City Council - Regular Meeting

They're going to H we're missing one person that needs to be up here on the dis. So I don't know where she went.

Oh, we know where she is. Identified that one. That's right. So, give us just a minute to get started.

Okay. Okay. She's g country. This is God's land. Thank you for

All right, it is 50:04. Before I gave us this in, uh, the city manager would like to make a couple of comments and then we'll just get started. And this is super loud tonight. If you are a staff member, Please go ahead and head to your maybe go ahead and st and uh head to your office or somewhere else in the building and we will get in touch with you if we need you. But we're just we're a little crowded today and we want to make sure there's plenty of room for members of the public. So if you're a staff member, if you'll go ahead and and find a different uh room and we'll get in touch with you if we need you. Thank you.

All right. Very good. Okay, it's 5:05. Um I would like to um welcome everybody to this regular called meeting of the Temple City Council. Um please stand as our invocation will be uh led by Mr. Beford Craig followed by the pledge of allegiance which will be led by Janet Lleen. Let's pray. Grant us grace our father to do our work this day as workmen who need not be ashamed. Give us a spirit of diligence and honest inquiry into our quest for the truth. the spirit of charity in all our dealings with our fellows and the spirit of gaity, courage and a quiet mind in facing all tasks and responsibilities. Amen.

Amen. Please join me in the pledgece to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with all. Please join me in the Texas pledge. Honor the Texas flag under God. One and indivisible.

This is God.

More of these. All right. Very good. Um, so our next item is public comments. And uh I I I have my own policy of if there's more than 15 or 20 folks, then we move uh especially if it's all around the same topic, then we move those public comments to the back. So we're doing that tonight. Currently, it looks like I've got about I don't know 35 40 something like that. So, uh we're going to move public comments to the back so we can move on with the regular city business which is uh ultimately what we do here. So, uh we will like I said we'll address those later. So, next item is special recognitions and I this may be the one you coming for me?

Yes. couldn't make it tonight. So you could say that again. She couldn't make it. So you could Okay. Okay. So we are going to skip item three. The person that was uh relevant to that is not able to be here tonight. So we're going to move on to item four, which is to uh recognize April 19th uh through April 2020. April 25 of 2026 as National Library Week. Do we have anybody? Do we have any library staffers? Probably did. We just had you guys up here a couple weeks ago for something. We do this every year. Well, I've got a I've got a proclamation.

Okay. Yes. I'll go uh just quick comments beforehand. Got it. Uh thank you for helping us celebrate. This is uh something that happens every year and it is a program of the American Library Association. Uh my name is Elizabeth Paige. I'm director of library and museum services for the city of Temple. Uh we thank you for helping us to celebrate this year. This year's theme for National Library Week is find your joy. Uh and this really reflects what we do every uh every day at the Temple Public Library. And uh we see children and adults and families who are discovering uh new ideas and building skills and connecting with one another. And uh this is this brings true happiness and we see that every day. Over the past year, we welcomed 183,000 visitors through our doors and the library had more than 20 almost 20,000 of you uh participated in our programs. So those numbers represent real impact uh among our neighbors in the lives of our neighbors. That impact is made possible by the staff. I have our assistant director uh of library and museum services, Eron Gaines, with us today. And we have many more uh but they won't fit in the room. So we have uh 34 staff members who uh help this happen every day. Their expertise really does help us serve uh the patrons who come in. We also want to thank our library advisory board. We have probably some members here, friends of the library group uh and our other volunteers. Volunteers gave more than 5,500 hours of volunteer service last year to the library really making us the true heart of the community as as we think. Uh we're grateful to all of them and to city leadership for the support. Uh, and Mayor Davis, I'm honored to accept the proclamation whenever you're ready.

Sure. Thank you.

It's my pleasure. So, if I may, I'd like to present this proclamation. Um, whereas Temple uh Temple Public Library sparks creativity, fuels imagination, and inspires lifelong learning, offering a space where individuals of all ages can find joy through exploration and discovery. Whereas Temple Public Library serves as a vibrant community hub connecting people with knowledge, technology, and resources while fostering civic engagement, critical thinking, and cultural enrichment. And whereas Temple Public Library provides free and equitable access to books, digital tools, and innovative programming, ensuring that all individuals have the support they need to learn, connect, and to thrive. Whereas Temple Public Library nurtures young minds through their through story times, programs, and literacy initiatives, fostering curiosity and a love of learning that lasts a lifetime. And whereas libraries make choices that are good for the environment and make sense economically, creating thriving communities for a better tomorrow. And whereas dedicated librarians and library workers provide welcoming spaces and vital services that encourage discovery, collaboration, and creativity for all. And whereas Temple Public Library is joining with libraries across the country to celebrate National Library Week 2026 with the theme find your joy. Now therefore, I Timothy A. Davis, mayor of the city of Temple, Texas, do hereby proclaim April 19th through April 25th, 2026 as National Library Week. And I encourage all residents to visit their library, explore its resources, and to celebrate all the ways that our library helps our community find joy. In testimony whereof, I witness my hand in the seal of the city of Temple, Texas on the 16th day of April, 2026. Congratulations. Thank you for all that y'all do.

All right, we have another uh quick proclamation is to recognize April 12 through 18, 2026 is animal control appreciation week. Chief T Do you have a Who are we bring? Oh, yeah. Y'all come on up. All right. A few more coming. All right. Thank you'all for being here. This proclamation is from the office of the mayor of the city of Temple. Whereas animal control officers and animal care and control personnel work tirelessly to protect animals and people, enforcing laws, rescue animals in need, and to promote pet uh responsible pet ownership. And whereas these professionals respond to emergencies, assist law enforcement, and safeguard public health through disease prevention and humane enforcement. And whereas their dedication ensures the safety and well-being of our community animals and residents, often working in challenging and unpredictable conditions. And whereas animal control appreciation week is nationally recognized during the second full week of April, honoring the vital work of these professionals. Now therefore, I, Timothy A. Davis, mayor of the city of Temple, Texas, do hereby proclaim April 12th through 18, 2026 is National Animal Control Appreciation Week in the city of Temple, Texas. And I encourage all citizens to pay tribute to our animal control personnel and to recognize the substantial contributions that they make to protect our animals along with the health, safety, and welfare of our community. In testimony whereof, I witnessed my hand in the sil city of Temple, Texas on this 16th day of April, 2026. Is that to you? And

would you guys like to say a few words, at least introduce the crew? introduce the team, but I just want to say it's, you know, the police department um works hand inand with the animal services. Uh they work um as part of our team and it's been a privilege to work alongside of them and see the dedication they have to care for the animals that come into the facility and their ultimate goal of finding forever homes for every pet um that comes through there. So Amy, want to take the time to introduce the staff? So, we've got James Martin, our field supervisor, animal shelter supervisor. Um, we've got Takaya Bills, one of our uh shelter staff, animal control officer. Ruben Coransza, animal control officer. Serenity Patrica, our newest animal control officer. And Veronica Herrera, correct me?

Vasquez. So, she's our newest arrival. So, we're we're we're we've got a really good crew. So,

very good. Thank you all very much. where I live, I had um neighbors on either side of me were feeding cats and then one passed away and the other one moved away. And so now I have this colony of cats that come to my house and every night on my back porch, it's like Thunderdome with these all these cats fighting. So I haven't called animal control yet, but it won't be long.

There you go. Okay, next is public comments. Um, nope. That's not true. Next is consent agenda. All items listed under this uh section, the consent agenda, are considered to be routine by the city council and may be enacted in one motion. If discussion is desired by council, any item may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of that council member and to be considered separately. Council, during our workshop, we discussed u the the uh the consent agenda. It's my understanding that we uh decided not to pull anything for separate vote. Is that still correct? All right. With that then council I'll entertain a motion on item 6A through 6. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second.

We have a motion by Mayor Pro Tim Walker. We have a second by Council Member Pilington. Council, please cast your vote. consent agenda um items A through O passes five votes to zero. Moving on to the next item is uh uh regular agenda item number uh seven. We are going to uh to read items seven and eight in together. And um they're they're they're connected. So, we're going to read those in together and then we'll conduct one public hearing um after reading those in for both items. So item seven is the first reading in a public hearing to consider adopting an ordinance authorizing the voluntary annexation of 185.148 plus or minus acres located in the Maximo Marino survey abstract number 14 Bell County, Texas and identified by Bellcad property ID as parcels 70671 7069 and 234587. And item eight is the first reading in a public hearing to consider adopting an ordinance authorizing a reszoning and binding site development plan request from a to plan development light industrial on 302.67 plus or minus acres located in the city of Temple Bell County, Texas identified as parcels 7068, 7073, 7067, 7071, 7069 and 234587. Miss Smith.

