Board of Directors - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I would like to call to order the August 4th, 2026 Little Rock City Board of Directors meeting. We would like to welcome those in attendance as well as those watching at home or streaming online. Madam Clerk, if you would please call the roll.

Director Miller, Director Richardson, Director Webb, Director Peck, Director Hines, Director Lewis, Director Comperis, Director Phillips, Director Adcock. Present. Vice Mayor Wyrick. Present. Mayor Scott.

Here. Now I want to take this time to recognize City Director Andrea Lewis, who will give our invocation.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. Father God, I thank you for this day and for your many blessings. Thank you for your grace, your mercy, and for watching over each of us. Lord, I ask that you continue to protect and guide all of our city employees and every resident of this city. I pray for your hand of protection, wisdom, and peace to rest upon them. I also lift up this entire board before you. Please empty us of ourselves and fill us with your spirit that we may serve with humility, integrity, and wisdom. Help us to make decisions that reflect your will and that benefit all who call this city home. May everything we do bring honor and glory to you, and we give you all the praise. In your name I pray, amen.

Amen. May you please stand for Pledge of Allegiance. indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We have two modifications to the agenda, one addition and one of withdrawals. Is there a motion? There's a motion, a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. Madam Clerk, if you would please read the consent agenda along with M1.

A resolution to authorize the city manager to enter into a contract with Cromwell Architects Engineers Incorporated in an amount not to exceed $273,000 plus applicable taxes and fees to provide architectural services for the Little Rock 9-1-1 Communication Center and for other purposes. A resolution to amend City of Little Rock, Arkansas Resolution No. 17,000. To add, the Florida Sheriff's Association Cooperation Purchasing Program as an authorized vendor and for their purposes. A resolution authorizes a city manager to enter into a contract with Turf and Soil Management Contract Services in an amount not to exceed $91,532 plus applicable taxes and fees for the purchase of one new Baroness Model GM2810A mower with a cool topped canopy and accessories by the city's Fleet Services Department. for use at the Rebsom and Golf Course by the city's Parks and Recreation Department and for other purposes. A resolution authorized the city manager to enter into a contingency fee agreement with Zell LLP and to a monopoly council and to authorize the city attorney to prosecute affirmative litigation on behalf of the city of Little Rock, Arkansas as a named plaintiff and proposed class representative in a federal antitrust class action proceeding seeking recovery of overcharges arising from the purchase of fire apparatuses and for other purposes. A resolution authorizes city manager to enter into a contract with Utility Associates Incorporated and amount not to exceed $67,357 plus applicable taxes and fees to renew the Little Rock Police Department's Polaris software support and training services subscription and hardware warranty for rocket mobile modems outfitted in 182 Little Rock Police Department patrol vehicles. for geolocation and dispatch coordination and for other purposes. A resolution to accept the title to property donated to the City of Little Rock by Warranty D to be used for the neighborhood revitalization programs located at 1220 West 23rd Street, Little Rock, Arkansas and for other purposes. A resolution of the Board of Directors of the City of Little Rock, Arkansas adopting a gift acceptance policy for the City of Little Rock and for other purposes. A resolution authorizes the City Manager to enter into an agreement between the City of Little Rock and 601 Capitol Avenue property LLC, Brasnall Real Estate LLC to terminate the cross-access easement at 601 West Capitol Avenue to replant the property reflecting the termination of the easement and relocation of the property line and further purposes. A resolution authorizes the City Manager to enter into a professional services agreement with Superion LLC for false alarm tracking and billing services and further purposes. A resolution authorizes city manager to enter into a retainer agreement with Grossman and Kelly LLP, McIntyre Schneider's LLP, and their partners for representation in the prosecution of tobacco product waste litigation on a contingency fee basis and for other purposes. A resolution authorizes city manager to enter into a contract with Q Merit Electrification LLC in an amount not to exceed $301,453.10. plus applicable taxes and fees for the purchase and installation of 18 ChargePoint electric vehicle charging stations and associated software for multiple City of Little Rock locations and for other purposes. That concludes your consent agenda. Second.

There's a motion. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. We'll now go to the Citizens Communication. Mr. John Parker. Mr. John Parker, if you'll approach the podium. After Mr. Parker, Reverend Denny Johnson.

My issue, would this be addressing the building of the data centers? Yes. Well, my issue is the potential hazard that it may cause for the energy infrastructure as to the how much that this project energy is going to use. It's going to use a lot of energy. Seems like it's going to take away from the residents in the case of emergency or natural disaster. This is going to put a lot of strain on our energy infrastructure as well as the power and also the water and the area that's already underserved. I don't understand. I don't think that there's been enough planning and that there's not been enough presented to give the public in case of emergency, natural disaster for the area and pollution. Where is the water that's going to be needed to cool these machines and these computers. Where is this water going to be dumped? Where is this going to go after the water has been used to cool your machines? Has that been addressed? Is that going to be an issue? Also, the elimination of the wetlands and the natural areas because this is the natural state. You're going to eliminate a lot of natural areas for computer space. I don't think that it's a good idea. I don't think that it's been thought out, and I think that the residents are going to be the ones that are going to bear the long-term burden of these structures that you're proposing to build. And I don't think that it's a good idea. And I think that it's probably on the verge of being kind of dangerous because when there's ice storms, who's going to get their power turned on first? If there's any type of tornado, which this area is prone for, This is going to be very impactful over the next few years. I don't think that it's a good idea at all. I think that it should not be granted. Thank you.

After Reverend Benny Johnson, Mr. Pierre Mead. And then Lee White.

Mayor Scott, Vice Mayor Weirich, and the rest of the board. It's an incident that happened with a Little Rock police officer. She met a mentally challenged black man. And she engaged this man into a fight. Now, she asked him to walk away from him. And then when he walked back toward her, don't you come up on me. And then she said, if you want to fight, her other police officers are going to come and fight her. That's why I officially filed for Ward 7 to run, to make a difference in this city. And I'm telling you now, when I win, I'm not going to be a sellout. I can't be brought. So don't even try to do it, because I have a concern for every citizen in this city, whether they're white, black, Hispanic, any other ethnicity, everybody should be treated the same. Now, it never ceases to amaze me when something happens in the river market, the city acts like the world is coming to an end. Now, Director Miller, I saw you on TV with the interview when it happened. in the river market, and you said perception is important. Yes, perception is important. You said because the people are visiting there. Well, what about the perception south of 630 off of Troy Street and Asher Avenue where black and brown people stay and shut down like animals, but this void is quieter than a church house mouth? It's sickening, and it is disgusting. Now, in the month of July, you had nine homicides. A black, one Hispanic, people of color. Ain't said a word. Now, on the 12th Street corridor, I've been on this board for the longest. Every time I ride by there, it look like boys in the hood. You got dilapidated houses. You got overgrown. It's just disgusting why the favoritism of this board don't support black and brown communities. Now, I officially signed up today, and Tabitha and Ms. Allison, I didn't get a warm recommend for security because he told me I had to have an appointment to come in, and I'm trying to file for the city board. But I want to tell you, I'm not coming on this board to vote for somebody that's white, W-H-I-T-E, somebody supporting something that's B-L-A-C-K, black. But I'm coming to make a difference on the R-I-G-H-T, the right thing.

Hear me? All right. I didn't see you over there.

What's going on, man? Not much. You doing all right?

How are y'all doing?

All right. You know what I'm here for. Yes, sir. Well, you said you were going to call me. I haven't received a call.

I said I was going to look into your issue. I didn't say call.

Okay, well, I was waiting because you said leave my phone number and address with your secretary.

And we're still looking at the same issue.

And you're still looking at it. Okay, what I want to say is that man whose son tragically died at that school, me and this young man right here, we did install... the crosswalks, so that it wouldn't happen to another kid. And we have installed a lot of crosswalks in this city. We are saving lives, just to let you all know. You're going to go home tonight, you're going to see crosswalks, you're going to see stop signs, you're going to have lanes you drive in. That is preventing people from hurting you. I don't want to get on the fact that we're called public worthless. And I'm not going to get on the fact that the police department That they make more money than us and they get raises whenever they wanted. I'm not going to make the statement about the fire department making more money than us. But us, we can't get the money. And we've been trying for a long time. You did a study and you found out that you make your money. And you also found out that we don't make our money. Somebody said, well, maybe they'll negotiate. What are we going to negotiate? You've already been taking money from us for a long time. And I was scratching my arm because I was born with an itch from day one. So I'm not going to say anything about that. But anyway, we do save lives. You're going to go home today, everybody's life is in this place. It's going to be stop by stop sign, stop light, right in the lane, and it's going to be saving their lives and other people's lives also. So I'm still asking you to look into this. Because we are worth it. It's only 14 people in my department. Me and this young man right here, old man right here, we're the ones who put those crosswalks in for that young kid, his father, and for other kids. So I just want you to keep us in mind. I'm not going to stop. It's not going to be like last time. I'm not going to stop. I'm going to keep coming back until something is done. I'm not asking. I know we already know that we're about $10 to $15 less than what we're supposed to make. We're the capital of Arkansas. We make less than Pine Bluff. We make less than some McDonald's. We're supposed to make a lot of money. We're saving lives. $10, $15, that's a lot of money. But we're only laxing for $4 per person. And if y'all can't do that and y'all can build all these buildings, buy all these equipments, it makes no sense to us. We're not being respected as people. We're just being slaves again. Y'all everybody have a blessed day and God bless you.

Lee White. Lee White. Lee White. Are you Lee? Yes, please approach, please. Miss White.

Hello, all. I have no doubt that you all are great people and you come here to do good works and that you really care about your constituents and what they have to say. And so that's why I think it is worth it for me to be here to come after my full day job to come here and speak to you all just about the importance of this is not just to our community, but you know, to the world. I think Arkansas has been a really unique position to be able to set the standard on how the world proceeds with these data centers. And I think by selling this out, in essence, just really doesn't show a whole lot of care or love for the people who are here, who work, who pay taxes, and who have a voice. We fought so long ago for the opportunity to have this voice and to be able to stand here you know, be together in this. And it doesn't feel like we're together on this. And I want to just bring up the fact that this world needs us just as much as we need this world. And by throwing it away for progress, I mean, what kind of progress is that? And we've seen so much We've seen so much destruction in the name of progress. And I think if we were to take some time to sit back and think about things before we agree to them, to think about things and let other people have an opportunity to think about them, because it's not all on y'all. It's on everyone to show up and to be like, hey, maybe this isn't the best idea. And so when we didn't get a whole lot of opportunity to know what was going on with the land sale originally, you didn't really give the people an opportunity. You didn't give the people a chance to make an informed decision. And that really sucks. I mean, in all essence, that just really sucks. And I would think that people who would who are public servants and who represent the people would want to be here, listen to the people, hear what they have to say, look them in the eyes and actually, you know, see the emotion and passion and know that having emotions and having passion isn't a lack of control, like a lack of, or excuse me, let me think. Let me think about my words a little bit. It doesn't show a lack of intelligence to be passionate and to be to be emotional about the state of things right now. It's actually really important to show our passion, to show our love, because that's what it is. It is love. I love this city. This is the best city, I mean, in the whole country. I mean, I really believe it. I love Little Rock so much, and I tell people all the time.

you.

