Board of Commissioners - Special Meeting

The city supports our 20-person staff can immediately provide individual housing quarters for homeless veterans along with the medical referrals, mental health counseling, case management, and financial education help them begin the path towards stability and becoming contributing citizens of Owensboro. Investing in this program is a cost-efficient choice of the city, keeping veterans' family stable house through our non-profit costs less than absorbing the family in the emergency shelter system and eviction. At this time, I'd just like to thank you for taking time to listen to us, and we are prepared to offer you a formal letter of intent and our organizational packet for you to review, and I will provide it to you at a later date if you like.

Thank you. Thank you.

I would now like to introduce the proposed Board of Directors for approval. First, we have a lifelong and proud owner of the native, Jack Williams. and his wonderful wife, Yolanda Williams. Both come from families with retired military members. Second, I have a friend of mine, he's sick today, but his name is Geno Taller, retired from the Navy, Longtown resident. Next, we have Minister Linda Boyd, the widow of a retired veteran, Lawrence Boyd. We also have Reverend Ronald Randolph, who is currently running for Kentucky Representative and Service Director of Warrensboro Human Relations Commission. Last but not least, we have local retired Navy Commander Greg Black. And of course, there is me, a retired veteran, along with my partner, who is a descendant of two retired veterans, one from the Army and one from the Air Force. Thank you all, and have a wonderful night.

Jeff Kegel, Tamarack Road. The proposed 545 megawatt power plant that is being studied for the former Elmer Smith property is said to be only on a 30-acre footprint. If this is true, a combined cycle gas turbine power plant is the most logical choice to generate such power on such power on small footprint. These often utilized on brownfield or constrained urban industrial sites such as Elmer Smith property. The configuration of the CCGT plant is one large advanced class gas turbine paired with one heat recovery steam generator and steam turbine or modulator multi-turbine setup that can deliver this exact output efficiently. CCGT plants capture exhaust heat from the gas turbine to drive a secondary steam turbine, achieving superior fuel efficiency, often over 60%, compared to a sample cycle alternatives. The three cooling options for such a power plant include wet circulation towers, air-cooled condensers, or hybrid of both wet and air cooling. The wet recirculating requires at least acreage and uses millions of gallons of watery stay. Air cooling uses the most acreage and uses no water, and hybrid uses less water in the winter months. As for our community, a quick search tells us that the CCGT plants will employ about 30 people. The roles include one plant manager, one operations manager, one maintenance supervisor, one environmental and health safety specialist. Then per shifts, you'd have a shift supervisor, one control room operator, one or two outside or field operators, two to three instrumentation and control techs, two or three mechanical technicians, one or two electrical technicians, and one or two performance engineers. So knowing that all the pollutants and water usage this plant will spew and consume. Can you please tell us how it's going to benefit the citizens of this town? How will the reward outweigh the risk to us and our children? Thank you. Thank you.

Hi.

Hello.

Renee Kegel, Tamarack Road. I'm here with comments and follow-up questions after a community Q&A that was held this past Thursday with more than a hundred in attendance. All the information we have acquired on the Mississippi-Kentucky data center land portfolio, aka Gallatin portfolio, being marketed by Newmark Group for ETX Upstream, shows that the power plant is the future power source for our hyperscale data center. I will be glad to give you more details on that, or you can watch the live stream of Thursday's Q&A. It's all over the internet. I will be hosting a second Q&A on Saturday, September 20, 2026 at 4 p.m. for those who could not attend the first one and those who want to attend again. I am officially inviting you all now to learn and answer questions for the community if you would like to come. It was mentioned that the city asked to be left out of the moratorium the county put in place on May 28. We would like to know what the reason would be for not wanting to be included. Per the Messenger Inquirer article on Saturday, the suggestion is that Mr. Pagan said the county would be setting a precedence that had not been done before. But because the city and county handled their zoning and building development through a unified joint planning agency and land use or zoning moratorium passed by the fiscal court automatically halts processing for those applications countywide, unless the city explicitly steps in to override it. So if the city wanted to not be included, then all you would need to do is do what you did with the Massey property, just step in and override it. In the same article, Mr. Pagan said he was advocating for city officials to be able to make decisions in the city. So when will you be making those decisions? We need you to set regulations, strict ones, that will protect the citizens of this town. Please don't say wait until it's announced or wait until the feasibility study is done. We both know that they have been acquiring land for this since August of last year. Waiting is not an option. We want action before it's too late. We want regulations now on both the power plant and the future center it will power. I have asked how this power plant will benefit the citizens of Owensboro. We know how it will be detrimental with the pollutants, so what great benefits justify all the harm? We know we are in a fight against some very big billionaire corporations. You are either with us in this fight or you're not. The NDAs and secrecy tell us this is going to be something that is not for the good of the community. You don't hide what will be good. You celebrate it. If this power plant is so great for us all, why is OMU hiding behind NDAs? We will not stop until our questions are answered and our neighbors are safe. We are many and growing, so know that we all will vote accordingly come November 3rd on this nonpartisan issue. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Tatum Helm, 1122 Booth Avenue. Starting off, I want to touch on yesterday being Overdose Awareness Day. And those who are not familiar, we do have an opioid crisis settlement fund at a candidate in conversations last week. Neesmith, Glenn, you guys talked about how long-term solutions and looking at You know, opportunities for people after going to rehab and housing options. But imagine that number 22% increasing if we took some of that opioid settlement fund and used it now. There are people hurting within our community now that would really benefit from programs and things that you all can provide within that opioid settlement fund. um outside of that uh i have seen some things on facebook and it's been brought to y'all's attention but closer to the pier at the convention center there are some lights out on the walkway and it's extremely dark so i know that like on facebook people are talking about it there were some people that said they have filed some requests online on your website or something uh where like a service request but i don't know if that's something you guys look into or someone can direct me on where and how i would follow one as well just so we can get that figured out it's been going on for a couple months it's super dark I don't know if it's still the Kentucky Legend Pier area. Do you guys know where I'm talking about? Like right there where you're walking down before you hit the Batwing thing. Outside of that, I want to talk about the data centers as well, specifically that TerraWolf developers will be at the Rooster Booster on Thursday. I would like all of you all to proceed with caution with the propaganda that will be put in front of you. Because yes, projections are great. You all sit in a seat where you're based on projections all the time when projects are brought to you. But let's keep in mind that hyperscale data centers have not been around for 20 years. So these predictions and these projections are based in zero facts. And going into more details of what I'm talking about, Specifically, then pushing to Hancock County, you know, how many millions and billions this data center development will bring to their community, which has no actual facts and grounds behind it, especially in smaller rural areas. The communities that are going to see larger developments are going to be your large metropolitan areas. So I fear on Thursday we're going to have a meeting at Rooster Booster, I will be in attendance, where a lot of propaganda is pushed about how much revenue and money would be potentially provided to Owensboro. I just ask that you guys really, really do the in-depth research because I think anyone knows that predictions are not facts. Projections are not facts. So selling our city out for something that's being projected for potentially over 20 years and there is no 100% is selling your citizens out. It's selling our farmland out. It's selling our grid out. It's selling us out. And you guys sit in a seat where you're supposed to protect us. So please, small business owners, if you're listening to, small business owners will not benefit from a hyperscale data center. They 100% will not. And going from there, I'm 27. I've attended these meetings for a long time. Young people, Do not want a data center. Do you guys want young people here and continuing to live in this city? Let's think about how we can prevent what we can. Please. Thank you.

Anybody else? Okay. Well, I'll make a motion to adjourn. Could I have a second, please? Second. Thank you. All in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. All opposed, you're welcome to stay.