Thank you, Mayor Councel. So, this is the vicinity map. This is your first item you're considering, which is the annexation request. Um, this property is directly adjacent to our current city limits um just south of 3117. In according to local government code chapter 43, um you may um have a voluntary annexation process as long as the property is contiguous contiguous to the municipality. Um, we are allowed to do a voluntary annexation if we receive a petition by the property owner and we are required to hold one public hearing prior to adopting the ordinance for the voluntary annexation. Um, we are also required under local government code to provide written notice regarding any fiscal impacts that are caused by the proposed voluntary annexation to affected entities such as in this case Temple Independent School District, Little River Academy Volunteer Fire Department, City of Temple Fire Rescue EMS and Bell County. And all of those were sent via certified mail on April 2nd. The fiscal impact is then evaluated by both by ISDS for the future data center development pending approval of the plan development zoning. In accordance of chapter 43 um we have a municipal service agreement which is a negotiated written agreement. We the city is not required to provide a service that is not included within that agreement. This agreement was circulated to all relevant departments and no issues were identified. The property owner offered um was offered a municipal services agreement on March 30th and they accepted it the next day on March 31st. Uh the following municipal services are available at the time of annexation. Those include fire protection, police, EMS, planning, permitting, inspections, public parks and facilities, streets, water and wastewater which is to be determined during the platting stage, solid waste services, code compliance and animal services. and staff um does recommend approval of the voluntary annexation. As you stated,

I will move forward to the zoning change request. So, the zoning change request includes the property that is proposed for annexation just south of 3117 as well as a property that's currently within the city limits. So, this is a total of a little over 302 acres. um light industrial development is proposed here um for a data center. Uh this they have provided us with a site plan as you can see on the screen that includes their boundaries, their setbacks and um we will see a final site plan at the building permit stage. They're required to have 50 foot setbacks along the boundaries with uh two proposed entrances into the development. This is part of a larger economic development in the area which is intended to be light industrial development and the light industrial request is in line with surrounding land uses. So as you can see here um that property just south of 3117 is the one proposed for annexation which is included in the zoning as I stated and then the property north within the city limits is currently zoned agricultural. The comprehensive plan identifies this area as a little mixture um between industrial, employment, mixed use and rural state. As we talked about though, there are several properties that have developed within this area to line industrial. Therefore, um it does uh comply with the future land use plan and the comprehensive plan. So, um we uh strongly feel that this will expand ongoing industrial development in the area and complies with our comprehensive plan. some site photos of the property. Um you can see there on the aerial map it's it's largely un undeveloped. Um there is um structure there. You can see in that top photo and the bottom photo um is is vacant. So uh there is water and sewer um close by the site and adjacent to it um

there's a 10-in wastewater line. Uh you have a 24inch transmission water line as well as a 6 inch and a 2 inch line. Uh FM 3117 is identified as a minor collector um that leads to major roadways um such as it's Knob Creek Road um and the Highway 95. Uh we sent out seven notices or I'm sorry, US Highway 190, my apologies. Seven notices were sent out to property owners within 200 feet. Um we also sent 12 courtesy notices to properties within the ETJ. We're not required to notify the ETJ, but we do if require within the boundary. We received one response in agreement, one response in disagreement, and the notice of the hearing was published in our local newspaper, the Temple Daily Telegram on March 26. Um, as you can see, um, the compliance summary table, it complies with the future development plan. It's compatible with surrounding uses and public facilities are available. We recommend approval of the resoning request from a to plan development industrial subject to the following conditions. Um the approval conditions under the plan development would include that access. Um the owner would agree to work with both the planning director and fire marshall on location configuration and size and for all proposed access points if there are any site plan modifications um for future phases of development that can be approved administratively and will not require any additional city council hearings. Landscaping and screening must be provided between non-residential and residential uses. Uh the company shall use or um commercially reasonable efforts in design construction operation of the project to minimize noise to adjacent properties to the greatest extent possible. And they will be required to submit a noise mitigation plan for this. They'll also be required to submit a preliminary traffic impact study for the city to review and evaluate the need for a traffic impact analysis. Uh there will be a utility service agreement um that

will be developed as well. The developer must enter into this agreement addressing responsibility for any infrastructure damage caused during development. And then they also have the requirement for a preliminary plat. Um if it's divided into five um fewer lots or more than 100 acres, it would not be required, but in other cases it would. So on Monday, April 6, the planning and zoning commission recommended approval um from a to plan development light industrial with a vote of 8 to zero. And today we recommend approval as well. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. Very good. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Council. Anything for Miss Smith.

All right. So, both uh items seven and eight are subject to a public hearing. As stated earlier, I'm going to uh put those together into one public hearing. So, um anyone that'd like to speak, we ask you please step to the podium, state your name for the record, and uh we'll go from there.

Yeah. If if if we're going to have lots of folks, how many people would like to speak during this public let's get a Okay. So, here's what I do. When I don't have your names here for public hearing, but in in the interest of time, if you would please, if you're going to speak, don't all line up now, but uh if we can have one or two, you got one in the you got one at the plate and I need it one or two on deck. Okay? And that way we can at least we don't have to watch you walk clear across the room as we go. One thing I always say during these and I'll say the same thing at public comments. We want to hear from everybody. Okay. Now, one thing if if you don't mind, I will totally leave this up to your uh your discretion. If the person that said uh if if someone has already said what you wanted to say, then um and if you don't mind forgoing, if you can say, "Yep, I agree with her." And and that's good enough for you, that's fine. Don't feel like you need to come speak. But if you want to say word for word what the person earlier said, that's fine, too. In no way do I want to to appear that we're trying to, you know, that we're attempting not to hear from everybody, but we have this public hearing and then we have a long public comment. So, we could be here until 10. Okay. So, let's keep it moving if we can. You're up. this. Could you please um if if we could please not have the queue block the um aisle. If you could please ask folks to queue somewhere that doesn't block the aisle.

Okay. Is it okay if they go down there where the lady in the red shirt is? Is that good enough? I lost my fire chief. But we have a fire marshal. Yeah. Please just don't block the aisle. Okay. Thank you. Landy, is this is this clean enough? Are these aisles okay? We're good. Okay. Very good. So, no more than two on deck, it sounds like. Okay. Take it away.

I'm Joe Royer. I live in District 2. And uh for those of you who may not understand City Speak, this is the next step in what would have been Temple's fifth data center. I'm sure we're all here to stop that. This is uh they're reszoning and annexing land to start the Ranger project. And uh and city council. Uh as you can see, we have a lot of upset people here tonight. And uh I don't think any of us want this. And as you know, there's been talks of a recall. And honestly, I don't think I could stop that at this point. So if you decide to go forward with this Ranger project and this resoning for Ranger, then the recall starts tomorrow. Am I right?

And I appreciate I appreciate the things you've done for this community. I mean, you I I recognize that you guys have done a lot of great stuff for us, right? You've only I've only noticed a couple of big mistakes, and we've spent the last three months trying to help you correct some of those mistakes, and it it seems that you're just unwilling or unable to do the job. So, we need to find somebody who can do the job.

Thank you. My name is Stacy Gordon. Billy Gordon was my brother. I've worked alongside and have very close relationships with some of the city of police department, city police department officers, officials, and Bell County Sheriff's Department for over 27 years of my life. I helped start the meeting of the police department and all property managers in Temple to get our stat reports back in 2000 and to help get the drug crime down with Baskerville, Mueller, Praau, Lopez, many others. One of the first things that officers are sworn to do is protect life. One of the five pe one in five people have mental health issues and that does not exclude the police department, city officials, or the very council I am standing in front of. You are not excluded. I want you to hear the only words my brother spoke when he was encountered by Temple Police Department for a welfare call. He was not a suspect of any crime whatsoever. Mayor,

the first t my brother said I'm sorry. The second tase my brother said I love you Jesus. This is a public hearing. I'm almost finished. Well, but actually I have three minutes to speak and I have leading up to Hold on. Back up. Back up. Stop. And you will be able to just a minute. Just a minute. We um we uh I should have caught this before. what you're doing and I think you've probably signed up is for public comment. Correct. That's what we've moved to the back. Okay. Okay. And and you can start over whenever we whenever we come back to the uh for the public comment piece.

It's not this this is the uh this is this is around item seven and eight. I'm sorry Kathy. I I should have picked up on that. And I if I can just say this is we as the mayor said we want to hear from you in public comments. That's when the law allows um anyone who wants to stand up and talk about whatever is important to you. What is your name? My name is Kathy Davis. But the public information act does require that we follow the posted agenda. And so if we we just have to follow it. So this what we're talking about now is the um annexation and the zoning case.