I tell people all the time that this is the best place to live and I encourage people to come all the time and I've had people move here all because of that encouragement and just to see the lack of care is just devastating but I know that at the end of the day I know at the end of the day we still have hope and we still have love and so I really encourage each and every one of you to take it a moment to take it into your heart and to hear these people out because these are the people who are making things happen for Arkansas at the end of the day. We are taxpaying citizens. We put so much into the city. We make things happen every day. And what are these people coming outside doing for us at the end of the day? I mean, I heard about the $30 million from Jeff Bezos. I mean, I can't even imagine. I mean, I just can't, I can't imagine what's going on behind the scenes. And I think that it's really sick at the end of the day. So thank you.

Madam clerk, if you would please read the group items for the second time.

An ordinance to accept the 14118 Canis Business Park annexation to add certain lands to the City of Little Rock, Arkansas to zone said land to PCD, plunket mixed use, and for other purposes. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development to establish a planned development commercial titled Valley Oaks Courts, lots 1R through 4R conceptual PDC located at the northwest corner of Mapleville West Road and Angel Court. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development and to establish a planned development residential titled Orndorff No. 5 PDR located at 1609 Guyer Street. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development and to establish a planned development commercial titled Big Rock Plaza Track B Revised PCD located at the southwest corner of Vimy Ridge Road and Village Run Parkway. An ordinance to reclassify property located in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development to establish a planned residential district titled Village at Whispering Valley, the Beverly Revised PRD, located west of Village Run Parkway, south of Alexander Road. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development and to establish a planned development residential titled Common Grounds Properties, PDR, located at 2219 and 2223 South Commerce Street. An ordinance reclassifying property located in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development and to establish a planned development residential titled Orndorff No. 1, PDR, located at the southeast corner of East 10th Street and College Street. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development to establish a planned development residential titled Orndorff No. 2 PDR located at 1012 College Street. Ordinance to approve a planned zoning development to establish a planned development residential titled Orndorff No. 3 PDR located at 1022 College Street. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development and to establish a planned development residential titled Orndorff No. 4 PDR located at 2324 Rock Street. An ordinance to declare it impractical and unfeasible to bid to authorize a city manager to enter into a contract with Infra Solutions LLC and its affiliates in an amount not to exceed $40 million net of Infra's discount associated with utilizing the most favorable tax structure to perform the associated design, handle engineering, procurement, installation, interconnection, and city energy assets required improvements commissioning to allow the city to participate in the Clinton Sustainability Energy District with Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation Incorporated and for other purposes. In order to declare it impractical and unfeasible to bid to authorize a city manager to enter into an agreement with Sasaki Associates Incorporated to complete the final design of 30 Crossing utilizing funds from the Bezos Earth Fund to declare an emergency and for other purposes. In order to declare it impractical and unfeasible to bid to authorize a city manager Tender into a sole source contract with Weaver Bailey contractors in an amount not to exceed $102,185 to complete an emergency demolition of the Markham Street pedestrian bridge to declare an emergency. An ordinance to approve the action of Meachie's Private Club and Lounge located at 617-619 Spring Street, Little Rock, Arkansas and the filing and application for operation. As a private club permitted, it is defined by the Arkansas Alcohol Beverage Control Division of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration to comply with Arkansas Code Section 3-9-222A1 to declare an emergency second reading.

Mayor, if you can, at this time, add number 27 for the motion on the third reading, and we can take that one in its third reading at that time.

And I'm also opening up the hearing for number 27. Yeah, I noticed that. Just want to open up the hearing for item 27. That was narrow motion. Is there a second? All those favorably say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Ayes have it, which also includes the item 27 for the third reading.

And close the hearing.

Hearing closed.

An ordinance to accept the 14118 Canis Business Park annexation to add certain lands to the City of Little Rock, Arkansas to zone said land to PCD, plunket mixed use, and for other purposes. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development to establish a planned development commercial titled Valley Oaks Court lots 1R through 4R conceptual PDC located at the northwest corner of Mapleville West Road and Angel Court. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development and to establish a planned development residential titled Orndorff No. 5 PDR located at 1609 Guyer Street. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development and to establish a planned development commercial titled Big Rock Plaza Track B Revised PCD located at the southwest corner of Vimy Ridge Road and Village Run Parkway. An ordinance to reclassify property located in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas. An ordinance to approve a plain zoning development to establish a planned residential district titled Village at Whispering Valley, the Beverly, revised PRD, located west of Village Run Parkway, south of Alexander Road. An ordinance to approve a plain zoning development to establish a planned development residential titled Common Grounds Properties, PDR, located at 2219 and 2223 South Commerce Street. An ordinance reclassifying property located in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development to establish a planned development residential titled Orndorff No. 1 PDR located at the southeast corner of East 10th Street and College Street. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development to establish a planned development residential titled Orndorff No. 2 PDR located at 1012 College Street. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development to establish a planned development residential titled Orndorff No. 3 PDR located at 1022 College Street. An ordinance to approve a planned zoning development to establish a planned development residential titled Orndorff No. 4 PDR located at 2324 Rock Street. An order is declared impractical and unfeasible to bid to authorize a city manager to enter into a contract with Infra Solutions LLC and its affiliates in an amount not to exceed $40 million net of Infra's discount associated with utilizing the most favorable tax structure to perform the associated design, handle engineering, procurement, installation, interconnection, and city energy assets improvements commissioning to allow the city to participate in the Clinton Sustainability Energy District with the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, Inc., An ordinance to declare it impractical and unfeasible to bid to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with Sasaki Associates Incorporated to complete the final design on 30 crossing utilizing funds from the Bezos Earth Fund to declare an emergency. An ordinance to declare it impractical and unfeasible to bid to authorize the city manager to enter into a sole source contract with Weaver Bailey Contractors in an amount not to exceed $102,185 to complete an emergency demolition of the Markham Street pedestrian bridge to declare an emergency. An ordinance to approve the action of Mechie's Private Club and Lounge located at 617 and 619 Spring Street, Little Rock, Arkansas, in filing an application for operation as a private club permitted as defined by the Arkansas Alcohol Beverage Control Division of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration to comply with Arkansas Code Section 3-9-222A1 to declare an emergency. Third and final reading.

27. I'll go ahead and read. Yeah, read it now. Does he need to open that here?

An ordinance to authorize the issuance and sale of water reclamation system revenue bonds to provide for the payment of the principal of an interest on the bonds to prescribe other matters that relate thereto and for other purposes. Third and final reading.

Director Webb.

Thank you, Mayor Scott. And I know we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but could you explain again why

We have to do number 24 the way we are doing it What's number 24 just Our city attorney I think we all know the Sasaki Alongside some other vendors Completed the downtown master plan I guess now a year and a half or so ago and And through that experience and the other tools associated with the 30 Crossing Park, our city attorney deemed it to be a sole source, have the purview to fall under sole source due to the unique understanding that they have a 30 Crossing Park. And because of the city attorney providing that language, that's why it's before the city board.

And thank you for that. Can you explain why it has to go through the chamber?

It does not have to go. What do you mean the funding? Well, first I think everyone going back to help everyone understand when the, um, the city or the chamber, the, and the city and the state of Arkansas state parks and tourism, the city of Little Rock and the chamber, uh, were a part of a grant team, uh, among, many different other cities across the United States that applied for this Bezos Earth Fund grant. And part of the Bezos Earth Fund grant is that a nonprofit association funneled the dollars through the nonprofit, not through a city. And so that's the reason why the chamber's nonprofit is receiving those dollars. The dollars does not come through the city. It goes through the chamber. However, nothing can be approved as it relates to how the funds are dispersed without the city's approval. It's just from a tax perspective is the reason why they're choosing a nonprofit rather than the city. And so this is no city dollars. This is all private dollars. So no city funding is associated with this. So it's not the city's money. It's Bezos' money and choosing to move that money through the nonprofit.

Thank you.

So no city money is associated. All right. Director Pierce?

I think you explained it beautifully. I was going to try to help, but you, as always, were able to do it.

Thank you so much director. All those favorably say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay. Ayes have it.

We have emergency clauses on 24, 25, and 26.

Emergency clauses on items 24, 25, and 26.

Mayor Kent, the vote shows that that was unanimous on the items we just had. Let the record show it was unanimous.

Yes. Items 24, 25. Taylor, do you want 27 added as emergency as well? 24, 25, 26, and 27. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay.

Ayes have it.

Thank you, Taylor. Everybody, Taylor's our bond counsel. Taylor, want to raise your hand for us, please? Got to have a little fun sometimes, guys. All right, public hearing for item... Now, Madam Clerk, if you would read item 28 for the first time.

An ordinance to declare it impractical and unfeasible.

And everyone, if you had an item and you don't wish to stay the remainder of the evening to listen to the other items, please, because there are other people who may be downstairs that want to come up. So if you don't have to be here, we're not asking you to leave, but you don't have to stay. All right. Now we got some, if somebody would go downstairs and say there's some extra seats up here now. Madam Clerk, if you would please read it, item 28 for the first time.

An ordinance to declare it impractical and unfeasible to bid to authorize a city manager to enter into a contract with Arkansas Crime Information Center in an amount not to exceed $51,357.70 plus applicable taxes and fees to renew the Little Rock Police Department's access to ACIC's information database by authorized city personnel to declare an emergency. First reading.

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

An ordinance to declare it impractical and unfeasible to bid to authorize a city manager to enter into a contract with Arkansas Crime Information Center in an amount not to exceed $51,357.70 plus applicable taxes and fees to renew the Little Rock Police Department's access to ACIC's information database by authorized city personnel to declare an emergency. Second reading.

Second.

There's a motion. Second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Aye. Third and final reading.

An ordinance to declare it impractical and unfeasible to bid to authorize a city manager to enter into a contract with Arkansas Crime Information Center in an amount not to exceed $51,357.70 plus applicable taxes and fees to renew the Little Rock Police Department's access to ACIC's information database by authorized city personnel to declare an emergency third and final reading.

Members of the board, we've had three readings. Are there any questions? Are there any questions? Are there any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. There's an emergency clause. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Ayes have it. Madam Clerk, if you would, please read item 29 for the first time.

An ordinance to amend Little Rock, Arkansas Rev Code section 2-243 to declare security services as a professional service for the city of Little Rock to declare an emergency. First reading.

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

An ordinance to amend Little Rock, Arkansas, Rev Code Section 2-243 to declare security services as a professional service for the City of Little Rock to declare an emergency.

Second reading. Second.

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

An ordinance to amend Little Rock Arkansas Rev Code section 2-243 to declare security services as a professional service for the city of Little Rock to declare an emergency third and final reading.

Members of the board, we've had three readings. Are there any questions? Are there any questions? Are there any questions? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say nay. Ayes have it. Emergency clause. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say nay. Ayes have it. Madam Clerk, if you would please read item 31 for the first time.

An ordinance to establish a temporary 18-month moratorium on the permitting and approval of a hyperscale data centers within the city of Little Rock, Arkansas to require comprehensive municipal impact studies and public disclosures regarding municipal water, wastewater, noise, emergency infrastructure, zoning regulations, and monitoring practices to establish an administrative relief procedure to declare an emergency. First reading.

Move to suspend the rules in place on the second reading. There's a motion to second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Let's have a second reading.

An ordinance to establish a temporary 18-month moratorium on the permitting and approval of hyperscale data centers within the city of Little Rock, Arkansas to require comprehensive municipal impact studies and public disclosures regarding municipal water, wastewater, noise, emergency infrastructure, zoning regulations, and monitoring practices to establish an administrative relief procedure to declare an emergency. Second reading.

Mr. Spinner rolls in place on third and final reading. There's a motion. Is there a second? I second that. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Aye. Sam at third and final reading.

