clear, If there are rate increases from Entergy in the next however many years, they will not be related to either directly to a data center or even indirectly to a data center.

The rate increases customers are going to see and that you're seeing currently are for building resources to serve all of our customers and to build poles, wires, and other facilities to make sure that customers have reliable electric service, that we can restore power when storms happen, that we can do it with – that we can – reduce the impact of storms on our system to help customers not have as many outages or not have as long an outage when storms come. We're investing in our system and rates are increasing to compensate for that and that when we contract with a data center customer over the life of their contract they will pay for the cost to serve them and they will provide benefits to all other customers. No, no, that's okay. I don't mind. And so while I'm up here, any other questions? I guess, Mayor, I guess that's your call.

Any other questions for Mr. Bethel? Director Miller, you got a question for Mr. Bethel?

Not necessarily. I know that you just went over three types of data centers. We have three definitions. You have a data center already. Yes, sir, we do. What definition does it fall under? We don't have any hyper data centers. We don't have a number three.

No, we do not have a hyper data center as it stands here in the city of Little Rock. Okay.

Energy would probably be a major data center. And as far as ours, it's more than likely in the accessory or major category. I don't know specifically the characteristics of it, but it's been in place for a long time and there are a lot of data centers throughout the city that have been in place for a long time. Several companies have them. And that's one area where as you apply that terminology in the ordinance as you're looking at that is to make sure you don't cause issues for those data center customers that have been around for a long time, and there may be future data center customers of the same characteristic that you may not want to alter where they go because, by example, those that have been here have been here a long time, and I don't think anybody's noticed. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Bethel. You're very welcome. Thank you.

No, I'm good. I'm good.

Mr. Belt, the only thing I would encourage, and I know you all are working to do it, is as it relates to, I think that more simply, everyone's concern is there going to be a cost shift. And if the answer is no, I highly encourage that you all tell people it's not just a press release. It needs to be on social media. It needs to be on the radio, some type of campaign, because people believe that. But if the answer is no, I think it needs to deepen a little bit more. Yes, sir.

And we're going to continue doing that. We have put that out on our social channels. If you look at the Intergy Arkansas social, it's there. And if you need support from us to help inform your constituents, please contact me, contact the others at Intergy. We're eager to help you answer questions that you receive and are glad to be of assistance. And we will have folks here next week when the ordinance is taken up formally. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Yes, just some things I want to share because I'm probably like my colleagues are getting a lot of emails from people that have concerns and say they want to have some type of public hearing or town hall meeting. To me, next Tuesday would be that meeting. Now, what I would really want to do and make sure word gets out, I get a lot of questions from people concerns who are saying, I got questions and they're not being answered. I got questions. I don't know what these questions are. Ain't nobody showed me these questions. If you have these questions that have not been answered, put them in writing prior to the town hall meeting. We're going to have a town hall meeting next Tuesday. And for all these folks who are sending me correspondence and everybody else correspondence about, I got questions, what are your questions? Put your questions in writing. You got a whole week. Maybe we can respond to some of those questions before next Tuesday. And so I want to encourage the public to do that. Because generally what happens is a town hall meeting, it'd be emotional. You get all that. There's a certain number of people, and I've heard from these folks, who I don't want a data center. I don't care where it is.

I accept those people. That's fine.