All right. Thank you. And I'm just sharing this for everyone else that's out there so that everyone understands the topics that we're talking about right now is the U public hearing on the land use cases and then the time for public comments will be um when the mayor introduces that item. Thank you. And Stacy, I'm sorry. I should have caught that. My mistake. Yes, ma'am.

Hi, I'm Sarah Royer. I'm in district two. Um if this is passed today, it will start a recall tomorrow. If for people who have not been here before, who needs to go home early because of kids and time? Everybody can get up here and talk as long as you want. So, whoever needs to go home first, if you raise your hand, you can be first. But we're going to start public comments and then we can do our three minutes at the end. Let's keep them here until they vote no.

My name is Neil Brenley. I've lived in Temple all my life and my heart is breaking. I oppose anything to do with Rowan LLC, Rowan Temple, whatever you call it. They need to go back to Australia. We do not want data centers in Temple, Texas. That's not what we want to be known for. I want to publicly go on record that I oppose the annexation, the zoning change from agriculture to whatever it is you're calling it. I want it to remain agriculture. We can't eat data centers.

We can't drink data centers. You're not listening to the people. And it breaks my heart for you and it breaks my heart for our city. Yes. So, I am on record as opposed to this zoning change. We're with you.

Alan Lidle. I live here in Temple and you all know me. Uh on a lighter side, I don't care about the data center stuff, but what I'm concerned about is the fact that we have a major road or not a minor arterial I think is his name going through this the pro project property on one on both sides was doing a a uh traffic study. The concern is if the traffic study comes back as detrimental, do we are we then in in a position to totally cancel the project and tell them sorry, you can't do it or do they have to make some kind of correction to that major street because there are still people living on that street on either end who have to get to their homes or to work. A traffic study would would include um would be around traffic calming measures, you know, changing of speed limits, putting in del acceleration lanes, signalizing the intersection, etc. that that's what that will be for.

But it would not resolve any issues of m traffic jams between the two properties as as uh that that would be included in the traffic study. So if you know any again any sort of traffic jam mitigation that would be part of it. And if it results in saying no, does that mean they can't do it? No. That's what I thought. Thank you, Alan.

Hello. My name is Jenna Hall. I live here in downtown. I'm a homeowner in Temple, Texas. Um, I grew up here in Texas. Show of hands who grew up here in this state. Quick. Nice. I grew up here mostly because my grandpa came here to work for NASA in the 60s. He was a von Braun rocket scientist who helped make the computer guidance system that got Apollo to the moon and back. I've been thinking about a lot of him lately because of Artemis and the success of it. My mom told me yesterday actually that he was nervous to wreck the entire week and a half that um Apollo 11 went to the moon. Um today I'm very proud to say this that my grandpa was a NASA scientist. What will your grandchildren say?

Will they be proud that you were mayor or city council? that you stood up for democracy or that you were voted off by your own citizens. My grandpa believed in science and education, but he approached technology with caution, never blindly. He had a lot of sayings. I'm sure your grandfather had saints, too, mayor. One of his sayings was, "If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck." I see a lot of ducks in this situation. the rush to push these projects through, the lack of response or concern for citizens thoughts, and the rising temperatures and vanishing lakes, and the discrepancy of wealth between Rowan and the people of this community. Another thing he taught me was the mark of foolishness versus wisdom. You see, a fool makes decisions thinking that they know what they don't know. A wise man knows when he doesn't know and acknowledges it, allowing education to occur. My question to you all is, do you know what you don't know? Are you making foolish decisions? thinking that you know some things when you actually don't. We have multiple data centers in this in this state now being built simultaneously in a drought. How will the noise and heat affect our property values? Um you see Texas didn't always have nice shiny things like highways and Californians. And one thing every kid in Texas learns about is the Battle of the Alamo. It was a small group of citizen fighters, mostly settlers, defending their right to own land against 5,000 Mexican troops. The troops were far better equipped and trained. Sound familiar?

At one point, Travis, the man our southern county is named after, drew a line in the sand, and he said, "You're either with us or against us." Well, this is the time in this issue that Texans draw a line in the sand. We are not giving up our water, electricity, and independence to a group of foreign millionaires losing our independence in the process. Why should we take all the risk? And let me remind you that the way you vote today and every day thereafter will be reflected in the history books. Your great-g grandanddaughters will know that you shut your mouth at the flash of fancy money. That you were the generation of council members who went with what was popular and not with what was right.

That you lacked the values of those generations before you. That you were the part of the reason that our aquafer was at risk of or was finally drained by outsiders.

THANK YOU. HI, MY name is Orasio Marquez. Um, moved out here from California, moved to Temp here to Temple and uh, to be quite honest, I actually fell in love with the people here at Temple. Quite nice folks, very wonderful people. Welcome me with open arms out there on the baseball fields. Uh, so I am a union member out of local 529 Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Union. Okay. Um, so I understand what a lot of folks concerns are as well and and and I get it. Um, mayor, if you would be so kind as to also kind of, you know, show that, hey, uh, if in in fact there are issues, transparency, right?

Right. A little transparency would go a long ways. Now, if I'm not mistaken, I believe these data centers are also supposed to produce 20% more than what they use. If uh if I'm not mistaken, that means that 20% of the electricity that they produce has to go back to the city of Temple to offset their usage if I'm not mistaken. Would that be correct? No. No. No. Well, then I must then somebody must have gave me some wrong information. But maybe perhaps that could be part of the contract. That's not how electricity works in Texas. I understand your sentiment, but that's not how that works.

Okay. So then maybe I need to go back and recheck some a few things, but and I'm not I'm not uh against if I'm wrong, I'm in the wrong.

Yeah, that's fine. you know. Um, now what it has done, at least from for me, was it provided me with work here locally instead of having to commute an hour and a half to two hours. They paid well, you know, and I have no problem with that. They a lot of people actually from this area uh from everyone from what was it Temple, Colleen, Waco, Huitt, uh, all throughout our area were all employed to come out here and work. So, they're not just hiring people from way out down yonder. No, they hire people here locally as well because it was the local members out of local 529 from this from all the these areas that were actually doing that job. Four $12 above scale to allow us to have the things that we have to allow us to live in the manner which we live. So that way we can actually feed our families, take care of them. Okay. It also allowed me to actually sponsor the baseball team out here in Temple out of my pocket, buy a pitching machine, a junior hack attack, which is $2,600, so that the kids can get better training. It has allowed me to do good things for this community. So, don't not everything is a negative, folks. There is positive. You just gota got uh sometimes, you know, it's in his hay stack, but it's but but there are good folks that that do good things with their money for the kids of this community.

We're worried about the generations like Okay. Okay. Hold it. Hold it. So, this isn't Hold on. Go ahead.

A little decorum would be very very much appreciated. I know that this is uh I know that this process is um is very emotional for many people and that's fine. But the banner back and forth the uh in fact really as you as all speakers move forward your time at the podium is there to address council. So it's not to pull the audience. It's not for a raise of hands. It's, you know, I've let that go a couple times and that's okay. But from now on, let's have some decorum.

Whenever anybody speaks, please speak directly to council because you're here. You're here making uh it's it's a public hearing, the public to the the uh the governing body. So, I would appreciate that and the applause and the yelling. Uh I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't do that, too. It just this isn't a circus. This is this is a time for people to come together. Exactly. This is this is an opportunity. I do. I do. And I'm I can also have people taken out of the room.

I've never done that before and I don't mind being the first. So please a little just a little decorum like how about not yelling at council. Let's just talk. We are here to listen. Let's just talk. Okay, please. Thank you. Go ahead, sir. So, where I stand on is that I I am for the data center. Thank you. And I have no issue with it. Okay. So, that's where I stand on because it does provide a lot of work for a lot of construction workers like myself. Not it may be temporary, but there's also maintenance work that goes with it. You know what I mean?

And maybe that also needs to be part of the contract as well. uh you know with get keeping local hands working. So that way we those individuals have a way to feed their family because in the long run if we keep allowing the like you said the outsiders to to keep coming in to work and then not not invest in the community. There's an issue. I may have been an outsider and I want to be a part of this place. I want to be deeply rooted and I'd like to and I've been doing it with the baseball teams. I tried it with the football team, you know, and I even get the local union, local 529, throw some sponsorship money for these kids, you know, and so I would say yes on on the on the data center. Thank you.