An ordinance to establish a temporary 18-month moratorium on the permitting and approval of hyperscale data centers within the City of Little Rock, Arkansas to require comprehensive municipal impact studies and public disclosures regarding municipal water, wastewater, noise, emergency infrastructure, zoning regulations, and monitoring practices to establish an administrative relief procedure to declare an emergency third and final reading.

We have 16-4, and I believe nine against. We'll start with the fours. Rip Weaver.

He's downstairs. Give him a moment.

We'll keep going. Blake Tierney. We'll come back. All right. Judge Wendell Griffin.

Good evening, Mayor Scott, Vice Mayor Ravick, members of the board. Mr. Carpenter, my name is Wendell Griffin. I've been a resident of Little Rock, Arkansas since 1979, and I support this item calling for an 18-month moratorium. Serious business requires serious reflection, and for the first time in the history of Arkansas, we have hyperscale digital infrastructure facilities coming into Pulaski County at a scale that has not been previously known. It bears saying that there has been an effort by some to fast-track these projects. But those of us who had good home training were told that if you have a serious matter to deal with, you take time to make sure you think about it before you jump. we were told that in number of ways, look before you leap. We are being asked to adopt a moratorium for 18 months to allow Little Rock to look before we enact a comprehensive regulatory scheme. And that makes good sense. Study the impacts. Study what needs to be known. study what we don't know, study what we aren't being told, and study what people don't want us to know. So that we can say that whatever we do, we will do it based upon information. Lastly, I hope that city adopts this moratorium, but then that's just the first step, because you have to adopt then a regulatory process after that. if I didn't say, Pulaski County has a comprehensive ordinance that's going to be introduced to our courtroom court. I commend it to you. Its number is 26I56. I encourage you to study it. I wrote it. And I suggest to you that after you pass the moratorium, look at 26 out of 56 and adopt it so there can be a uniform regulatory scheme across Pulaski County dealing with this hyperscale infrastructure development process. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Directors, please vote for this moratorium.

Thank you. Roan Kuta. Roan Kuta. After Rome, Blake.

Hello, everybody. I believe I checked the wrong box when I was filling out the form out there. I was a little distracted. I do want this board to pass the moratorium today. But I do have a complicated set of thoughts about it, and I do want to express that today. I think that we've heard a lot of people speak here and be nice about this data center issue, but I won't mince my words when I say that I think that the way that this has been handled is exactly why only a third of the city votes in elections. It's exactly the reason that most people aren't registered to vote. It's exactly the reason that most people don't believe in our democracy anymore. It probably took about- hundreds of people telling you guys that we don't want a data center, that we don't want our utility prices to go up so that people can enrich themselves off of a data center that we will never see the fruits of. And all to just get us to this moment where you guys have all already approved the Google Data Center. And as far as I understand, every single one of you here today signed a non-disclosure agreement to get it passed, and you can't even talk about it. I want to be very clear, this moratorium has to only be the start. It has to only be the start. People keep asking why this data center is coming up, why these developments are being made. And we can never get a straight answer. We've had the internet for 30 years. We've had regular data centers for 30 years. Why do we have hyperscale data centers coming up? And I know the reason. I think the only reason that this is happening is so that billionaires can speculate on the data and be able to trade it amongst themselves and enrich themselves. But we don't get to see any of those profits. We don't get to see any of that, and we have to subsidize that profit growth, that speculation off of our utility costs. And God forbid a disaster happens, what if the data center blows up? What if it catches on fire? What if a power outage happens? Where is electricity going to first? There are so many unanswered questions, and the vast majority of you here today signed a nondisclosure agreement before you could even ask these questions, before the public was even aware of this issue. So I think that this issue has called into question a lot of aspects about our government. And I think that not only should we pass this moratorium, but it should be illegal to sign non-disclosure agreements in the first place for things like these.

We need public hearing periods.

We need mandatory public hearing periods with the public. All these city contracts need to be reviewed by the public, and the public needs to have their input actually seen and heard. I think I'm repeating myself at this point, but I just want to leave you all here today with the people who showed up here today love Little Rock. They love their city and they want to see a better future. And it is extremely discouraging to see this kind of uniformity pop up again and again and again. When maybe one city director wants to look good and get a moratorium passed and then maybe the rest, vote against it or they make sure that it doesn't get passed every single one of you comes to this to these meetings and and Sometimes you have certain agenda items that would make the city better But there's no way that you don't collude with each other to make sure that it never gets passed because nothing ever gets done in Little Rock None of our actual issues are being resolved and now we're here today fighting a data center We should be talking about housing. We should be talking about public transportation but no we have to talk about a data center that we haven't even been consulted on and

So I'm going to leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Blake? After Blake, Ruth Beverly.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Board. I am Blake Tierney, and I live in Ward 1. Over the last several months, you've heard concern after concern about hyperscale data centers in the city of Little Rock. The findings in this ordinance cover most of those concerns from utility rates to power to water to fire to emergency services to road infrastructure. And the list goes on and the list could probably be longer. They're rooted in facts based on news stories and lawsuits from around the country, including news stories and lawsuits related to Google. You have heard fear and anger and disappointment based on still unanswered questions and still hidden or redacted documents despite months of FOIA requests and pleading testimony to just show us. Not just tell us, to show us. I'm not here to repeat those concerns. I am here to support this moratorium that gives the city the breathing room to study these concerns, to intentionally include the public, and advance regulations to protect residents based on what is found. I have two major points to make to respond to some of what I've heard related to this moratorium. First, I want to touch on the specter of a lawsuit that was mentioned last Tuesday. I call it a specter specifically because it is there to frighten. But a closer inspection, you can see right through it. A lot of legalese has been thrown around, vested rights, takings, things like this. I have dug into this more than I would like in the last few weeks to understand this legalese. But to my understanding, there are a few things that are in Arkansas common law and in law across the country that we need to have in place in order for those to have any standing in a courtroom. And those are repeated in Article 4 of this ordinance. That includes that there must be operation in good faith. There must be substantial investment that goes beyond just acquiring land and planning. That includes evaluating the character of the government action, the interference with reasonable investment backed expectations, and the net economic impact on the owner. And so I'm going to take that and break it down a bit. It's been said that Google's already been approved. It's not really the case. There's an agreement, there's an MOU about the benefits, the franchise fees, the taxes, the abatements. But you have a permitting process, and that has not happened. Google has a permit they cannot build. Until they have a state and federal permit, they cannot build. Going back to what I said about substantial investment beyond land, beyond planning, they cannot build until they have that permit. Google has already admitted that it will take 12, 18, 24 months for them to get the state and federal permits. What this moratorium does is keeps us from getting in the same debacle that the Pulaski County Quorum Court is in, where they have given preliminary approval through a permit to Aveo. It is saying that we are not going to do that, that we are going to pause on giving a permit so that we can study this issue and address the concerns. has not been the investment in this land, in this project that would lead to an economic impact. They would have to, from my understanding, sell the land and lose out on any potential economic value that they have in order to make that claim. If they're not gonna build for 12, 18, 24 months, then there's not a lot of economic impact that they'll face. So that gets to that specter. So hopefully that will remove that as a concern. There are, I'm sure, many other voices in here that are going to speak on this, including those that have more of a law background than I do. But I want to get to my second point, which is obviously I want you to vote in favor of this moratorium. But as the previous speaker said, it doesn't stop there. This issue has revealed so many problems in how the city runs and operates, some of what I've been hearing related to this has been, well, we trust our staff, we trust our city attorney, we trust the chamber, we trust all these people. And that's fine and good, you should. You should trust them because they've done years and years of work. But you also have a duty as directors, as public servants, to question them. In fact, probably because of your trust, you can question them more than anybody else, and you should. Keep pushing on them. Don't let what they say be the end of the story and that then determine your vote. That is a technocracy that's run by experts. That is not a democracy run by the people. So we are asking you to vote in favor of this moratorium and to keep pushing so Includes the people of the city in its decision making. So that we aren't kowtowing to out of state companies and being bullied by them. Then we're not sitting around letting fears drive our decision making. This is driven by facts. This is driven by a point to study this issue to get answers and then do something about it. So please vote for this moratorium. Thank you.

Rip Weaver.

I understand, but I had called you initially. No, Rip, you come up. Whoever, Rip.

Okay.

And Ruth, you'll come right after Rip. Okay.

Got it. I just heard her name first. I called your name a few minutes ago. Yeah, when I was downstairs. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Scott, city directors, staff, and members of the public. My name is Rip Weaver. I'm a Little Rock resident and former officer and current member of the Downtown Neighborhood Association. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm here to urge you to support the proposed temporary hyperscale data center moratorium and public review ordinance. I thank Director Webb for bringing this ordinance forward and also congratulations director for your recent award by the Arkansas Times. First, I want to acknowledge the work this board did in June by adopting regulations for hyperscale data centers. Those regulations were an important first step and recognize that these facilities present unique challenges unlike traditional industrial development. But they are only a first step. The proposed Google Data Center is potentially one of the largest industrial projects in Little Rock's history. And significant questions remain about its long term impacts on our water resources, electrical infrastructure, wastewater systems, emergency services, neighborhoods, and environment. Before making irreversible infrastructure commitments, the city should have the opportunity to fully evaluate those impacts. This ordinance does not permanently prohibit data centers, nor does it unfairly target any one company. It simply gives the city 18 months to complete impact studies, gather additional information, and determine whether existing regulations are sufficient. If Google believes it has vested property rights under Arkansas law, this ordinance provides a fair and transparent process for presenting that evidence through public hearings before the Planning Commission and this board. I also ask you to consider how we arrived at this point. This board did not publicly deliberate, deliberates the word I want you to focus on there, the April 2025 land sale that ultimately became the Google Data Center project. Residents had little opportunity to understand or discuss the potential impacts before significant commitments had already been made. Today you have an opportunity to restore public confidence by slowing the process long enough to ensure decisions of this magnitude are informed by complete information, meaningful public participation, and careful due diligence. Little Rock residents are looking to you to protect our neighborhoods, our natural resources, and our quality of life, while ensuring that future development is both responsible and transparent. I respectfully ask for your support of this ordinance and thank you.

Miss Ruth.

Hello. Thank you. I apologize. I'm just going to give off the cuff comments. Um, I only found out about this earlier today. I've been asleep at the wheel. I apologize. So I've been in little rock for almost 25 years. I love it here. And I've worked in IT for almost 35 years. So I feel like I have a vested interest on both sides of this. Personally, I love AI. I use it every day. I use it at home. I use it at work every single day. Lots of different vendors. I'm pretty agnostic that way. But I've also, as my role in IT, I've been in their rooms, meeting rooms, talking about sites that we were looking for. And I have been part of a project that built a company site with a data center in it. And I read through all the proposals from that city. And we helped plan where it was going to go. And the most common thing that we said in there, whenever the city gave us all of these directions on things that they would want us to pay for and things that we would want to do, we would giggle to ourselves and go, ha ha ha, we're not gonna pay for that. And everything that the company that I worked for at the time had promised to the city that we moved into, we certainly didn't go back on our contracts, right? But the long-term impact was not what that city thought that they were gonna get. And this was on a much smaller scale. So any money that the state of Arkansas is being promised with all of that, we might get an influx, right? But it's not going to sustain us. It's not gonna be long-term jobs. Even after three to five years, all of the hardware that they put into that data center is going to be completely obsolete. And then if we think about just like one little tiny piece of this, right? Let's talk about the water for cooling. It's a massive amount of water. And what is Arkansas? especially around this area, really like to do. We like to have bass fishing contests, right? We have a bunch of lakes. People go from all over the world, come here to duck hunt. It's nuts, right? And if we don't take the time, and a real study is going to take two to five years to actually really understand how having a data center, which is going to offload all of that hot water into our waterways, it's going to take two to five years to really understand what that's going to mean. So this 18 months, this is just like, we're not going to get our hands around it. And I really feel like moving forward to the data center long term as technology is today is going to impact the state of Arkansas negatively. So thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Chris Ruth. I'm here to speak in support of item 31 and the opportunity that it does present. Make sure we take the make the most of it. Arkansas calls itself both the natural state and the land of opportunity. Those two ideas should go together. True opportunity should not require us to sacrifice the land, water and natural resources that make Arkansas special. Our rivers, forests, wildlife and communities are resources that cannot easily be replaced once they're damaged. Before we allow more large scale development, we need to fully understand the impact on our environment, our power supply, our water resources, and the quality of life of the people who already call Little Rock home. I support this moratorium because it gives the city time to ask the right questions and create protections that put residents and the environment first. Economic growth matters, but growth must be responsible and sustainable. The natural state is not just a slogan, it is a responsibility. And the land of opportunity should mean an opportunity for future generations to inherit a healthy, thriving Arkansas. I urge the board to support item 31 and continue working towards strong protections for our community and our natural resources. Thank you.