They don't want data centers. Period. Got to listen to them. But then I got people who say, I don't know if I'm for or against the data center. I have some questions. And so what I want to do is try to encourage folks, because we got seven days. This is a seven-day town hall meeting, in effect. It starts now. It started before that. Put your questions in. We got a website, the city. Put your questions in that. Let's see if we can answer some of those now. Don't be sitting up here saying in public, I got questions. What are your questions? If you ain't asking them, what are they? You saying the press release didn't answer questions. Well, what are your questions that wasn't answered in the press release? Don't go around saying I got questions that are not being answered when you can't ask us what the question, when you can't even tell us what the question is. That's what I'm trying to get, because I understand that camp of folks who say, I don't know if I'm for or against a hyper data center. Heck, they don't even know we got a bunch of data centers already that are accessory or major. I don't know if the people who said they don't want data centers probably didn't want those either. They didn't know. So the people just have a lot of, there's a lot of misinformation going around, there's a lot of confusion going around. But for these people who send me these emails who are saying, stop, I got questions, put your questions in writing. Send your questions to us. You got seven days that we can hopefully address your concerns. before next Tuesday. Because if you bring questions next Tuesday and we're going to be asked to vote on the ordinance next Tuesday, that's going to be pretty tight. But you got seven days now in which to put your questions in writing and hopefully get a response to that. I just had to get that off my chest. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Vice Mayor Wirt.

Thank you, Mayor. Brad. I have a couple of questions. I kind of went about this kind of a different way. I started looking at our MOU that was approved in April of 2025, and then looked at Act 851, and then I went back to your ordinance to see if there were any conflicts along the way, and I didn't see any. It doesn't seem like there is anything with the added things from this new ordinance, but I do have a couple of questions. On page four, there's a item C that talks about water use effectiveness. I guess you say that, woo? I don't know how you say that, W-U-E. And when I did a deep dive into the internet to find out exactly what that was, it's total water used divided by energy consumed by IT equipment. And in a lot of cases, there was only like one location to measure that. And really, you'd get what the other uses were in the building accumulated with the IT uses. And does this speak to that we're looking at one water location at a hyperscale unit? Are we really trying to get to the water usage for the internet itself. So do you know anything about possibly two water locations, one for normal consumption from the building and another one for just the IT usage?

Director, I don't know if I could answer that question. I think that someone from CAW or the Water Reclamation Authority could probably answer that a little bit more fully than I did.

And Vice Mayor, why are you so aware CAW looked at this ordinance and they gave its approval? Okay.

I'm just trying to understand what we're doing. The other item D talks about that the achieved level should be 0.5 at full load. And it says that they should report annually on the operating WUE. When you look at most of these type of data centers, the average is 1.8. And Amazon is 0.19. And we're trying to shoot for a 0.5. How do we come up with the 0.5?

We just looked at different data centers across the country, and this was just the metric we came up with. And again, like the mayor said, this ran past our utility partners, and this was nothing that stood out to them.

I guess I got the same question for the next one, which was the PUE, which also is that same sort of measurement, and they talk about that if you're truly trying to look at the IT equipment, you ought to have separate locations for regular energy versus the IT equipment. So that's the same question for that. On the decibel, the sound level, The average from what I've read is 85 to 96 DBAs at a data center. And the way this is saying we should do is that we should be down to these certain levels at the adjacent property line. Yes. Okay. So we also know or we think there's going to be additional data centers that are going to go in. So do we have provisions in here that account for the added DBA that we're going to incur with those four additional buildings or whatever the number is. It seems like to me that maybe it would increase coming to the property line. Do we have ways to monitor that? once we get the increases there? How do you think that's going to happen?

Sure. I think that's part of the known unknown. You know, we know it might happen, but we don't know if it will happen. But I mean, the standards are the way the standards are. If we find that they're exceeding this and they're exceeding it, you know, across, you know, a six-month period and not just, you know, in some interval, I think that, you know, we would re-look at it, but I think these are the standards that we are proposing. Okay.

It talks about on page 5, item D, that if during monitoring you identify a violation, then you allow 30 days, a corrective action plan for 30 days and then have to be in compliance within 180 days. And I am wondering, is that Is that normal? Because we read about the noise levels impacting individuals. So is that really a good time for people to correct the issues regarding noise?

In 30 days?

Well, you say you have a plan in 30 days, but you fix whatever the issue is in 180 days. Yes, ma'am. I think that's reasonable. So whatever the issue is, then people have to suffer through the noise level for 30 plus 180 days.