Thank you. Um uh excuse me Jose Martinez. I'm a resident of Temple and uh just wanted to point out a couple of things overall. Uh for one, there's not much transparency. Uh the council and a number of people be it Rowan or whatever have not been honest, straightforward. Much of what is said often about the data centers is false. it's incorrect. Um that is to say that the data centers say and what they claim. Just a few quick things overall. Uh this is uh something that's been in the news lately, national news, local news. I think it was in the paper today something about that also as well. So the news is everywhere. Harvard University just put out a study on this basically stating summarizing much of what they say that these data centers deplete the water resources electricity also uh eat up a lot of the electricity that instead citizens could use residents that is to say and as far as jobs are concerned a minute ago it would have said that the providing jobs nope that's incorrect the Harvard study that come out today I think it was said that most and other also uh sources have said that outside individuals come over to do to construct these data centers, not local people. The reason for that is because these outsiders don't know. In a word, I could say they're ignorant about the issue. And that's how the data center wants it. Wants them to be ignorant and they go back whenever they finish. Now, as far

as anyone wondering about the jobs, they're only about 20. Harvard study pointed out only about 20, no more than 50 per data center. These are people that service the servers. That's it. Overall, about 20, that's in other words, there aren't any jobs to speak of that it brings to a community. Just a couple other quick things. Overall, um, you know, San Marcos, I don't know how many of you know about San Marcos, but they defeated the data center, construction of the data center there. people there and kept the council till about three o'clock in the morning or so and defeated the data center. Keep that in mind. Recently uh uh one two other quick things about some of this mis misunderstandings overall and that is that u a lot of people often think about AI artificial intelligence that this is what this is for and and so on. Let me tell you what the situation is about that. The reason you're seeing a lot of these data centers now uh being developed at this point and recently is because the administration the Trump administration has been proposing that for surveillance. Keep in mind ICE has been using them extensively and surveillance I refer when I say surveillance I mean of you as citizens as well. Surveillance of you that's what these data centers many of these data centers are doing. Um, you know, a couple other things that are kind of interesting in a way. Corpus Christi,

many you know about Corpus Christi, uh, they have a real problem with water right now. And I just found out from the studies that are just now coming out that people had did not know before the refineries and other industries take up about 60% of the water and 40% is left only for the residents. That's a situation by the way elsewhere with the data centers as well. They're left now with not much of any water in Corpus Christie and elsewhere also. So the point that I'm making about that is that many of these things that we we might find out about water resources depletion or whatnot, we're going to find out later. The council makes us puts over all these rosy pictures. So does Rowan or whatever. That's not the case. You're being fooled. And also I would add by the way as far as uh transparency. One other thing and honesty I uh wrote recently about censorship at the library moment ago. There were folks here from the library and quite a lot of censorship. I have gotten I have purchased hundreds of of dollars of books that have been censored that is say put let me give you an example or two there. I've had over a hundred just an example or two a chill and I have these

Mr. Martinez books. You're getting off topic. I'm talking about transparency from the city. You hire the city library. Aren't you responsible for a city library? Yes, but that has nothing to do with item seven or eight. Hang with hang with item seven or eight, please. Okay. Well, anyway, uh that uh that's basically what I wanted to point out and basically that uh the council hasn't done anything about the censorship. That's your job, your department, the library. They made a pretty picture a minute ago here. It's not quite the case. Thank you. Thank you,

Keith. Keith Gilbertson. I'm a Bell County resident, but I do pay temple taxes, so I feel I have a right to talk here. I'm kind of late to this party, but uh a lot of the uh specifics have been addressed by other people, but I'd like to just share a couple of generalities that we need to be looking at the long term here. Now, I understand there are some pretty significant short-term benefits, but we need to be looking at the long term. And I don't understand how we can look at the depletion of the water usage of these things which I'm not an expert on and the electricity that's going to be sucked out of our system. You know, we pay I don't know people look at their uh electric bills. There's been a significant change in the last 10 years and that is going to accelerate with the what these guys are using. The other thing I was going to be quick is that there's a lot of people there's a a lot of people that are very fired up about this thing. And what would be the problem with putting this stuff on hold and putting this to a vote of the people? Why can't the people have a say? I feel like we are being led here in a way that is not to the benefit of the general population of the city. I say put it on hold. Put that'll put this recall thing maybe on hold and let's have a vote. Let's see what the people say.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Lori Broton. I'm a resident of district 3. Um first of all, I want to address the zoning that you have announced that you're looking into. Um, your zoning doesn't address flood issues. Data centers are known to have weather pattern changes, increasing the risk of rain events that turn into flood events. These sites are all hardscape. No flood control is built in. No retention ponds. Um also weather weather pattern changes have not been taken into consideration. Um EF3 storm producing tornadoes below that they tend when they hit the weather the the heat dome that the sitters put off tend to dissipate. Anything above an EF3 increases. So you are putting the residents of Temple in harm's way with anything over an at EF3 and nothing that I have seen has been addressed to that effect.

Can you define EF3? EF3 tornadoes is the rating of the strength of the tornado. You're talking about tornadoes. Yes. Gotcha. So I have seen no studies done on that. And for the people that have just lived through the last tornado, you should be scared because guess who is responsible for paying the expense of your repairs. It's not anybody setting up here. You have to go fight with your insurance company and you have to rebuild or leave. That's your only two options. Now, so the May tornado a couple years ago was caused by a data center. No.

Okay. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. Just asking. Listen. Now, let's go to conflicts of interest. All of you voted to approve data centers while taking donations for your nonprofits, for your own self-interest. Now, let's go to Zo Grant. How much money did you take for your NAACP, for your Zo rings, for your new life? Jessica Walker, you sat there and you have a lumber company. Ma'am, items seven and eight. Yeah. We're This This is This is This is

directly related because you took donations from Rowan personally to enrich whatever nonprofits and all of that. So, it did go directly in your pocket, but it went to your favorite organizations. Now, That's a big conflict of interest, especially if you took the money and then voted in a favor. Now, back back to um conflicts of interest again. Y'all did a tour of the data center. I thought you were going to go back to me.

So, no building materials. I no longer own the lumber yard and we don't sell that type of building material. We don't It's residential building. So unless that's being built with cedar, it would not come from my yard. Mike Pilkington Bell contractors. Okay. Kim Davis, No Vera Insurance. Bo Harvey is your partner. BFD Worldwide Business. Okay.

Bo and I are acquaintances and I eat hamburgers at his place sometimes. He he and I are not business partners by any stretch. Okay. So, back to now let's let's let's talk about the conflict of open meetings act. You went on a tour of a facility. Did you have a quorum? Did you have three or more of your members there during that tour? Not if it it had we had a quorum, it would have been posted. No. So, my question was did you have a quorum?

No. No. Was that pre-planned so that you would not have a quorum so that you could go on this tour and state that you you did not have a violation of the open meetings act? We can track this down. So if if you're not being honest that will come up too. Okay. Really? I mean I I don't know what to say to something like that. We um well you know it's a violation. I have never been I have never been on a tour of any facility with more than one other council member.

And was that pre-planned? Because if it was pre-planned, that's another violation of the open meetings act by the state attorney. Yes, it's pre-planned so that there's not a quorum. That's what I mean. So that so that we're not in violation. It would be in violation if more if a quorum went and it wasn't posted. That's the violation. But it wasn't posted. because it wasn't posted because it wasn't a quorum. But you still owe owe us a transparency. The transparency of saying we're going to go and we're going to have a tour. We're going to see what this is all about. If a quorum is going that you are, you are 100% right.

But now I'm getting to the fact that there is no transparency. You you so so if help me understand if I go on a tour and if Jessica goes on a tour with me, we need to publicly say you should that we are not in violation of open meetings act. Do you want to be transparent to to to the voters? If I go to dinner with Tim, do I need to notify everybody here?

No. only only if it's to do with our interests and our interests where we have to assume the costs of doing business inside the Temple City limits and what zoning you are approving the zoning changes all we drive by any other zoning case to check it out so that we're informed is that should we tell you I'm going to drive by that today because I drive by zoning cases to see what's going on that's all they were doing I've never been to a data center in my life I'll tell you that so So, I wasn't part of any quorum, but we drive by zoning cases all the time.

So, we um we jokingly Kathy, I'm sorry, this is at your expense. We jokingly call you know how we call Tracy our Well, you may not, but we call Tracy moneybags, right? She's the finance director. I I won't say we I won't lump everybody else into this. I call Kathy the warden because she absolutely keeps us in line as to what we can and cannot do around quorums around open meetings act we she is she is she does her job so well.

Yeah. But if you intentionally said if we have less than three we don't have to announce it as a meeting and that's intention. That's intention to deceive. So, um, and so my time is probably up. Go to www. texasandsto together.org. Thank you. Sounds good.

