Board of Trustees - Special Meeting

Please ask for a roll call.

Present Thank you. We do have a quorum and I will go ahead and ask for a motion to approve the agenda. Madam Chair, I move to approve the agenda for November 2020. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. All right. I will go ahead and open up for public comment. Any person may come forward at this time to address the board. Anyone who wishes to speak is requested but not required to state his or her name and address for the record. Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and move right into new business. Um, may I have a motion?

Madam Chair, I move to adopt a resolution instituting a temporary moratorum on approval of data centers.

Okay. Um, I do want to just preface this and give a little background on it. Um we do not have anybody coming to us um asking about data centers. We have not had any meetings or anything else. This is proactive. This is to um put parameters in place prior to what might happen. We are watching our community members around us um township township Augusta um the state of Michigan. uh a while ago uh Senator Slotton had come into town and talked to local officials and said the state um has kind of opened it up for data centers. So start preparing. So we started preparing by putting together an ordinance. Um again not because we've been approached by anyone. I don't want anybody to panic or think that's happening. Um it has not happened. No conversations have been happening. Um but uh we had some residents come forward and say they would feel more comfortable if we put a moratorum in place for six months while we worked on the ordinance. Um making sure that nothing can happen in the meantime and this way we can work with our area partners uh county, state, other communities to make sure we put a robust uh ordinance in in place. There's a planning commission meeting tonight. The um public hearing was cancelled and the ordinance we worked on more in depthly and those public hearings will still happen. So nothing is being um put out of place or anything like that. It will still happen. We want to make sure everybody understands that. This is just to put in place a moratorum so that nothing can be discussed, nothing can be approved for six months while we put the ordinance in place. And I encourage everyone to come to the planning commission meetings as the planning commission vets out the new ordinance. Is there any other discussion or comments we want to make on that? And I do encourage our board as well to be involved in this whole process because this is something that is coming into Michigan. Um whether you're, you know,

for or against and everything, we we need to protect our residents and um Pittsfield Township resources.

You know, Supervisor Riley, I I do agree and I think it's a really good step to instead of just throwing an ordinance out there and approving it to be thoughtful and deliberate with it. I think it's really important. Data centers are popping up all over the place. They are causing a lot of concerns for a lot of residents and quite frankly for myself, I am very concerned about this issue. Um, and I appreciate uh the breathing room to try and figure out what steps we need to take going forward. And it is a very complicated issue because you know already we are all using AI even if it's just a little bit but at the same time we want to be respectful and um uh thoughtful about the way that if we bring any of these things into our community that uh uh we take into consideration all the many complex factors that go into making a decision like this. I will say that, you know, I have talked to area experts. Even though we're not really a target, we don't have huge amount of land and, you know, we don't have cheap land, it it doesn't matter. Um, I think it's better just to be extra buttoned up regardless.

All right. Any more comments before we vote? I was just going to add we know that some of our neighbors would be affected.

All right. So, I will go ahead and ask for a roll call vote. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Thank you. resolution is adopted. All right, I will go ahead and open up for public comment, too. Again, any person may come forward at this time to address the board. Anyone wishes to speak is requested, but not required to state his or her name and address for the record. I think the delay is particularly relevant given that there is a suspicion according to chat GBT that we may be approaching an AI bubble. So that any six months 15year fiscal deliberations are very much gonna hang on. Is this like the bubble which is posed by chat GBT as being similar to a possible AI bubble. So, thank you for considering this delay.

Thank you.

All right. Are there any other residents or people who like to speak to the public? Hi, my name is Dave Dickson. I'm at 5731 Lakesore Drive. Um, I want to thank uh the township for agreeing to this moratorium. I think that's good approach. I'm not necessarily opposed to data centers. I think it's just moving so fast that I think we just need more time to think through what are the benefits and what are the consequences. So, thank you for taking the step. Um, I'd also like to make an appeal, I think, to the farm land owners and to the township, um, to give some real careful thought as to what decisions they make to do with their land. I don't begrudge the right to sell their land, do what they want, but I would ask them to just not consider the highest price that's being offered to them. And I'm sure with the tax breaks that are being offered, the pressure and speed at which a lot of developers are going to come in to try and get land not only on the land owners but also on this township. But I think consideration should be given not only to the highest price but also what is the common good. And I I only wish that our state officials have given a little more thought about this process because what I hear is that in the case of Sel Township, they're offering up to maybe 425 million tax breaks in exchange for 450 permanent jobs. Okay, that's almost a million dollars per job. I only wish that maybe they had thought this through and thought, well, maybe we could give some of that money to the land owners and to developers in promises to build affordable housing in this area on that land that will allow us to keep our kids and these jobs in this area and allow us to also meet some of our sustain

goals. So, thank you again and I appreciate the time. Well said. All right. Seeing no other comments, I will go ahead and ask for a motion to adjourn. Madam Chair, I move to second. All in favor? All right. Our meeting is adjourned at 209.