We're just trying to hit a mark, ma'am.

I mean...

Again, we don't know how this would affect anybody. We have to put standards here. We don't think that it's going to hit that long-term period. I'm sure that these, let's just say Google, I'm sure they want to be good partners. I'm sure they don't want... any residential properties around them to be able to hear what they're doing or be a nuisance to any point. So I think that they would try to remedy this in the most expedient way they possibly could.

I'm just asking, I don't know the answer to it either, but I read that and it seems like an awful long time for people to maybe suffer through health issues there. On page six, you talk about annual noise verification report. And I understand that if there is an issue, then the operators would know about it. And you get an annual noise verification report, and that comes to planning and development. I guess you know you've got a lot of responsibilities with this.

We have a great staff, ma'am. I know that we can handle it.

So annual noise verification, is that a good interval? Should we not know about the noise on a shorter interval than that?

If this board wishes to put those standards in place, then I think that can be a discussion point.

OK. Well, I don't know what to put in there. But I'm thinking that if we have a noise issue for a year, that's a long time. And we won't know about it until we get a notification at the end of the year.

We will be monitoring.

That's what I, how will you monitor it?

How will we monitor it? We'll have to put a process in place to, I mean, we'll have to put a monitoring program in place, just like you stated. I mean, it's not going to just, you know, happen overnight. But again, we'll be building this and we will be monitoring. We're going to take it seriously. Okay.

Okay. Then my last question, this one ought to be easy for you. We show the different changes to the code. Like, for instance, Section 4, page 7, it says that under conditional uses, you have data center comma accessory. Does that mean you can have a data center?

It's the accessory data center, the definition that we have.

The definition that you had before. Yes, ma'am. Okay, and that's a C4 use. The one on page six is a C3 use. Okay. And then on page eight, section five is I1. And page nine, section six is I2.

Yes, ma'am. I'll just go over them again. Accessories are conditional uses in C3 and C4. They're permitted in all the industrial uses. The major data centers, they are conditional uses in I1 and I2, permitted in I3. And again, the hyperscale is only permitted in I3.

But only the accessory data centers are in I2, I1. C4 and C3.

Could be. They're conditional uses. They would have to have a public hearing.

Yeah. They'd have to go through approval process.

Exactly.

But we all know that sometimes if something's under conditional use, it gets passed. We've seen that in the Planning Commission many times. Okay. So the permitted uses for... data center, accessory, major, and hyperscale is only for I3. Okay. Okay. That's it.

Director Miller.

Thanks. I don't know if this is for you. This may be just for the general public. You know, at this point, we've heard a lot about Benefits that could come along with a data center You know community service that you know, I'm not really that concerned about the benefits and Affordable housing and preschool program all that stuff. That's fine. That's good But but people bringing benefits, but if a data center was drilling a well to suck up you know groundwater I don't care what the benefits would be, I wouldn't want it. For me, the discussion has to be more along the environmental effects, fellow board members, as opposed to what benefits we could get from a corporate citizen. All these folks are good corporate citizens and they try to be, but I'm looking at the environmental effects. The benefits, that's nice if you want to help us build some affordable housing. That's nice if you want to build a daycare center or we get money for different things, but all money ain't good money. And all benefits may not be great benefits if the data center itself is the wrong fit. All data centers are not the same. And so what we're trying to do is create one where we have these safeguards in place. If a corporate citizen wants to be nice to us and give us something or pay for something, that's fine. But I'm not hung up on benefits. I'm hung up on the environmental effects of what it will cause in this community. And so, you know, if Google comes or whoever comes, I hope they don't spend a whole lot of time talking about what they're going to do for pre-K, what they're going to do for affordable housing. I don't really... I'm not that excited about that. I think that'll come because you're a good corporate citizen, period. But I want to know more about their environmental effects. And if there are studies that have been done with any of our utilities that were done and they had their questions answered, I think those reports need to be made public. And so I would encourage our utility companies that if they had some report done by a consultant that maybe they chose and that the Google paid for, if those reports are out there somewhere, please make them public. We don't have anything to hide. You don't have anything, if there's anything in there that's proprietary, redact it. But if, We had some concerns from our utility companies and those concerns were answered through some independent private third party report. Make the reports public. That's all. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Tom, as we something occurred to me as we're bringing up this ordinance in these regulations with ambient sound or regulating noise, are we being arbitrary and capricious on how we regulate other industries and singling out this industry? Do you see where I'm going with this?