Good evening everybody. My name is Lorissa Longoria. I am a resident of district 2. Um, I did not think I was going to be f uh find myself uh standing in front of the city council, uh, especially coming off of work. I'm a nurse. I work for the Department of Veteran Affairs. I'm also the president of my local union. You probably have seen us in the news. The quorum is not new to me. Lobbying is not new to me. Um, bylaws are not new to me. and know as and nothing else when it comes to city council when it comes to open um information and when it comes to the public records act I didn't find what Miss Kathy was doing appropriate we want to talk about decorum she was on her phone while all the speakers were speaking what I think people don't understand about these data centers you read in there what it states about the water usage you're going to hear a lot of terms about a closed loop system but What you they're not telling you is a closed loop system will evaporate. That water evaporates. The sludge runs off somewhere. Okay. I came from an agricultural town close by love, Texas. I know what it's like to have a big industrial beef processing plant shut down for the lack of water drought. Okay. So, the gentleman who said he was a union member and it did great things. You know what? I'm a union member, too, and I know what data centers do, okay? I know what it's like to go to Washington DC and lobby on Congress and have your congressmen and your senators walk by you and have you talk to their staffers and dismiss you. Okay? Most of the people on this council will be dead and gone by the time the effects from this

data center hit. My grandchildren, my great grandchildren, and my greatgrandchildren. So, you guys may not care about that. We care about that. We have a power grid system that shuts down with a blink of an eye. Governor Abbott does not care about the power grid system. You can't have an ice storm without the power grid going down. You have Encore wanting to shut our electricity off or, god forbid, keep it at 68. We cannot maintain a data center here. It's not about having jobs. It's not about limiting outsiders to come and work here because that's not what America is about. America is about allowing everyone to come and work and come and feed their families and and come and do what's best. But when you allow people to come, well, they need to be honest and say these jobs maybe three to five years, maybe 10 of what it's going to cost to build that afterwards maybe. They're pushing it with 33. They're pushing it when they tell you it's going to occupy 33. I think most people here and I'm looking at everybody here in this in this audience are very smart. And what I will urge you to do is stay outside of the basic news and educate yourself on what a data center is. It's poison. It's toxic and it will just absorb worse than a sponge the electricity here. Someone posted on Facebook their light bill was $1,000. My light bill was $465. A basic threebedroom, two bath house. And that's just the beginning with the

basic data centers that have started here. Okay. I understand how big corporations come in. Okay. You can smirk all you want. I fully understand how how big corp listen I know how decorum works. I know about policy and procedure but then then if you if you know that please stay on topic.

I'm staying on topic but what I'm saying is if you guys want respect from the residents here I think the respect is both bound. Look interested when we speak because we live here. We all live here and we all have to drink the same water. All of us. We all have to drink the same water. I'm sitting here in my scrubs coming straight off of work. That's how invested I am in this data center. These tax breaks cannot continue for these wealthy companies while most of us are here scrging and can barely get $150 worth of groceries. Currently, everything is being gutted to pay for all the rest of the stuff. And they will suffer. Veterans will suffer because it will impact the Department of Veteran Affairs and it will impact Temple and all the small surrounding cities. And if you ever have any farmland, you can say goodbye to that because it's going. And I know I lived in Plain View. I was born and raised in Plane View, Texas. I know all about cotton. I know all about agriculture. And I I know all about water. As a nurse, if there's any nurses in here, we know that water is life. As human beings, we are 95% water. And they're going to fool you. They're going to tell you that it's a closed loop system. We all know anybody that grew up in an area where you had a water cooler instead of refrigerated air, water evaporates. So, how are they going to replenish that? A mega data center uses about five million gallons of water a day. A day. Okay, that may be with just a few AI searches. That's how many gallons of water it uses. Okay. I think most people came

here educated, but it would behoove everyone to further their education on the on these data centers. They're not good for any city. Any city. We love AI. Don't get me wrong. It's great. It's fabulous. It's fast. I put it in there. I probably could have drafted my speech to you guys off of it, but I didn't. My husband called me and said, "Come to the meeting." I'm like, "I'm in scrubs." And he said, "Go." So, I'm here representing Temple. That's all I have to say.

Hello, council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I'd like to begin with just a short point of order. Is there a time limit for my comments during this public hearing section so long as I'm on topic? Uh, no. Please stay on top. And also, please please state your name.

Oh, my name is Nicholas Stone. Uh, yes. O any um okay so first I would like to thank the the council for the opportunity to speak today. Unfortunately uh as the same as many of my other residents here I believe it will most likely have no effect on the decision you make here today. It is very clear from your reactions that you have already made up your minds and you are simply exasperated by citizens coming here to speak. We see the eye rolls. We see the slow blinks, Miss Walker. We see your face getting red, Mr. Davis. We see the smirks. see you on your phone. I will address your decorum more later during the public comment period. I will move on to the topic. Um the point was that it is clear you've already made up your mind and you are simply only having the public hearing section because you are legally required to. I would implore you to reject this resolution if I thought it would make a difference. However, time and again, you've shown you do not care about the opinions of Temple's residents, especially as it relates to data centers and how it will affect the citizens of Temple. as uh the former citizen said earlier, I did not catch their name. Um this will affect our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren. It may be very easy for you to sit there and you know simply say, "Well, this is going to be past my time." I don't know about you, I grew up in Texas. I have many great memories of enjoying the nature uh that Texas offers, and I have great memories of going to fish in the creek and in the lake. When your grandchildren don't have those opportunities because the water is not there, what will you say to them? Well, you'll say, "Well, I made a buck. It was worth it." And simply put, you've heard many uh many mentions of transparency during this, and it is very clear that there has not been transparency despite whatever your statements may be. If we have this council room more full than it has ever been before to where you're having to send your own staff out to make room for your citizens, it is very clear that there has been some information lost. And I don't believe

that that is an accident. I cannot believe that because you are obviously all very intelligent, professional individuals. You have been in your roles for several years. You know the rules. You know the laws and you know exactly how to circumvent them. And you have shown a great skill for that. As many other people have mentioned, there is going to be a significant amount of water use. Uh the simple fact that you handed us a data sheet from Rowan already shows what side you're on. But let's go through point by point. So to start with their first point, Rowan states, a myth is that they will use up to 5 million gallons of water a day, but it is a closed loop system that will only require one to two million gallons during commissioning. Now, as many of people have stated, these numbers are often reported as much lower than they truly are because it is in Rowan's best interest to portray it as less than it is going to be. They have no obligation to us citizens to be truthful. They have no obligation to the citizens of Temple to do the right thing by us, to make sure that we are taken care of. Their obligation is to their shareholders to make sure that their bottom line goes up. So, they are not going to be completely honest with Temple residents. And if you expect me to take a fact sheet that they printed out for you and take that as the full truth,

then I don't know. I don't know what you expect of us citizens. you must think so little of us that you can hand us a print out that the company itself gave you and we'll smile and walk away happy and it's simply insulting. So let's go on to the next point. Roadhead dating centers were negotiated secretly with the city as we've said many times. Yes, there have been public hearings. Yes, this has been posted publicly, but there have obviously been many, many details of these agreements, such as in resolutions seven and 8 that have not been discussed with the citizens that most people in this room know nothing about. And as we're having a public hearing, trying to voice our opinions, trying to find out this information, trying to impress upon you how important it is that the citizens know this. And you are dismissive. You roll your eyes. You smirk at us. on your phones. And again, I will address your decorum more during the public comment period. Let's move on to the next point. Rowan's projects will cause brownouts. Yeah, they most likely will. Let's be completely honest here. There's going to be an incredible amount of electricity usage. And again, they have no obligation and no reason to be honest with us about this. Of course, they're going to tell us it's not going to use enough electricity because they know that it'll get you council, you the council, to sign off on it, and you'll get some nice kickbacks to your um, you know, to your organizations and then you can just sit there and bite your lip and get red in the face and just be, man, I can't wait till this guy stops talking so I can vote yes. Let's go on to the next point. These data centers being built on land was even planned for industrial development. Literally, one of the resolutions that we are discussing is about reszoning this to light industrial from agricultural. So, it is simply a bald-faced lie to say that this is land that is already going to be used for industrial development. This land is currently zoned as agricultural. It requires you voting yes on this to reszone that to light industrial. So, simply point simply put

that point is a baldbased lie. This is land that is zoned for agricultural that you that we are talking about a resolution to reszone it to light industrial. I if that is not building something on land that wasn't planned for industrial development I don't know what is. Let's move on to our next point then. These data centers are going to raise our electricity rates again. Obviously they will. Rowan again has no reason or no obligation to us Temple citizens to be honest about these points. Of course, they're going to tell us that no, it won't affect your electricity rates. We'll be be so nice. We won't ever go over the limits. And for anyone who isn't aware, the way these contracts are often written, they have a limit. Yes, they are given a limit. And the penalty for going over that limit, you don't, it's not like when me or another citizen doesn't pay our electricity bill, you don't go there and turn it off. you they pay a fine. What that tells me is that they are allowed to go past that limit as long as they're willing to pay.