After Jay Cheshire, Jacob, Jameson.

Mayor, members of the Board, Vice Mayor, thank you for the opportunity. I think if one thing comes shining through tonight, there's a whole group of people in this room that love Little Rock. And I think that's the most important thing. We understand that it's always difficult to make decisions. But what I wanted to share with you tonight, because you've heard from me multiple times, are not my words. It's the words from the mayor of Pryor, Oklahoma. And for those of you that haven't had the opportunity to learn more about Pryor, I'm going to share with you some of his words. But in the end, I'm going to ask that we go visit with him. Pryor is just a suburb just outside of Tulsa. Outside of Tulsa in Pryor is Google's largest data center facility. It's been there for 15 years. So I want to read some things that he printed in the Oklahoman about two weeks ago. He said, first, communities need to understand something important. You are in the driver's seat. Data centers or large corporations should not control the narrative. If a company wants to invest in your town, local leaders should negotiate aggressively and thoughtfully on behalf of the people who already live there. Communities can require improvements to electrical systems, roads, water infrastructure, and broadband. They can pass and enforce noise ordinances. They can negotiate landscaping setbacks, lighting standards, emergency response investments, workforce partnerships, and community benefit agreements. He goes on to say, secondly, any building with this kind of infrastructure can present temporary challenges for those long-term benefits. And he uses the action of the actual construction damaging roads and the fact that they required the company to repave and pay for the damage in those roads. But he also states, housing authority and accessibility have also become a challenge as thousands of employees, contractors, and related workers moved into the broader region. Those are real issues, and communities that are considering a data center should plan for them up front rather than pretending that they do not exist. His third point was his experience has led him to believe that many of the concerns about data centers are overstated, exaggerated, or just plain wrong. Our residents have not experienced problems with the quality or reliability of water supply. We've not seen spikes in utility costs for residents. We have not experienced major reliability problems with electricity service because of the data center. We have not seen some of the widespread pollution scenarios people often describe online. The prior Google campus is not a loud campus. The nearby highway is louder and can be heard over any noise from their buildings. Fourthly, states don't underestimate the economic and community benefits from data center investment. Google's presence has transformed Pryor's economy over the last 15 years. The company has invested billions of dollars in Oklahoma. It has supported schools, nonprofits, STEM education, workforce development programs, and community organizations throughout the region. Their company and employees have contributed millions of dollars in charitable giving across Oklahoma while supporting educational partnerships and volunteer efforts in Northeast Oklahoma communities. The economic impact has also been substantial. Our local tax base has grown dramatically since Google arrived. Prior public schools valuation increased from roughly $88 million 15 years ago to approximately $1 billion today. Those resources matter for teachers, facilities, students, and the future of the community. These data center companies want to be part of the communities where they operate because long-term community support matters. And that leads him to his last point. Your community and your relationships with your neighbors are more important than any project. The decision about whether or not a community ultimately welcomes a data center should come through respectful discussion, transparency, and good faith debate. If your community decides a data center is not the right fit, that is your right. Another community may decide differently and pursue the opportunities that come with it. For those who do welcome a data center, I think the benefits will continue to unfold for years to come. So those are the comments from a mayor in an adjoining state that's been literally living with this type of investment from this company for 15 years. and seen the benefits of what this type of project can provide and also seen that all of these things that people are afraid could happen have just simply not happened in prior Oklahoma. I think it's really important that you have gone through the process of deliberate debate of talking with your planning and zoning department, them coming with the ordinance that you unanimously passed on June the 2nd of this year. It's important that we have rules. It's important that we have guidelines. It's important that we hold people accountable. But let's do it from facts. Thank you.

Jacob Jameson. After Jacob, Nack, Jackson.

Hi, I'm Jacob Johnston. Sorry for the bad handwriting. But first of all, I want to say about the last speech. He was talking about Oklahoma, the majority of the speech. And I don't know about you all, but we're in Arkansas. I don't know what's going on there. And the dumbing down of the impacts that AI has on the community, he was basically saying they don't happen. But I have right here some more of the statistical side of it. Obviously, we know it has a major energy demand. And according to GallupNews.com, 70% of Americans oppose data centers and About 208 million tons of carbon dioxide is consumed and roughly 1.2 trillion, goodness, gallons of water annually. And to put that in perspective, every United States water bottle company combined uses about 20 billion gallons a year. And I've also researched that these AI data centers are raising prices upwards of 267% in certain regions over a five-year period. And I feel like in this community, rejecting data centers is essential because Arkansas needs to be an influence for the rest of the country because we are the natural state. And I also want to say that the only people benefiting are the major technology companies and shareholders. And on the matter of the non-disclosure agreements that you all have signed, this proves that this is not about the people anymore. This is profit over people, not people over profit. Thank you.

Jackson. How you doing there, Scott? Doing well. Vice Mayor Wyrick, who is my ward director and the entire board. I hail from Otter Creek, which is not close to any place that you're thinking about putting a data center. But I am a lifelong Little Rock resident. And I want to talk to you about the constituents who aren't in the room, our children. I think I inadvertently marked that I was against this moratorium. I am for it. I wear this bracelet today to remind me who I fight for. My daughter made this for me, my 10-year-old. Every one of you up here have either grandchildren, children, nieces, nephews, sons, daughters who live in Little Rock. I love Little Rock. Let's fight for the right things. Let's fight for our kids to make sure they get the same kind of neighborhoods, places to play that we got. Now, I got my 10-year-old. She a city girl, but she a country girl at heart. She loves to play in the dirt. She loves to play in the rain. She plays in the mud. She's a country girl. Let's make sure that we give our kids the same thing that we had a chance to experience. Can we do that? Can we think about more than just who we are in this room at this time and think about what they will inherit? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jackson. Richard Mays. After Richard, Adrian Hunter.

Mr. Scott and members of the board, my name is Richard Mays. I'm an attorney. I would normally tell you that I'm here representing somebody or some company or something, but I'm here today representing myself. because I'm concerned about the speed with which this data center project is being promoted. I grew up hunting and fishing with my father, and that instilled in me a very strong affection for the environment. particularly the environment of Arkansas. The data centers that are being proposed are, like most of the other big data centers, hyper centers they're called in the United States, of which there are really a lot going in right now, are very harmful or can be very harmful to the environment. And I oppose them doing that because of that harm. But let me tell you that we live in the 21st century now. The 21st century has made a big impact here in Arkansas in the last 10 years. I don't think we're going to change whether there are data centers that exist either in Arkansas or elsewhere at this point. We have become accustomed to them, we use them in preparing my remarks to come here tonight. I did some research on the internet. I do research every day in my law business. And I use data centers, I'm quite sure, and when I do that I'm quite sure I'm using God knows how many megawatts of electricity to get the results that I want. This is occurring But we don't have to have necessarily the disadvantages and the harm that data centers are known to cause. The problem you encounter with data centers is when you allow them to come into the community without sufficient regulation and control to prevent the types of environmental pollution, sound pollution, water use, electrical use that they're all known to have. And that can be prevented if you regulate them. The legislature has passed a law that talks about regulating data, not data centers, but Bitcoin companies. There's a difference in that. I think that the law is such that if this board, adopts the proposed ordinance, which will give it time, 18 months, within which to research the data centers to develop a regulatory program. And I think this is definitely important. This is really important. You need to develop a regulatory program for these data centers that will require them to meet certain building specifications, certain operational specifications, obtain certain permits, and do all the things that they need to do and that they can do to reduce the potential for them to create problems in this community. I recognize that the data centers have money. They offer money to the community, which is good. We all need it. We all want it. The community, the governments need it. It's hard to turn down. And you're faced with a dilemma of whether to, you're faced with a dilemma, according to some people, of taking the money or not taking it, giving up the data centers, but keeping the environment. I don't think it's that drastic a choice. I think that you can have both, but you have to impose regulations on the data centers. You have that opportunity to do it. The law does not, in my opinion, prevent you from doing that. So what I'm saying is that I think that you can have the best of both worlds, but you're going to have to Do the research. You draft ordinances imposing regulations and requirements on them. And there are the ordinances out there that you can find that have already done that, that other communities have. And then if they don't operate properly, if they cause a problem, you can shut them down. So I am for Director Webb's proposed ordinance. But I am not saying that you shouldn't get data centers, but you need to put restrictions on them that they have to comply with and that you can enforce to make sure they operate properly and are good neighbors to the people there close by. Thank you.

Adrian Hunter. After Adrian Scott holiday.