Director Hines, I don't think that we're being arbitrary and capricious. The board has had before for several years whether to take our noise ordinance and go to the metering which would be required to make these determinations. The question we want to make sure of at some point somehow is that we're not going to require things from data centers in terms of sound that we're not going to require from similar entities. I know that there is some concern about 851. My major concern with 851 is that it says you're not going to treat certain things differently from all other things that may have an impact. So that's what I want to keep clear. That said, Mr. Jordan made a very, very good point, and that is that they're going to keep up with it. So while we're going to get a report once a year as to what the ambient sound has been over a period of time at certain places, that's not going to stop the city from going out and checking it. And if we find that there's a much bigger— I mean, you know, MIMS has an eight-minute response time. If they—but it's eight minutes— 90% of the time. So if they get there in 30 seconds for one, it doesn't mean they get there in 42 minutes for the other one. It means it's 90% of the time, and that's the type of thing.

And what I'm saying is if we only monitor this industry, then we're setting ourselves up if we are not monitoring every industry for sound level output. And just to share with my fellow board members as we get into the minutia of this, the The modeled estimate average for ambient noise in downtown Little Rock during the day ranges somewhere between 55 and 70 dBA. So basically the numbers we've got here are slightly elevated. It also says that in busier corridors near interstates like the I-30 corridor, you could see 65 to 75 plus dBA during peak hours. So we're talking about an industry that our regulations are not going to be any more than the ambient noise. It's probably louder on the street corner out there right now than it will be next to one of these data centers. And I want to point out that, and maybe somebody can clarify, the Google data center is going to sit on, is it 175 or 275? I can't remember how many acres they bought. I think 275. It's close to 300,000 total for everything. No, no, no, no, no. How many acres they bought? Not how many square feet the buildings are. Okay. And it's, what, 275, 300 acres? They're planning on five facilities, 300,000 square foot each over the next five to eight years. So part of the reason they do that is so they don't get a problem with harmonics and noise. Because you can't cluster these things together. We saw it with the with some of the stuff that happened earlier with these crypto miners putting these air-cooled fans, and you get a harmonics issue. So that's not what they're doing with the Google facility here. Much different than the X facility in Memphis, where they're generating their own power with natural gas turbines, which generate a lot of noise. So I think we are... comparing apples and oranges. I'm comfortable with what we're doing with the facility. We already approved. I think Google's going to be a good neighbor and good business partner for our community. And I think I just caution us to getting too much into minutia and putting too many regulations. We're just asking for the legislature to come preempt us again. And if you want to get, we already know what that feels like where it comes to Uber, which I thought we struck a, a very good deal with Uber, and then they still went around us and preempted us on third-party transportation companies. So I just want to compare everybody. You see all of these figures and facts and noise, but we can't treat this industry any differently than we treat other industries at our port and other businesses. If we do, we're setting ourselves up for legal problems with trying to regulate. REGULATE THIS ONE INDUSTRY OVER AT THE OVER REGULATING VERSUS WHAT WE DO WITH OUR OTHER INDUSTRIES. AND I WOULD CAUTION THAT IF WE'RE GOING TO START MANAGING SOUND WE BETTER DO IT FOR EVERY INDUSTRY.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU MAYOR SCOTT. I HAVE ONE MORE QUESTION FOR BRAD. THANK YOU ALL FOR THE WORK YOU DID ON THIS Over the weekend, a lot of people on social media are talking about the county proposals versus the city proposal. And based on the work that you did and the research that you all did, do you think that there's anything that the county has in their proposal that we don't have and should have?