So, this is saying that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, we we'll only use up to this many kilowatt hours unless we really feel like using more and then we'll just give you a few thousand dollar and call it square. So, again, I am not going to take it that when you say, oh, you know, they've told us they're not going to go over these limits. Same thing with the water because because these contracts I'm sure say does it say when they get and I'm not asking a question. I understand this isn't a back and forth. Does it say that when you know they go over this limit that it's a hard cut off that they cannot go over this limit? No, it does not. And I haven't read this contract but I guarantee you it does not. It says there is X penalty. Your rate goes up by so much so forth whenever you go over the limit. And they are going to go over that limit time and time again because the reason they're building so many of these data centers is they print money. These are people with billions and billions and billions of dollars. They have infinite pockets, endless pockets to reach in and pay your little fines and pay your little fines and pay your little fines. And they will do it at the cost of every citizen in this room here today. at the cost of our water, at the cost of our children's water, at the cost of our electricity, at the cost of our schools, at the cost of us, at the cost of you and me. At the end of the day, you all do live in this area and you have families. That's again why I implore you, again, I can tell from your faces, most of you already made up your mind, but I implore you, think about, really think about the long-term impact that this will have, right? Because we're not talking about just, oh, you know, it's going to be that the lake's going to be a little bit lower. We're talking about year over year, there will be less water. Year over year, the electricity price will go up. That creek that you grew up fishing in, that you have great memories, that you want to take your grandchild to to catch their first catfish, you're going to go there and it's going to be dry. And you say, "Man, it's never been dry in April before.

We'll try again next year." And you'll go next year and guess what? It'll be dry. You'll walk farther up the creek and it'll be dry even farther up. How many years you going to have to walk down that dry creek bed before you realize the mistake you made. Let's go to our next point, please. These data centers don't bring long-term local employment. And that is the truth. Even in this own data sheet you gave us, it points out that there will be 500 jobs temporarily while they build it. and and you have individuals coming in here basically begging and hoping that they're going to be one of the lucky few to get those 40 permanent jobs. We have thousands of residents in Temple. 40 jobs is not a significant amount

is it? Yeah. 500 jobs temporarily is great, but what about the long-term effects? And again, as another individual pointed out, most of these jobs are are there highle positions when you're talking about a data center. you know, you're not just having a regular plumber working on your pipes. You have a you have an engineer doing your pipes, right? So, this is going to be mostly college educated people and they do need these jobs. But if we're talking about who most desperately needs the jobs in our area, it is not our well-educated citizens. Those they have more opportunities. It is our uh tradesmen, it's our plumbers, it's our day laborers, right? They will be the ones that will ultimately bear the highest cost from this because they will get a temporary employment and then that employment will go away and they will be left with a community that is less usable to them, that has less water, that has more expensive electricity and worse traffic, all for a paycheck that they got for a few weeks back in 2026. And and it's simply just to say that 40 jobs makes up for the employment that that is a significant amount of employment for a city of several thousand people is is just simply ridiculous. Let's go to our next point, please. These data centers will bring constant industrial noise to our area. So again, I understand that they have to put up screening. Screening does not eliminate noise. If I go out in the hall and close the door and call that scream screaming, but I start screaming, are you going to pretend like you don't hear me just because the door is closed? No. Screening is not completely effective. It will reduce the amount of noise, but the noise will still be there. There have been multiple studies. I don't have the numbers or the names of the studies right in front of me. No, but we can all Google. There have been multiple studies that have shown that there is a marked increase, peer-reviewed studies. So this isn't just, you know, a couple people going out there with decibel readers. This is

a team of dedicated scientists who have submitted their research to, you know, hundreds of dedicated scientists who have reviewed their research methods and said, "Yeah, you did this the right way. This is the truth." And the truth is there is a raised level of noise around data centers. And also there have been studies that have shown there's a heat island effect similar to you know well-built up areas around these data centers that in areas up to two miles away from the data center average air temperature is raised by up to 4° Fahrenheit. It is hot today. It is April. I was sweating before I came in the building. I think it's close to 90 degrees today and it's supposed to be spring. It is only going to get hotter. So if I have someone that lives a mile away from this proposed data center, just say, "Hey, don't worry about it." When it's 112 for everyone else, it' only be 116 for you. So not only do we have to worry about the noise, which is a very legitimate concern that they want us to simply ignore because you'll put up some trees or some walls, there are also other large environmental effects other than the water and the electricity that everyone has already mentioned. There are compounding effects. So again, I mentioned, you know, we will have to have uh, you know, uh, well-educated engineers come to work on this facility. If they aren't commuting from out of town, that's additional traffic on our roads. That's additional wear and tear on our roads. If we have large industrial equipment going up and down 317 and in and out of these neighborhoods, that's going to be wear and tear on the roads. That's going to block traffic. That's going to make some of these people late for work one day. But you don't care about that because Rowan's given you guys a nice bundle of cash to vote yes today. And I'm sure after I finish speaking and the other people behind me, no matter how long we talk, it could be 10, 11 p.m. And when that

address. Also, I'm sick and tired of good farmland, rich farmland being taken out and scarfed up for our food supply. I went last week to HB to get bananas. There was no damn bananas there on the shelf. And there's times that food the bread gets short. Also, I told you I don't I only work at the hospital farm. I worry about this. I used to have as much as a thousand acres working there. Of course, I had somebody working on the farm for me. I'm down to probably 160 acres now because of the solar and the uh this data centers and you they just want to keep building and building. Where's our food going to come from? And also since I ran for commissioner and I made a runoff, I had the privilege of being flown over these solar farms, which same thing is going to be with the data center. I found and took pictures and videos of every single solar farm that had a retention pond. The water was gray. The creeks, the rivers, uh, stock tanks were pretty and blue. Even Panda Power Plant was pretty and blue. I'm this data center is going to ruin our water just like the solar farms did. So anyway, I spoke my piece and before I leave, if y'all don't listen to the people here, then election day is coming up and I know these people are going to remember. They're not going to forget.

All of y'all will be out of a job. Thank you. Well, hi there. My name is Davis Ford and I do live here in Temple and I just want to ask, are we having fun yet?

I think so. Yeah. Well, I'm going to approach this from a little bit different angle. I You said, you know, we don't want to be the department of redundancy department and just repeat things over and over. So, I think I'm I've got a few different lines on this that maybe make some sense hopefully to some of you. Um, while I was a uh real not real estate agent, excuse me. While I was a a insurance agent, I had the opportunity to insure a home uh where the homeowner had this one room just cordoned off and full of computers and he was doing Bitcoin mining. Anybody know what that is? I mean these computers he's, you know, goes up a cent and he sells his Bitcoin. Goes down a cent, he buys Bitcoin. Anyway, I was kind of amazed, but that home uh took in like, you know, three or 400% more power than a similar sized home. And you know, I just I found that amazing that his computers were sucking up that much power for his little computer generation. I was thinking his little had to be.

All right. How about now?

Okay. So, uh so anyway, like I say, I found that very interesting that you know and with this uh computerenerated stuff, it's going to be drawing all kinds of power. So, here's something I'm going to suggest. It ought to be in your contract that uh you know, I'm guessing when you pass this. I'm hoping not at all for other reasons, too. But when you pass this, there ought to be an item in the contract that they produce their own power on site plus 20% that they can sell back to Encore just to make sure our prices as you know poor little mom and pop homeowners and small business people uh won't have to pay the price for the higher energy costs that this is likely going to entail unless you do that. And uh anyway, want to segue this into the land. And our previous speaker mentioned about the land and lack of farmland. I think you ought to table this deal for for a while, wait for a good hail storm to come along that beats the crap out of that five wells uh solar panel farm out there, busts it all to pieces, and they realize they don't have any more income coming off because the company that did it is going to walk away more than likely. And uh so then this company can come in, clean up the big solar panel, busted solar panel mess that we'll end up with at some point out there. And uh so they can get that land cheap. And since it's already ruined for farmland, uh you know, we won't have to worry about, you know, that'll be one less thing you guys will have on your conscience, okay, for you, you and your grandkids and your great grandkids. But uh anyway, bringing in water. So what are we going to do with water? Well, I happen to know that uh I'm president of the Central Texas Tea Party and that you know, you might go

screaming out of the room some of you, but anyway, uh one of the people we have on our board is involved in water and making sure we have water coming in to our cities and uh we have speakers coming into our organization to speak to that. And guess what? We're out of water. I know there's a couple of lakes out there got a lot of water in them, but Temple doesn't own that water and Belton doesn't own that water. We we are contracted for so much water and once uh our contract once we hit the lid on that contract, we don't get to buy any more water because other cities are saying, "Well, we're standing in line waiting to get our fair share." So, in essence, what I'm saying is we are already out of water. So, where are you going to get some more water out of those two lakes? They're talking about plans to, you know, during rainy season to pump some underground in caverns and pump it back out. But anyway, that's another thing. But like I say, where you going to get that water now under Did I hear somebody say, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong. Did I hear somebody say that there's a 25 inch water line runs through that property or near that property right now? The proposed property.