Hello, everyone. Evening, Mayor and members of the board. I'm not here to request an 18 month memorandum. I'm asking you to permanently prohibit hyperscale data centers within the city of Little Rock, including any proposed exemption for a project already under discussion and from the looks of it, kind of underway. A temporary pause suggests that this development may become acceptable after enough meetings and studies, but Arkansas does not need 18 months to learn what communities in other states are already living through. Arkansas calls itself the natural state if we replace forest, farmland, wetlands, and open space with industrial server campuses consuming enormous amounts of water, electricity, this could become the nail in the coffin for the natural state and for the health and future of its people. I stand here as someone who identifies with Quapaw bloodline ancestry. To me, this is not merely another development project. This is ancestral land. My concern is not about modern political recognition. It's about protecting the land, the water, and the places where our ancestors lived, prayed, hunted, raised families, and many are still buried. Before any clearing, grading, trenching, or construction, there should be independent archaeological and burial ground investigations first, not studies controlled by the developer. Unmarked graves do not stop being graves because a corporation cannot see the headstone. Look south to Pine Bluff, my home. Pine Bluff has carried the burden of arsenals, mills, chemical operations, industrial corridors, contaminated properties, and browns fields for generations. Communities have been left to live beside cumulative pollution while companies receive the profits and incentives. That pattern is called environmental racism when already burdened communities, especially historically marginalized communities, continue receiving the pollution while wealth and benefits flow elsewhere. We need to clean up the damage Arkansas already has and not create another sacrifice zone in the center of the state. Water is life. The Arkansas River travels roughly 1,450 miles, which roughly a few hundred of it is bone dry, starting at the Colorado River right now. Yeah. So sections of the river near its headwaters and across the basin have faced drought. depletion, and heavy upstream demands. Meanwhile, Arkansas depends on groundwater within the Mississippi embankment aquifer system. Ancient water, they call it. It's irreplaceable. So answer this plainly. How many gallons will this facility withdraw every day and during peak summer heat? Will that water come from the river, municipal supplies, or groundwater? How much evaporate and never return? What water will the people use to drink, cook, farm, and live 20 or 50 years from now? Maybe even tomorrow at this point. What happens during the droughts? What happens to wetlands when groundwater levels decline? Surfaces increase, runoff patterns change. And what happened to Bayou Bartholomew is a pitiful shame. which begins near Pine Bluff and flows approximately 359 miles, supports more than 117 fish species, and it is recognized as one of Arkansas' greatest natural waterways. It's polluted, by the way. Bayou Bartholomew and its connected wetlands do not exist separately from development decisions. water, withdrawals, contaminated runoff, erosion, and altered drainage, and industrial expansion accumulative across wetland sheds, excuse me, watersheds. Electricity presents another danger. Who pays for new substations, transmission lines, generation plants, and grid upgrades? Will ordinary families subsidize infrastructure built for one of the wealthiest corporations in the world? Will Arkansans experience higher electric bills while the developer receives special rates and tax incentives? And will utilities use eminent domain to take private land for transmission corridors serving privately owned data centers? The people deserve binding answers and not promises that are never kept. We have already seen while promises are not enough, Elon Musk XAI operations around Memphis and Northern Mississippi became the subject of lawsuits and regulatory actions over gas turbines operated without required air pyramids. Reporting found that XAI installed dozens of turbines, including more units after litigation had begun near communities already burdened by industrial pollution. Arkansas should not wait for unlawful pollution, illness, lawsuits, and public outrage before you act. I also want to address the witness who said Google has been great for Oklahoma for approximately 15 years and suggested that complaints from people living around the data centers are untrue. A corporate representative's favorable testimony does not cancel the lived experience of residents. Google has invested heavily. in its prior Oklahoma operation, but independent reporting has also documented the growing water demand associated with Oklahoma's data center expansion. The board should not merely ask Google where Google has been successful X successful for who successful for Google, successful for the utility, successful for officials announcing investment totals or successful for people living nearby and paying the bills. before representing Oklahoma as proof independently examine its water consumption, electric rates, public subsidies, tax exemptions, permanent job numbers, noise complaints, infrastructure costs, and environmental records, and listen directly to the residents without a corporate representative interpreting their experiences for them. Corporate testimony is not independent evidence. Neither is the public relations presentation. Now let us address the secrecy. If city officials, economic development organizations, consultants, utilities or developers have signed nondisclosure or confidentiality agreements concerning this project, disclosure that fact before any vote. The public deserves every lawful record concerning the identity of the developer, the proposed site, water use projection, power requirements, utility rate arrangements, tax abatements and incentives, environmental and health studies, generator and turbine plans, emergency response requirements, transmission routes, imminent domain risk, and communications between the company and public officials. Arkansas has already seen controversy when public officials signed economic development non-closure agreements that kept projects hidden from residents and other elected officials. The people cannot provide information consent when the corporation knows the details, government knows the details, but the people who must live with the consequences are told they cannot know. Do not ask us to trust information we're forbidden to see. Do not approve the development first and investigate the consequences later. and do not dismiss residents as dishonest merely because their testimony conflicts with the corporation sales pitch. Finally, I remind you of the words of Arkansas' great seal, Regnet Populus, the people rule. Did that change without our knowledge? Because if the people truly rule, there can be no secret agreements, no corporate carve-outs, no hidden incentives, no dismissal of affected residents, and no permanent sacrifice of public water, land, health, and ancestral places for private profit. So tonight I ask, do the people still rule or do billion dollar companies rule? Protect the Arkansas River, protect the aquifers, protect Bayou Bartholomew, protect our wetlands, protect our graves and ancestral lands, protect Pine Bluff, and every community already carrying Arkansas's industrial burden. Protect our utility customers, protect our children, protect our future, protect the natural state. Vote no. Hyperscale data centers in Little Rock, not for 18 months, but permanently. Thank you.

Sarah Dixon.

Did you say Sarah?

You said Scott after.

Sarah Dixon. Oh, I did say Scott. I'm sorry. I'm fine. Scott, I apologize.

She can go ahead.

All right.

So you're next.

He's yielding to you. It's fine. But I do want to speak. We're going to make sure you speak. Everybody's going to speak.

That's going to be a hard act to follow. So I appreciate all your research and all you had to say. And thank you. Thank you, Mayor Scott. Thank you, board members. I would like to take a philosophical bent. Those that are developing this technology care more for technology than humanity. Peter Thiel could not answer the question when he was interviewed. It was a simple question when asked, do you think humanity is worth saving? And Peter Thiel would not answer that question. Bezos, who we've accepted the $30 million from in his Earth Fund, I'm sure there's strings attached to that, has recently said that humanity should sacrifice water for technology rather than having the priority of using it for humans to drink. These are just two men who want to usher in The Dark Enlightenment of Curtis Yarvin. If you hadn't read Curtis Yarvin, you need to read Curtis Yarvin to see where we are headed with this technology. I won't even mention Mr. Musk and the damage that he has caused to so many lives recently. Hyperscale digital structures or hyperscale data centers do not have our best interests as human beings in mind. They are only concerned with profits for the billionaire class. They are only concerned about their god, which is technology. And so I'm just recently reading Aldous Huxley's biography by Dana Sawyer. It's an excellent biography. Huxley saw the danger in giving our lives, our souls, our spirits over to technology without taking into consideration who we are as human beings and who we are as spiritual beings. So as a teacher, I want to make an analogy. I started teaching a long time ago in 1987 prior to the digital age. We learned with paper. We learned with pencil. We learned cursive writing, which is much better for the brain than printing. It uses many more neural pathways than just printing. But we were told a few years after I started teaching, oh, children do not need to learn cursive anymore because every child eventually will have their own computer. And even back then, I thought that's crazy because sometimes the grid will go down. And what are you going to do if you can't write? What are you going to do if you can't read cursive and you find some old letters in your grandmother's chest? Maybe letters that she wrote to her fiance in World War II. You won't be able to read them. Going forward a few more years, Google, the Gates Foundation, the Zuckerberg Foundation went to every school district, went to every state and said, your students must have Chromebooks. And guess what? It'll be one-to-one. And we will pay for them. School districts won't have to pay for them. We will pay for them. And this will be easy for the teachers. This will be great for students to have this computer in their hand every day. What they were handing our children is the most addictive technology that's ever been created. If you've taught in the last few years, you know that you are not really teaching because as you walk around the room and look to see what's on a Chromebook, it may be a basketball game. It may be a cartoon. It may be a TikTok video that they just made in the bathroom. And so true learning and critical thinking skills have been abdicated for ease for the billionaires because what has happened is our education system has been dumbed down. Children are not learning how to use their critical thinking skills. If you ask a high school student in a classroom to write a paragraph, you would think you had asked them to write their PhD dissertation just to write one paragraph. So the Atlantic Monthly, July 8, their cover said, the age of reading is over. We are now in a post-literate era. College teachers are saying our kids cannot read a novel and think critically about what they've read. In that article, A Harvard professor said I sign a clockwork orange which was written in 1964 and students were going to AI to have it translated because they said they could not understand that old English that was written in 1964. In the Little Rock School District, we are prohibited from teaching full novels. We are robbing our children of human experience And I think that we should put a moratorium on this. We really should visit the data centers in other cities to see what's happened. And I'll say one more thing to just end this. A few months ago, I was driving across the Broadway Bridge. I was listening to NPR in a story, I mean, a segment on NPR with some technology. And the man leading the discussion said that the United States had fallen behind in the AI game, that we were very far behind China because Silicon Valley had gotten to a certain point, rested on its laurels, And we had a lot to do to be at the place that China is. And then before the last board meeting, when I thought we were going to talk about the moratorium, I thought about China. And I thought, how many data centers does China have? They only have 500. Why would China need only 500 data centers to be superior than we are? And it is the profit motive and the greed motive that we have here. This is, you know, every company, every Tom, Dick, and Harry billionaire wants to build a data center. And, you know, you can... Do the research and see if, in the long run, this is going to serve humanity or destroy humanity. I want you to think how hot it has been in the last few weeks. It reached 115 heat index. Data centers will increase the temperature by 16 degrees. Do you want to be that hot? I do not. I do not want to live in a world where we put an emphasis on technology at the expense of our own humanity. And for that very reason, I'm asking you to vote for this moratorium and seriously think about if we really need this data center anywhere in our state. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Scott Holliday and I'm a longtime resident of Ward 1. I'm active in several groups that are working on the data center issue and I think it's fair to say there's strong support for this moratorium. Google announcement and finding out that that was already At the time, it seemed like a done deal, but it now seems to revisit that and to at least explore more closely what exactly are they going to build. what additional regulations may be needed to effectively regulate hyperscale data centers that are operating in our city. One thing I wanted to mention is that during the 15 months since that Google memorandum was signed, I think we've all learned a lot about AI data centers. Frankly, at that time, I don't think there was much on the radar about AI data centers at all. People were still talking about crypto mining data centers, which was a big issue in Arkansas in 2023 and 2024. And that's what the legislature addressed in the legislation that they passed. And I think as we've learned more about AI data centers, I think one of the things we've learned is that There are different kinds of data centers. They're not all the same. And Mr. Cheshire, I thought he brought up some good points from prior Oklahoma. Yes, the city ought to be negotiating. Yes, the city can make demands of data companies or tech companies. I do think the one thing that I didn't really agree with is that if they've had a data center for 15 years, then it wasn't an AI data center. It's a different kind of data center. And the cloud storage like Google would have been doing 15 years ago, those are much different. They aren't... They don't put the same demands in terms of electricity and water usage. There haven't been complaints about them creating heat islands and did I mention noise? I think the AI data centers and the crypto mining data centers are particularly notable for noise that continues 24 hours a day. So having an 18-month moratorium, we're not banning Google or anybody else. We're having a pause. And it'll be a chance to have more scrutiny, which I think should have been done on the Google proposal in the first place. Now we'll have a chance to look at it more closely. and also a chance to strengthen the regulations that are already adopted. And as we continue to learn, think how much we've learned about this in the last 15 months. In the next 18 months, all of us will have a chance to learn more about AI data centers. We are seeing all across the country people are expressing concerns. And so we're going to have models of regulation from all around the country. And the technology is continuing to evolve. And so by having an 18-month pause, perhaps the tech industry will also have a chance to find a more effective and more energy efficient and quieter technologies to implement here in Little Rock if they end up developing here. So let's see. I think that's about it. But I do strongly encourage you to vote for this moratorium. Thank you.

Alice Watson.

My name is Alicia Watson. It's not every day I can fact check Jay Cheshire, but I'm going to do it today. Prior, Oklahoma has 4,500 jobs. We have 50. So let's be clear, and it's not apples to apples. On June 2nd, I stood here in this chamber asking the board for a temporary moratorium. On that night, you chose to push through a rushed watered-down ordinance. Today, I am back here because the grid is straining, residents are demanding to be included in the process, and the narrative we are being fed by our own legal counsel is crumbling. I am asking tonight that you do what is right, vote yes on the data center moratorium. For too long, this board has operated under a legal history of misinformation from city attorney Tom Carpenter. Let's look at the record. He repeatedly told you all that you needed to sign the MOUs and you didn't have a choice. Secondly, he said that in acting the local moratorium, that would be a violation of Act 851. And finally, he terrified this room by stating that if we put Google in that moratorium, we would have a lawsuit. But let's inject some truth and cast out these legal opinions coming from the city attorney and the attorney general's office. While we were being told that a moratorium is illegal, our state leaders are compromised. In October 2023, attorney Tim Griffin accepted $1,000 campaign contribution from Robert Kuhn of Impact Management Group. This transaction happened precisely when heavy public scrutiny and active investigations into foreign-owned data center operations were happening. How can we trust this legal enforcement coming from the top down when it's just greased by data center lobbyists? A city director represents their constituents. That's y'all's job. So when I call and leave messages and I don't get call back from you, that's a problem, especially when you're at large. You control the whole city. It's your job to represent us. It's not your job to have an opinion of what you think should happen. You need to listen to us. Tonight we have received legal advice making it clear that local governments possess the absolute and inherent police power to regulate land use and protect public health, safety, and welfare. A moratorium is a legally sound, fiscally conservative planning pause. This ensures that tech developments do not exhaust our resources and damage the health of citizens. I leave you with the words of Ida B. Wells, a justice advocate. The way to right wrong is to turn the light of truth upon them. Vote yes tonight for the moratorium.