From talking, and we did talk about this this morning, me and my staff, we believe that ours is stronger than what the county is proposing.

Do you have a specific for that?

I don't know. First and foremost, I don't want us to the county is the county, the city is the city. I don't want us to create any disunity or any Because even though I know it's not, but that type of commentary could then create issues to those who don't work with the county each and every day because we want to work with the county each and every day as we move forward. I think the better response is that the city has existing zoning laws. My understanding, the county doesn't have... zoning whatsoever. We've had zoning for since our city's inception. And so, I mean, Tom would know the exact date.

I didn't mean it that way, but I also know that the complaints we get are really 85 to 90 decibels anyway, so it doesn't matter.

And the reason why I'm saying we're not building these regulations from scratch. We have industrial regulations for I mean, we have humongous distribution centers that have to fall in line with various different things. That's the reason why we have I1, 2, and 3. We have O1, 2, and 3. We have CUPs. We have PRDs. We have everything in the alphabet. And so we come into it at a different level of perspective because you all are approving and disapproving industrial office plan developments and residential and R&Bs each and every Tuesday. We kind of know planning and zoning here. And we also, again, they looked across the nation that are also grappling with the same issues and based it off of that. So that being said, ours is a model for other cities. It's not a model for other counties because most counties in Arkansas don't have zoning.

And that's a good response. You know, when we get a bunch of emails over the weekend and they say, and yes, we're not the county government, we're not the state government. But when they say, oh, the county's thing is much better than your thing, I would like to be able to address that question, and I think you just did.

Because, I mean, in essence, what's going to have to happen, even let's just say the county's passed, they're going to have to create an actual zoning that they don't have today. And it goes, the whole billboard thing, as everybody knows, that's a whole other deal. So, again, that's the county, and we're going to always be good supporters of the county, but we're the city, and we've been in this business for quite some time. And so we'll just keep marching that way as a unified county and unified city.

Agreed.

Director Pick.

It's not about you, Brad. I mean, it's all about you.

But you can sit down, unless you just want to stand there.

Exercise. I just want to thank everybody for their comments. And I know, Brad, you and your department have been working so hard, the city attorney's office. We've all been getting some angry emails and phone calls. And sometimes I don't want to go out of the kitchen to the restaurant when somebody says they want to talk about the data centers. And I'd rather just hide in the kitchen. And I know Joe's going to make good sense of all this, and we're going to have a great article tomorrow. I think everybody's asked good questions from Lance to Kathy to everybody. Virgil, I really like your approach. We have an opportunity, or the citizens have an opportunity next week. If you've got specific questions, like you said, you've got seven days. Get them into us. And John, thank you for being here. And I'm looking forward to Tuesday. We'll either all end up as friends or enemies. No, just kidding. I'm the eternal optimist. But thanks, everybody, for the hard work on this.

And if anybody, I know there were some questions about some folks said they may or may not want to co-sponsor or sponsor this. Please let us know. Any questions on separate items now that we're done with item number 12? Director Miller, did you have any more questions?

Resolution number 13 is the Our CDBG home Recommendations for funding mr. Bethel you can leave if you want to leave Thanks Kevin I Support the resolution they have no problems with it. I do recall that Last year or so, we had an individual, you may recall an individual, said that we didn't get information out. We didn't have public hearings. We didn't do all this. Do you know if that individual was contacted directly? We put that individual on the mailing list, didn't we? Yes, sir. All right. We said where the meetings were going to be, so that individual had all this information, correct? Yes, sir. All right. That's what I wanted to know. And he attended one of the meetings, too. And attended one of the meetings. Had his input. Yes, sir. Okay. That's all I wanted to know. Thank you.

Any more questions? Any more questions? Any more commentary? Any more commentary? Meeting adjourned.