Is that right? Did I hear that? I think I did. Okay. 25 inch line. How convenient for big old water line right there that they can tap into. Well, I think that just goes back to the fact that you know what what you were saying, mayor, about the 5,000 gallons per day. You know, that's not very much just for flushing toilets. So, that's probably what they need. All the poo poo we need to flush. So, uh, anyway, so water big big problem. So, here's the solution. We ought to have them to, uh, drag a, uh, or make a desolinization plant out there and on the edge of the Gulf and pipe water up here and pipe up at least what they need plus another 20%. I like that number. Let's just uh, make them do a desalinization plant. pipe the wa the good water that they're going to need up here so make sure that we don't run us out of water and the over 20% that'll just allow for uh problems they might have along the way and help out the community really help out the community. Uh let's see. You know, one one of the things about technology is technology has a really funny way of of obsoleting itself in short order. Have you ever noticed that it'll you know we got going to have this big old plant out there? Well, my little phone right here has more processing power in it than the first space shuttle did. So, we're going to have this big old plant out there that's just jinning away doing artificial intelligence and one of these days, probably in the not too distant future, it's going to obsolete itself. And then what's going to happen? They're just going to leave

it there and now we got this big eyesore. So, won't that be fun to deal with that? But in the meantime, what do we do with the artificial intelligence? all this increased artificial intelligence. Well, some of you might not have heard, but if you're buying a 2026 automobile or pickup, uh they have a kill switch system built into them. And I've seen it in operation. Uh if you're not driving right, you get a little teacup lights up on your dash that says you need to take a break and get a cup of coffee because you're like all over the place. Well, you know what else that system can do? Well, it can shut you down. It'll, you know, in certain conditions, it'll shut the motor off. And nobody seems to know how to get things going again. And another little side atom to that with all this artificial intelligence being a computer system that operates you know just uh in the Ethernet there you can have a situation where somebody hacks your car speeds you up to 120 miles an hour and runs you off the road because everything's electronic and motorized in those cars nowadays. So, our artificial intelligence that this system's going to that our uh that our our little compound is going to create can be used for all kinds of nefarious things on down the road. You can monitor. I mean, right now it's monitoring your eyes where they're looking, monitors how your hands are gripping the steering wheel. That's today. We're not using half of the technology, the information that's being input into our cars, but they sure can increase the artificial intelligence, increase these data centers. What do you think that they're going to do? It's a

lot of it's going to be used for monitoring us. And this is before we even do anything wrong. So, got all kinds of bad things going on with this data center. And what data centers are now and what they can do, you know, and we're just not the right place for it because big thing is we don't have the water. I, you know, I sit in my backyard, let it sit, I can stand in my old backyard and I could see the panda plant during snowageddon. I was without power for four or five days, no power whatsoever and panda plants sitting over there. And the government, the federal government didn't even give them permission to start the plant up before it was too late. So, you know, it just the lack of electricity. If they're going to shut them down first, I want to see the something like that in the contract that when power gets short that they get shut down. Not homes, not mom and pop businesses. Doubt you'll cover that. Well, anyway, I think that'll do it for a while. Well, I'll let this next gentleman. Now, I uh It's too bad he didn't have another $50 you could buy a purple jacket, but I I'll let him talk for a while. And thank you for listening to me. All right. I think I can hear me without picking it up. So, first I'm going to start with some positive. I I think uh we got a good police chief coming in. Um

CJ, you gota CJ Gisham. You got to state your name.

CJ Gisham, citizen of Temple. Um but uh kind of glad to see we've we've y'all have done a good job at least on one thing and we've slowly improved our police department over the last decade or um there's still a long way to go and I hope that we continue that trajectory with this new police chief. So good good job on that. We have a I I think the city council has a problem here when you've got me and Mr. Martinez on the same side of an issue. Um because we could not be any further. He's an extreme left-wing lunatic. I'm an extreme right-wing lunatic. Um and uh we all disagree with this. And I've been watching I just got back from Reigns County. Uh that's why I was a little late and I so I was watching online until the feed went out. I think I only heard one person oppose or support this this particular thing. and that was because he's an employee. He's got a financial stake in it. So, apparently the only people that support this are people with a financial stake in it. So, we'll see how y'all vote. I wanted to get a little bit of detail. A single M and I've been doing some research on this and oh, the second thing that was good, thank you for giving me I finally got the discovery or the the open records request information. I'm still going through it. Um, but I did some research. Uh in general, a single modern AI center can consume as much electricity as 100,000 homes with larger ones using far more. This growth has brought economic benefits to some communities such as tax revenue and construction jobs. Those go away. The tax revenue comes in and then it gets wasted. Um but also significant strains particularly on the energy grids, water supplies, and local environment. Impacts vary by location. We don't have to wonder what is this thing going to do. we can look at what it has done in other places. And you know, we've already got this meta center. We don't even know the impact of that thing. And then before the meta center, we had the water plant that y'all brought in here that by the way, when we have water restrictions, they

can still pump out as much water as they want. Um, and now now we've got two more data centers on top of that. Um, so in high density areas like Virginia, I'm sorry, uh, the impacts vary by location. concentrated hubs like Northern Virginia's data center alley, parts of Texas, Georgia, Arizona, and the Midwest feel them very acutely. Um, and nationwide trends show rising concerns from residents, utilities, and regulators. In high density areas like Virginia, wholesale electricity electricity prices have surged as much as 267%. Over 5 years near these data center clusters, and we're about to create a cluster here in Temple. Residential bills have risen sharply. One Virginia homeowner reported a jump from 100 to $281 in a single month in in expenses. Um the surveys show that most voters there blame the data centers. Now again, that's kind of colloquial. I just wanted to bring in as much of the data as I could. Nationally, data centers push average US electricity bills up by 8%. With regional spikes over 25%. And of course, you've got as high as uh 267 over a fiveyear period in the Mid-Atlantic. In the PJM grid, data center related costs have already contributed to billions in rate hikes. Data centers require enormous amounts of water, primarily for evaporative cooling to prevent servers from overheating, and I heard um a previous speaker talking about that. So, I'm not going to go into that too much. I also heard a lot of weird things that uh data centers can do. Um, they may even turn frogs gay. I don't know.

Um, in Texas, projections reach 49 billion gallons in 2025 and nearly 400 billion gallons of water by 2030 just by data centers. The single meta facility in Georgia used 10% of its county's daily water. I heard that there was somebody here from Belton. This doesn't just affect Temple. This affects our neighbors. It affects the whole county, anyone that uses our water supply. Phoenix area centers and other southwest sites exacerbate these droughts. Effects on communities include higher water rates, rationing risks, depleted aquifers, and reservoir. And by the way, we have rationing risks without all of these things.

Um, and competition with households, farms, and ecosystems. Many draw from municipal potable supplies or groundwater, though some are shifting to reclaimed waste water. US data centers recently accounted for 105 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. They rely which with carbon intensity, that's 48% higher than the n national average around data centers. Um they rely heavily on fossil fuels in many regions, delaying clean energy transitions and prompting new gas coal capacity. Um on-site diesel generators generators sometimes run for hundreds of hours emit particullet uh noxious gases and other pollutants uh creating local health hazards like asthma and heart issues and we heard about downstream effects. Facilities can span hundreds of acres often converting farmland, forest and wetlands into impermeable uh surfaces. Uh this affects storm water, biodiversity and local agriculture. And then you've got the constant humming from cooling fans, generators, and turbines, which can be heard depending on the a the AI data center up to 2 miles away. And really, anybody within 3,000 ft, it's terrible. Infrasound and heat exhaust create heat islands that raise local temperatures and disrupt residents and wildlife. Do I think it's going to create an F3 tornado? No. But it is going to affect the weather, at least that locally. I mean, we it could even just create a little bubble if we've got a little hotter area. This is why some cities uh face different types of storms than some countries do or some country areas rural. Um these impacts are most pronounced in rural and suburban areas where data centers cluster for cheap land power and often lead to community opposition which you see here. Um and then finally, I'll just leave it with this. You know, my family's been here for generations. We've been farming temple. I mean, heck, the place where I

was arrested was country. And now there's a big giant park there, you know, and that's just 2013. We're talking 13 years now. I live in a place my family used to farm. Um, and the fact that we're getting 20 to 40 jobs out of this after construction's done is about as much as a big farm employs as well. So my final question for you, and it's rhetorical because I want each of each and every one of you to think about this individually. What are we really getting out of this? What what is in it for us?