Brittany Walker.

I'm Mayor Scott in the board. I don't reside in any of you all's district. I used to from the 72209 to the 7223. I have a family. Me and my husband, we high school sweethearts. We both from Sweet Home and College Station. After it did not work out in Little Rock, we decided to go back home where we have peace. Our kids have freedom. They can run outside, play, just enjoy life. It comes as a shock to me because growing up in College Station, we just been through so much from the tornado to the soaring of 3M. This Google data center, we will not survive that. We will not. For me, I get the ends of both sticks. I have property and family in College Station. I actually stay in Sweet Home off of Harper Road, close to the Google data center. We do not know what this looks like. Again, lucky straw for me. We're in the nucleus. I will be in between Avio and Google. I'm bouncing back and forth from meetings to meetings to see what's going on. I sent an email to you all last week. I don't know if anyone looked at it. Energy, pre-planned outage. Messages, calls, emails, times changing. I work from home. My company is not in the state of Arkansas. I deal with HIPAA and PHI. I don't have the luxury to go to Starbucks and pull out my Chromebook and work. Well, lucky for me, with all the planned outages, I wasn't even impacted. But however, I made way to make sure me and my family were not going to be impacted by that if our power did go out. Energy did not follow up to say, hey, you guys will not be impacted. My main concern, is this the beginning of one of the many horror stories that we will foresee? We're caught in a pickle if we have these concerns or issues arise. If I get up in the morning and my water looks like brown tea or my lights is out, who do I call? Is it City of Little Rock issue? Is it going to be Aveo? We don't know. We deal with these issues even when we have to call emergency assistance. They have to figure out, are you consider Little Rock or are you considered the county with the impact of these data centers? We will not be able to wait around to see who's going to come to sweet home, collar station, Riceville, Higgins, Woodson to help us get our issues resolved. Last but not least, College Station Elementary, our community has fought hard to get a new school. We're almost there. I have a concern when this infrastructure start, will these trucks, will they come through Fraser Pike? We're already disregarded. I'm not telling you what I think. I'm telling you what I know. I live in it every single day. This is not something I Google. This is not let me jump on the bandwagon. This is what I'm living in every single day. We're at max capacity. We're dealing with issues from the airport, the planes. Been dealing with it my whole life. 3M, Union Pacific, that's a whole other issue. We're always at an inconvenience. And I'm not looking for sympathy, empathy. We're used to fighting in College Station. We're ready for it. A lot of us may not be here because we don't have the time. People are literally working and going home. And what surprised me was a Google meeting. They're meeting with the community. I didn't get an invite, maybe because I'm considered the county, but you're right there to me. If they have that much compassion for a community and wanting to see things, I don't even think anyone in College Station got an invite. No one knew. And prior to this planned outage, the beginning of July, we had, College Station had a power outage called energy. It was due to a third party liability. Who's the third party? We have so much going on around us. They're working. They're getting us prepared for these data centers. I've never seen this many work trucks in the area. It is ridiculous. it's really scary. So we go, and this is me speaking just from a family perspective. I moved back to the country for peace because of some of the issues Mr. Johnston got up here and spoke or spoke about in the great city of Little Rock. So that's why I moved back home for peace. But again, we may have to uproot because the peace is being disruptive again. We don't have it. We don't know what this is going to look like, but I can tell you what it's looking like now. It's a disruption. It's a disservice. And by me being a remote employee, roads are blocked off, stopped by the train tracks, you get off I-30 by Mills High, you're stopped by another train track, you have the Granite Mount Quarry with their rocks, they're having to connect to Union Pacific. It's a never ending battle. And if they care so much about our communities, do you know that some people are still down on septic tanks in those areas? We don't have adequate water. We don't. So my question is to you, please approve this moratorium. And that's the first step. The next step, please try to mirror something with Pulaski County so it can be consistent on both ends because we will feel the impacts of these data centers. And a lot of people don't realize that you're saying Google is Little Rock, but that used to be Pulaski County. I feel like this was very strategically planned. You all feel like no one down there cares because they do care. I care. And I'm more alarmed now because these are not my neighbors. These are not my neighbors. They may stay in Little Rock, but these are not my neighbors and they have concerns. So that literally puts me more on anxiety that people that don't even stay by me have concerns about the impacts of these data centers. So please consider to pass this moratorium. Thank you for your time.

Lake Smith.

Hey board, good evening, how's it going y'all? As you can see once again, people of Little Rock are out here, everyone is. And we're here to demand that you stop this data center from happening. I am in favor of the moratorium, but we've been doing this for months now. We've been coming up here to ask y'all to stop, and y'all keep acting like y'all aren't listening really. We get told by analysts and lawyers that we can't really stop this because we might get sued. But why aren't you telling us that we're going to fight this unconstitutional law, whatever. It's about crypto mining, right? But why don't we just fight it? Why don't we just try to do what's being demanded of you? Why don't you look these people in the face and say, we're going to fight for our constituents, we're going to fight for the city, we're going to fight for the people. It kind of looks like you guys don't really roll over for anyone with money. Is this a legacy I want to establish for Little Rock, a rich man's playground, while we all suffer the consequences? I stand here. Month before that and so on and so on and so on. Instead of half-baked ordinances, let's get real political action already. Think outside the box. Let's fight this shit. Let's get real action already. Sorry, excuse my language. Thank you. Let's not listen to the conservative voices. Let's not listen to all these money interests that are going to be whispering in your ear right after this. Let's actually listen to the people that are here tonight, the people that...

Director Hines, I'm sure you're over there Googling the same stuff that I was while we were waiting, but I did look up some other information to fact check about prior Oklahoma. Google was happy to tell me what Google told me. Google was not happy enough to tell me what the mayor makes in prior. Denials of war and the rules of engagement seem to be changing and blurring before our eyes. Building a large-scale data center infrastructure could make our area a target for foreign attacks. Just in the past few months, dairy by Amazon and Oracle have been targeted and hit with cruise missiles and drone strikes. That's caused widespread power outages and fires in the region. That's what modern warfare looks like in the world that we live in now. I remember growing up with nuclear attacks during that era. Probably most of you on the board are old enough to remember. I'm not, personally. It happened the year that I was born. But in 1980, there was a major fuel explosion. These silos held intercontinental ballistic missiles meant to destroy targets halfway around the world. And they were being built in the 1960s with technology that pales in comparison to the accuracy and destructive power. You'll remember episodes of MacGyver or the A-Team or action movies that you've seen where some terrorist group was trying to destroy the mainframe to disrupt some government or military operation. All those mainframes in those movies, those are the same ones that people keep saying, we're trying to destroy the mainframe. It's the same thing that could plausibly happen in today's landscape of war. And if we're inviting large scale data infrastructure into our area that's being hosted by large corporations, Just in the last couple of days, the State Attorney General Tim Griffin issued a statement about cyber attacks that have been happening on water and power infrastructure across our country over the last weeks. He said or implied in these statements that these type of attacks are something that have been anticipated for years, but still no one has done anything to prevent it from happening here. Arkansas is not hacker proof. If something like that were to happen. I think more than anything, it's important for us to know ahead of time the types of data that are going to be stored, the level of sensitivity of those types of data, if and how they're related to our military infrastructure, our civilian municipal infrastructure, and down to how they will store and protect our individual surveillance profiles that they're currently building on every single person, and that doesn't exclude any of you sitting up there. We all have a... We all have a right to know what's being done to keep that data safe before there's ever any ground broken on that project that could potentially further tie our civilian into infancy. That's just one more reason to support this moratorium. Thank y'all.

Perry Doubleday. Perry Doubleday.

That would be me. Hi, I'm Perry Doubleday. I have been in front of y'all several times and I'm going to try and keep it as simple as I can tonight because I have been watching glazed faces where you state too many statistics and percentages and everybody goes, oh my God, I can't keep up with all this. And I get it because we're all of us have been reading and reading and reading since we didn't know anything. And we also know y'all didn't know what you were signing off for last April because it was swapped land, our land and the knowledge of what was going to happen to it. was there in the person that swapped our land for this. They didn't bother to tell y'all what this was going to happen, what was going to be contaminated, what was going to be used. I think it was in the consent agreement, actually, that I got slipped in there to swap our land with Google. So at what point does the will of the people come first? That's my biggest question. Did you read about? Open AI went rogue, hacked another startup.

Do we call it HAL or do we call it the Terminator?

Is there an off switch on these things? I don't think so. I've read that there's not off switches on them. Entergy, smugly talking about eminent domain in the quorum court last week. No one owns their land. It's OK for everybody to walk in and go, You don't have a right to say anything about the land that you purchased in good faith and are living on. The NDA signed by the chamber, Central Arkansas Water, Entergy, who else? I don't think y'all signed an NDA. I really don't. I have not read that that any of y'all have signed an NDA. And now you're sitting here trying to help us make sense of what was thrown in your laps without any information. So I got to tell you, I don't appreciate NDAs. I don't appreciate people making money off of this because we know that there's one person on this board that has clients that makes money off of this. Most of the data centers have an expected 20 to 30 year lifespan. That's what they're looking at. What I've read lately is the most climate aligned data centers are often the most resistant and competitive and ecological. They know how to come in and not take all the water, not raise the energy bills. Energy, I should say, because energy is not in every state. So why the hurry? Why the hurry? The US already has 38% of the data centers in the world. The United States, we're sitting on 4,500 data centers.

And as the teacher said, China only has 500.

So what are we pushing this for so hard except for greed? We need to protect the people, not the corporations. We need to make a safe future. for our children, our grandchildren. And if you look at that will be around past us. So I have to say full blown, let's get this moratorium. Let's get the impact studies, transparency. We want you to be informed. We want you to be transparent with us and we appreciate you working in our honor. All right. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, board, Ms. Wyrick, that guy's crazy for you. I've worked all over Europe, and I sure do love it here. And I could live anywhere in the world I want, and I'll live here. I don't know if y'all... I was so embarrassed. Ms. Webb, thank you for doing this. And I hope that y'all will all vote for the moratorium. And I don't know anything about this. I know my dad did evil shit for a living. He would say, follow the money. I apologize for wrong language. I didn't mean to say that. And I don't know if this is. And, you know, I think really from what I've seen, this is a done deal. Like there's no there's no hope. Participating in and. Local elections, I mean. I know my representative. I know my senator. I photographed presidents. Impact on my life than any of them. I know I'm not very smart, but I know that corporations, and if you pursue this, I mean, what stops it is long-term... environmental impact lawsuits, which will tie this up and put it in courts for years. My husband, he's really smart. And he said that it was expanding understanding of what was to take place and that to be a good situation. But Maybe this isn't what we need. I mean, I have a friend that has a special needs daughter. It's in most of my house. So I just, I don't know. We're here from the government. We're going to help you. It's never been a good battle cry.

Adia Diaz. Thank you. I apologize.

contact information, a link to my entire research document so you have access to everything, including sources. But I will summarize the information that I wish to be public knowledge here. We currently have two proposed data centers into the usage of 127,000 homes. According to the 2025 census data, there are only about 88,000 homes in the city of Little Rock. In this resolution, it specifies those eligible for the reduced amount are deemed high load users. A high load user is defined as any user that contracts with E of Little Rock has seven power companies and seven power plants. The annual net generation of all of them combined is 900 infrastructure that exists within city limits. And remember, Google has to receive 225 megawatts from the corporate city limits to qualify for the franchise fee. Transmission lines that will exclusively use to supply power to the data center that Avaya, a private company, is building. There is no reason to believe that they would operate any differently. If utility companies decide to use all currently existing infrastructure just for the Google project and builds new infrastructure for existing customers to be moved on to, we technically aren't paying for Google share. But we are practically, due to the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act, allowing companies from one of the poorest states in the nation Affordability is already a crisis here. People can't afford groceries. They have to make the decision between having a home and feeding their children. And transparency is the only way that you guys will remain in office. We all know that there's an election coming up. Most of you are running either opposed or running for new offices.

At the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Because of that, I need to tell you before I say anything, anything I say tonight does not necessarily reflect the views of the concerns deeply felt suggests the need for this pause. It's what should have been done without knowing, as Mr. Cheshire suggested, all the facts. The 18 month moratorium would give you an opportunity to not only develop facts, but speak to other cities. That you should not fear this lawsuit as a done deal. I suggest you should hold the line, and here's why. Google wants to bully cities and localities, and why a moratorium is not per se a regulatory taking. The Supreme Court told us that in 2002. There the court said, think about those two things. You also have to think about the time in which this occurs and whether or not the use and value of that property disappears. And the court said, listen, it gives people who are not so familiar with the process who are not so organized as the developer, and in this case, Google, and opportunity restrictions have not had a chance to do. And that is, think deeply about these concerns. Think deeply about the future. Think deeply about the benefits and the costs. I'm agnostic as the- Your last name, Tom?

Wakefield.

Thank you.

naive about this. Now, you guys were not necessarily elected at the time that this issue was present and relevant, right? This is a new issue. It has just kind of come to the forefront. So now you have an opportunity to make, next, are we gonna sell the air? That's just the most basic of necessities. And these Silicon Valley people, they want to come here and use us like lab. We want to put the data center here. Why? So that it is as far away from them as possible. Okay? They want our water. It's no secret why they would choose us. We have a resource. We have something valuable. And even the idea that we would sell it for $30 million in this current economy is laughable. These are things that are priceless. These are things that are worth billions and billions of dollars to these companies and they're getting it for pennies on the dollar because we won't stand up for what we have. And, you know, people talk about regulation, but regulation is like a parking ticket to these people, okay? We have to be, you know, once the data center is here, it's not going anywhere. They will always have more than enough money to pay off any fines that they may accrue through their breaking the law. But we, the people who will suffer the consequences economically, will not be able to turn back the clock. There is no amount of money that can unpollute our water once it is polluted, okay? So yeah, then the fact that there's these NDAs going on, it's creepy, it's weird, it's suspicious. It's like you're expecting us to, like no good deed goes on in secrecy, right? This is not a surprise birthday party. This is shady business doings of the most nefarious kind, and it reeks of pollution, to be honest. Pollution is a long-term game, right? And by the time that many of you are out of office, it may take 10 years for us to see the consequences of this decision. But when those consequences come, we will know that it was today and this group of people standing in front of us that were the cause of it. And I hope that we will be able to have some type of accountability taken, but it may be too late by then. Our power bills are going to subsidize the riches of men million miles away to make them even more rich. Our air is going to be filled with the blood curdling screams of screeching metal, just to call it progress. And our water is going to be polluted. And frankly, if we go ahead with this, I just think that it's shameful, cowardly, and unforgivable, but not unforgettable. We will be here in November, and we will not forget. And I hope that you guys take this opportunity. I don't know if you wanted to run for the city council in order to have something to do or in order to be able to do something. But now is your opportunity to actually do something to protect the city of Little Rock, and I hope you will. Thank you very much.

Mike Poe.

Wish me luck. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all as well. All right. Thank you, Kathy, BJ, Frank, Lance, Virgil, Andrea, Kathy, and Dean. Thanks for listening to us. Thanks for your public service that you have done. Thank you for your humanity. You made a few mistakes. There's some failures in decision on three different occasions, and we need to discuss it. We are private citizens and you are public servants. You sold out our privacy and set yourself up for public scrutiny. Politicians are the most at risk than ever. And there are people discussing launching a drone program to protect all of our precious politicians and their families. These cameras will be in parks, they'll be in schools, they'll be in gyms, and they'll be making sure all the politicians and their families have security wherever they go. See how scary that sounds? This could really happen. That could get funded. That's what you're doing and funding against our votes and our families. That's what you're doing. I was here with the same fight 30 years ago in 96 against 3M. My camping out overnight and doing undercover investigations and interviews with 16 families to help those College Station families win $32 million against 3M. We paused this huge company that was destroying the community on those 16 families behalf with my camera work as the main evidence. I did it 17 years. in hope against the Turk Swepco power plant, the last coal burning power plant in America. This is the same thing. We paused it without a fight because we were showing up just like we are now. So here we are again. And once again, I'm putting everything else in my personal and professional life on hold for your historically horrific mistakes and failures. I watch nothing but this content and the algorithm keeps feeding me. Most of this is researchable facts and some opinions on those researchable facts. This is quite simply blatant racism and digital redlining low-income black and brown communities. These centers are going directly on the neighborhood aquifers and building their own power stations with fusion, nuclear, coal, gas, and diesel to profit and support each other's AI Zionist pedo agendas. They're spending billions across the country to own all major utilities and resources. Entergy will likely be buying power from them. Central Arkansas Water will likely buy water from them too. They will also own all the food, drugs, healthcare, and all the distribution of resources. I don't see Tad from the water company here tonight. He slept through the county meeting this last week, and I was really hoping he could hear how he influenced history. You see, these soccer cards, you see, were my idea because Tad coaches kids' soccer, and it's FIFA time, and I wanted him to see and hear how he influenced Arkansas history. You could see these soccer cards. Everywhere you go in City Hall and the county, because you can't read our expressions, but you're going to see how we feel. I've even been thanked by deputies and leaders for bringing this silent ability for the community here. And that's what we're here for. We are 90% water and we are affected by every single drop of this kind of cruelty. To my own detriment, I've defended several of these directors to voters in so many spaces. I repeatedly said that I respect this entire board's humanity. and previous service to this community, but they have all have to be held accountable for these three inexcusable wrong decisions. I pledge, regardless of your votes tonight, previously or in the future, when push comes to shove in humanity versus evil, entities, and actual danger, I would take a bullet for any of you. Any of you. Any of you. Most of the time I prefer to speak from the heart versus reading, but the truth is I can write from exactly that same place and it might be received more acutely. You see, I really need you to listen to me, to us, to a half a million people in central Arkansas, to the three million people in the state and the 300 million people in this country. Nobody, unless they are benefiting directly or covertly, wants to give up a drop for this AI slop. Nobody. 70 to 80% of all people on both sides of the political aisle do not want these AI fusion surveillance centers. And the rest aren't paying attention. Or voting. Likely less than 1% of political bodies in offices, halls, courts want to sell their children's future. You likely don't want this. But maybe you think that your extended families will have some elite access to these resources and could possibly be a reason to okay to pay taxes to the isn't real regime and kill children overseas with these same technologies. That's what you're doing. Look it up. These are researchable facts. You're causing the genocide right now, tonight. That's you, not us. You're doing this against our votes. Flock, ShotSpotter, data centers, and Amazon Web Services are all the same. They are the genocide. They are ever-present evil committing the worst crimes against humanity. They are here in the USA, and we are under a freaking coup, and this is an unconstitutional surveillance stalking, and this data collection is treason. The CEOs of these technologies are historically reckless and inflate their abilities and companies' value for the IPO pump no matter the impact on real humans. These crooks and pedos are collectively looting trillions over the past few months with this idiocracy built on lies, human trafficking, money laundering, and useless tech like VR goggles, NFTs, and metaglasses. The AI bubble is bursting as we speak. They are all failures and backstopping each other's company and losing trillions in the past few months. Nvidia is a failure. Tesla, failure. SpaceX, failure. Amazon Web Services, failure. Look into it. Not billions, trillions lost in the past few months while you guys are talking about this. They're losing and you are propping them up. You are causing the genocide in your own company, in your own country. I'm not sure who the special guest is that you used as an excuse for the last meeting, but those that don't remember, it's just hours after y'all collectively accepted a bribe from Amazon that amounted to exactly two months of pay. for the recently fired 4,600 Central Arkansas workers left to search for jobs with thousands of others whose families thought their person had a bulletproof job before they took that bullet for Bezos. The biggest company in the world said they had to lay off 4,600 central Arkansans because of poor design by a Canadian firm and the New Madrid fault line that has been here since time began. This is the same company, AWS, Amazon Web Services, that keeps data, these bad actors in USA that have been used to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children all over the Middle East. They are committing a genocide there and they are starting one here. That park was already designed and paid for, but now it's tainted and will be poisoned by two data centers four to eight miles away. Anyone, and I mean anyone, saying no or present to a moratorium to Google, Aveo, Amazon, Meta, XAI, or any of these warmongering child murderers is furthering the agenda of Google, Amazon, Flock, Palantir, Anthropix, SpaceX, and all owned and are the actual voice of this Zionist pedo regime. Everyone on this board said yes to Flock. They said yes to ShotSpotter, that's microphones in your neighborhoods, and these AI fusion surveillance centers. That's three direct and violent strikes against our community, our country, our state. I think it's time to agree with humanity and change your own history. This is the fourth most important vote you've ever made. And the last three, you failed. Failed. I appreciate when a coach tells me I failed. My mom's been telling me since I was a toddler to wrap it up. I bet you wish I had already. And I know you all, most of you, most of you, I don't believe you're going to vote correctly, BJ, Lance, Virgil, Andrea, Dean. I believe that Kathy and Cappy are going to vote correctly because this is Kathy's moratorium. I know this is gonna fail tonight, it's predictable. This is all performative, everything you're doing. This moratorium is needed only because all of you made these and so many other wrong decisions against our votes and the wishes of this constituency. I will give you more than you give me. I will give you peace, privacy, and respect your humanity, but you will never get my vote again. Look around this room, if you plan to vote, This is for you guys. If you plan to vote or support anyone on this board or this mayor or running in any of their elections in the future, I want you to hold up a green card now. Look behind me. Now, if you won't vote for them, hold up a red card or your hand. Look behind me. I don't have to look. I know what I'm doing and I don't believe you do. You could do better. You could make a better decision tonight. We all know people running against you right now. We all know where our votes are going and we aren't the only ones. We're just the leaders of the community that can show up. The rest are watching the live stream. So do you see us now? Do you see us now? Because we see you. And Andrea, We believe you. And we are grateful that Maya Angelou taught us well. Make the right decision, change your minds and stop these geofencing prisons and this Zionist isn't real regime.

Kitty Dayton.

Yes, ma'am. I've been in here a long time, but that's all right.

My cell phone done went out, honey, so I got to speak from the heart.

Because I don't have no notes. Just, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

Board, thank you all for being here. Just for me. and the people. We appreciate you. I am Kitty Payton and from Wrightsville. Okay. It's been a lot going on. I have a nephew that attends Daisy Bates Elementary School. This Avion whatever data center is going to be 1,000 feet from Daisy Bates Elementary School is a big problem for me, for Amy. See, it's my future generation here. You understand? Legacy that's leaving behind from the lady of the house, Triopia Moore, which was my mother. She was born here. See, I was born in Los Angeles, where I wasn't able to appreciate the seasons that I see in Little Rock, Arkansas. Winter, summer, spring, fall. I didn't even know what that looked like till I came here. The beautiful leaves on the trees turning different colors, getting the snow. Hot as heck in the summertime. You know, California, that's just sweater weather. You understand? It's a difference here. But my mother was born here, worked hard, picked cotton for $3 a day, okay? Went to California to make a living for her family. Wanted to come back to where she was raised, to the natural state for her legacy. I got the legacy. I have a medical foster home for veterans that I service. I have a farm that I teach children where they food come from, you understand. And I also have a nonprofit organization that I give to the community. Four initiatives a year. A teacher's appreciation because they give to our future generation. You understand? I do kids, Christmas for kids. I do a summer camp, okay, and a harvest festival. Those four initiatives I'm going to do even if the nonprofit don't have a dime. I'm going to make it happen for them babies, you see. Because that's who's going to run this when y'all gone. Because everybody's going to leave here. I'm here because I got the birth certificate. The next is the death certificate. What does that dash look like? See, I got preexisting conditions, and I have veterans that I service. I don't need no data center down here by 365. See, it's a problem. For my breathing, for the kids that's outside, if a fire take place, we ain't got no fire department, everybody volunteering. If they sleep, who gonna come put the fire out? See, it's a lot going on. I done heard a lot about transparency. See, the oath that you took to have that seat, to think about the community, which is us here, Say to people, baby, the way I feel right now, they done went from lynching us from the tree to modern-day lynching with these damn data centers. Where is it going to stop? Y'all got the power. See, help us. We're here to help us. Ms. Webb, thank you for your integrity. Okay? See, to put this in place, we need your help. Don't let the money take you through there. See, because everything done in the dark will come to the light. And remember, God sees everything. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. That's it for the lady. Oh, honey, don't let me leave the bag, baby. I'm leaving all the coins.

Blake B.

Mayor, Board, how are we all doing today? I don't know what I can say that hasn't been said already, but I'm a little bit upset at the decision that this Board is probably going to make for these AI Dental Centers. And I want to bring a point to y'all that no one else has brought up. What do y'all think is going to happen with the homeless population here that's going to get exposed, going to get sick, have pre-existing conditions, and just immune disorders? Because We have a lot of homeless people who are mentally ill, do not have any family or friends to contact, and will die from exposure from these data centers. You will have sick people on the streets. Do you want that for the city of Little Rock? Does anyone want that? Do y'all want that? No, I didn't think so, right? What I want y'all to see is this is gonna ruin so many people's lives. My mom used to live in good syndrome when she was a teenager. Later down in her life, she had an autoimmune disorder that caused her to sadly pass away. If she lived today and going forward into the future, she would probably die a lot sooner in this case, right? I need y'all to know that this is gonna turn so many people against you and it's gonna make you guys look so, so bad. And I don't think you guys want that on your conscience. None of us do, right? I think y'all are very good people. I think you guys are very smart. I think you guys know what's best for the people of Little Rock. But it sometimes doesn't feel that way. And sometimes it feels like you guys are looking, you're an outsider looking in. You don't understand what's good for your community because you're not really on the ground for your community. Right? You're not talking to people. You're in your offices. I'm sure you can talk to people. You guys are very intelligent people. But I'm gonna need you guys just to do a little bit more for us, for yourselves, for the city of North of Iraq. Hot Springs, Pine Bluff, whatever, because we are going to see a turnover for the worst for all these nice, beautiful people out here. And I think at some point, if you guys do go through with this, you will reap what you sow because this is gonna be on your doorstep. It's gonna be on your doorstep. So that's all I had to say. I didn't really have much, but thank you.

Kathy Wells.

Mayor Scott, members of the board of directors. I'm Kathy Wells, President of the Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhoods. As we have emailed you, we support this proposal, but we want to call your attention to the fact it's not a moratorium proposal stop. It's that plus a half a dozen other policy proposals, many of which have been discussed in our meetings in recent months. And we recognize there's a division of opinion on voting yes or no on any moratorium, That's as it may be. What else is presented tonight should not be lost in the discussion and your attention. Whether or not you vote a moratorium, we need the public discussions. We need the website that you develop that puts all of the documents out there so that we satisfy our yearning for factual material and transparency. We need planning, we need assessment of all of these issues that we've been hearing about. We need the infrastructure reviewed. We need the safety regulations such as an emergency preparedness activity to be known and told. We need the standards for the noise, for the regional grid electricity issues. All to be collected and then published on the city website. We don't have that, we've needed that from the beginning. We would be in a much healthier place if a public website and public discussions had ensued after the April sale of the property for this project. So we've got some catching up to do, but let's do it. Let's not delay on all of these important good government actions any longer. Thank you.

Members of the board, we've heard from everyone tonight. Director Webb.

Thank you, Mayor. And I think, I mean, I'm going to speak to the board. because I think the speakers made some very compelling arguments. I agree with the speakers that this should only be the first step. And I think it was Scott who said, we've learned a lot in the last year, and we will learn a lot in the next year. This is, and I have rewritten my notes in cursive. And now I'm having trouble reading because I keep marking out because you all said so much of what I had planned to say. This is temporary. It is legal. It is a sound pause. It is the first step. And regardless of our opinion about data centers, I hope we can agree that the size, the potential impact, is unlike anything we have seen. As concerns grow across the political spectrum, how can we not use our land use authority on behalf of our residents? This will give us the time to get the information to see if some of the claims that were made tonight about the benefits are true. I'm not going to go through the ordinance step-by-step, which I had planned to do because we have heard it from so many of the speakers. I'm only going to touch on a couple of things. One, it does include a website that would have all of the documents. And while John De Pippa said it better than I, I am going to only go to that one section in the moratorium. If a company believes that application of this moratorium constitutes an unconstitutional and temporary taking, they can file a petition for moratorium relief. The Planning Commission will follow standard process. They will recommend approval or dismissal, denial of the petition, and forward to the board, and then the board can deal with that. which we do, which we have, and we have done that on discussions about short-term rentals, sober living homes, and more, and they have the right to judicial review. This does not conflict with 851. It is legally defensible. It is not anti-development. It is a tool that we have that we can and should use to give us the time and the information we need to make sure we have done everything to protect our neighborhoods and our residents, which is our overriding responsibility. I would appreciate a good vote.

Vice Mayor Warwick.

Thank you. I appreciate all of you coming tonight. It's been very interesting information. I see the compassion. I see the concern. I see the worrisome attitudes that you have. And I've learned a lot. I know there's a lot more to develop as we go through this. I'm going to support the moratorium tonight. I'm doing it because it gives the city a pause. It gives us breathing room to evaluate the state of the development. We need to review our police powers. Our police powers, you can only fine someone $1,000 a day if there's any irregularities with the development. I don't think that's enough. So that's something we can work on. We need to understand the true impact of the data center. It allows questions to be answered that we've not gotten answered. I've got a memo that came from one of y'all. I don't know who it was, but it said 50 questions, how not to love a data center. And so I have at least 50 questions, and most of them need to be answered by Google. We need information from Google. I've looked at the most data centers on YouTube. That is a horrible mess with the the gas emissions that they have there and the gas turbines. I mean, there's like 60 plus gas turbines that they have in Memphis that are polluting the area. We need to work on our current ordinance. I think Tom's gonna have one ready toward the end of August that we need to look at. We've not looked at the pollution air quality. We've not looked at the heat generation in the buildings. And we need to take a pause for human health and to try to improve the trust in our community. So I will be supporting the moratorium.

Ma'am.

Ma'am.

Director Hines. Thank you, Mayor. Keep my comments brief since we've been here such a long time. Judge Griffin earlier proposed that this data center is a scale that's not known. And if you want to take the logical conclusion to that, every new industry we've approved in this city was at a scale not known, whether it be Trex, Wellspun, Amazon. But the truth is that the scale is known. They're all over the country. We've seen good examples and bad examples. We have just up the road a good example of how they've operated in prior Oklahoma. My question and my logical conclusion to this, if you look at any other industries that could possibly locate in our port that aren't there, whether it be an automotive manufacturing plant, which granted would not use as much power, but would use four times as much water and create pollutants used in the automotive process. A steel mill would use twice as much power, not as much water. The other item we could do would be a microchip plant, which would use quadruple the power and quadruple the water. My logical proposal, my logical, I guess, carrying out of these trains of thought is that we have a port that some 40 years ago, the city fathers before me thought it would be a good idea to have an area to develop for heavy industrial uses. And I would say by all objective measures, data centers fit somewhere in between extreme use and somewhere in the middle. I think it's, we've heard a lot of objections to just a lot of, I guess you'd say, different facts. 40 years ago, City Board created this, and it's where it's supposed to be. I'm not going to support a moratorium on this because the next thing that happens is if you're opposed to this, then you should be opposed to any other development we do in that port going forward because there are much more with heavier impacts than this. That's okay. I have the floor right now. You all have had your time to speak.

Let them say it so we can be done.

So, you know, and I think Mr. De Pippa brings up a point that this wouldn't be a taking, but this body passed regulations. We had an open discussion not only with with Google, but with you all. Most of you I've seen you in this room. You were opposed to even passing those regulations as not going far enough. But we had to start somewhere. To me, that seems like consideration, Tom. It would totally, I'm not a legal scholar like Mr. DePippa, but we have passed regulation and now to go back and put a moratorium in, I think is bad policy. I think it would end up with the city being sued. Because at the end of the day, I would even say that the process set up with this ordinance might violate the state constitution, which is a property rights law. But I am not an attorney and these, like you've all said, these cases will probably be tried out in a court of law, but I am going to oppose this moratorium and I'll call the question.

Thank you. Wow.

Director Webb.

I don't know if anybody seconded Lance's proposal.

Director Webb.

Thank you, Mayor.

You got a motion? There was no second. But Director Webb's already speaking, so Director Webb.

Thank you, Mayor Scott. And I just want to remind everybody one more time that this is legally defensible. Again, I think Mr. DePippa said it very well. It is included in the moratorium. We do have a legal leg to stand on, and I think this is an important first step that we have an opportunity to take tonight, right now.

All right. Seeing no other questions or comments from the city board, we've had three readings. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, we say nay.

Nay. Roll call.

Nay's have it.

Roll call. Roll call.

There's a roll call.

Roll call.

There was a call for a roll call. I said there's a roll call. Madam Clerk?

Director Comperis? Nay. Director Adcock? No. Director Miller?

Yes.

Director Webb?

Yes.

Director Peck?

No. Director Hines? No.

Director Lewis?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Weirich?

Yes.

We had four yeses and four noes.

So everyone, just so you understand, members of the city board, it's a body of 10. You have to have at least six votes to pass an ordinance. There are only four votes that came from what directors? The four yeses that have been shared?

Miller, Webb, Lewis, and Vice Mayor Warren.

So it failed due to a lack of six votes.

Wow.

Members of the city board, any more questions, concerns before we adjourn? There's a motion.

All those in favor say aye.

All those opposed say nay. Ayes have it. Meeting adjourned.