I hear all about the taking and what they're going to do. They're going to take water. They're going to take electricity. They're going to And I'm a user of AI. I I think we need data centers. Do we need data centers in major urban populations and suburban? No, not not at all. But what are we getting out of it? We've got to t We can't say taxes because we're giving them abatements. Um, we can't say jobs because those are temporary until you get to the functioning thing and then you got what 20 to 40 jobs. That's 038% of our population. Um, so my question is exactly what do the people we we all know what y'all get out of it. What do we get out of it as a city? Are are they going to contribute more to our tax base? Are they going to give us free health care by by funding Scott and White? Um are they going to pay for a new school so that we don't have to have another bond so that my property taxes don't go up? Um what are we getting? I haven't heard a single thing from all the meetings that I've been watching about this sole issue about what's in it for us. Now Australia's got a great deal going on. We we know what's in it for Australia. That's all the money that's going to come from this. But what are we the people in this audience getting from that? And that's what I will leave for you as a rhetorical. Thank you for your time.

Hey CJ, one of the things I always appreciate about you is that you ask good questions and then you um and then when we we can have a good discussion. You and I have done that many times. So just as a as a point of clarification, Niagra bottling is subject to water curtailment just like every citizen is. So if if if we are on rationing as it at my house if I can't water my yard, it impacts their ability to to bottle water. Thank you. I did I didn't know that. And you know, I'll yell if I have to, but I appreciate being corrected because I'm not always right. And that's only 90% of I know. I know. And uh that's what I appreciate about you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. You bet.

Good evening. I'm gonna go ahead and do this. Good evening. My name is Caitlyn Warner. Um, I did not come here intending to speak. In fact, my heart is racing like crazy right now because I do not like public speaking. The gentleman in front of me was correct with the fact that this is not something that's just a city of Temple issue. I manage a youth camp on Belilton Lake. My entire job is to get people, adults and kids alike, comfortable in the outdoors. This impacts my personal livelihood. This impacts my ability to potentially provide outdoor experiences on and around the lake. This also impacts the growth of the area. I moved to Temple in 2015 for the job I have now. And when I moved here, the Walmart on West Adams was brand spanking new. There was nothing else there. And the area, Temple, Belton, Morgan's Point Resort have all boomed over the last 5 years to the point where we are getting to the brink that the infrastructure to handle the increased homes that are being built right now. I just have two developments happening outside of my gates and everywhere you see more and more homes are being built. There's already going to be an additional draw on our infrastructure as is. The information that you were given from Rowan that has been passed out here is some great information, but that is information about the impact on of one data center. The truth of the matter is is that this is an approval of the third data center in the Temple area.

We do not yet have an understanding of the overall impact of the already to approved data centers will have on the environment, on the economy, on everything that's around here. with the growth that we already have. We do not know what this looks like. Being able to slow down, take a minute, see what happens with two because those have already been approved before we start adding more. You see all the time about cities who overgrow their infrastructure and that is where we are headed. We cannot afford that. We have heard so many people talk about our future. And I can tell you as with my job, it is hard enough getting kids comfortable in the outdoors. It is hard enough to get them to step away from technology to be able to take a break from social media. You can read all of the data there is about the harm of social media on our kids. And I work about 80our work weeks to try to combat that. And this could tear it all down. I do sailing programs, canoeing, kaying, kayak overnight programs. My job is contingent on that lake. I also see summer after summer where our infrastructure in this state threatens to do black rolling blackouts. Do you know how kind of scary it is when you have about 60 to 80 kids you are overseeing where you may face where the facility that they're living and then where you can feed them may have power outage

because this infrastructure of the state cannot handle it. And then you add three data centers in the area on top of that. That's a scary thought. We know what one data center can do. Even according to Rowan's data, what they will do, but you take that times three. And if I am correct with my understanding, that's also more in the future.

Heard the number seven. And that was my understanding. We can't handle that. My ask is not that you just say outright no. My ask is that you say let's wait. Let's see what the impact of two fully running, fully functioning data centers have and if we can handle another one. Other than that, you're putting the cart before the horse. The possibility of it going well, there is a possibility. The likelihood that it's going to have detrimental effects is larger. I also want to point out to you the fact that there are very few issues in this country that can bring so many people of different walks of life together with one issue. You have heard from people of different ethnic backgrounds, of different cultural backgrounds, different economic backgrounds, and different political spectrums. You've heard from people from conservative sides, from liberal sides. And that should tell you something. If one thing can bring together that many people of that many different perspectives, there is a clear answer. Because trust me there's very little that people from different particularly political sides can agree on and the fact that this one most of the political sides that I have heard can't agree on this is huge. So consider that this is not just a financial or not just an economic an issue that can bring together so many different people from so many different walks of life together with the same answer should tell you something. Thank you and I hope you take that consideration.

Good evening. My name is William Ael. While I do not live in the city of Temple, I do live in Copper Cove, which these decisions here will affect me, my family, my loved ones, my co-workers, etc. Uh, couple things for y'all to consider. How many of you all went out and visited some of these small communities that have had these data centers that took advantage of them, promised them lots of money, promised them lots of jobs in the area, lied and have destroyed the communities? If you have not went and visited any of them, I encourage you to go take a look and see what issues are going on there. Talk to the people that live there. Um, so air pollution rose from these data centers come from data centers emitting nitrogen dioxide and tiny inhalable particles that can harm people's lungs. According to the National Institute of Health, the particles cause between 100 and 200,000 premature deaths each year. Uh, and that's from an article from the Hill. Y'all more than happy to go ahead take a look at it. Uh, but they go ahead and they put a strain on the electrical grid. I mean, think about this last ice storm we had couple months ago. We had to go ahead and tell everyone, "Okay, you can use your heat, but set it to 65 degrees or maybe it was 68." Uh, it was a lot lower than what I normally use it. And now you're going to put this additional strain by three data centers. Uh, you know, I guess you're talking about just the one tonight, but three data centers, that's a lot. Uh, and I really don't think a whole lot of research has been done on it. If it has, you know, the strain that that's coming. But the problem is a lot of the city councils, a lot of the commissioner courts, and I ain't just talking about in Temple. I'm talking about throughout the country. They look at the short-term gains. They don't look at long-term. Kind of like in 2020 when CO hit, property value skyrocketed. I know in Corell County, we put up tons of all these fly by night

communities. Problem is, we didn't think about the infrastructure and we pay for that kind of stuff. We need to think about the future because yeah, you might have short-term gains, but if you got long-term pain, we're all going to pay for it. Um, you know, it's better to go ahead and make sure we have the infrastructure in place. It's better to go ahead and make sure we have all the facts. And since we have data centers all throughout the state of Texas, I encourage everybody to go out to one of these areas or multiple of them, talk to the people in the community, see if it's benefited them and and made their life better. see if it go went ahead and made their life worse. I mean, because we were told the same thing about green energy with the uh solar farms and with the windmills and we see the damage you're doing to our agricultural land. We see the damage it does to the environment. Uh health issues arising from them because there's a lot of toxic stuff that comes off of those. So, all I'm saying is I implore y'all to go ahead and actually do more research. I would recommend y'all tableabling it till you can go ahead and take a look at the other locations that have these data centers in place and see the impact only one has because for the longest time they'd only hit up the small communities because they know that in small communities you're only going to have a small resistance against it uh and they can get away with it with money. Well, they put them up. They destroy those communities. Now they're going to move into the bigger communities including right here in Bell County and in uh Williamson County where I believe they have proposed five data centers. So uh yeah I mean and they did that because they got all the money from them small communities and it's not like they're bringing tax revenue in because well Texas loves giving tax breaks and a lot of these data centers are getting the tax breaks. So what benefit is it going to actually bring Temple? 30 jobs, 35 or I think on their their forum it said 40 but even 40 jobs. So you're looking

about three data centers which are going to destroy the temple community for what 120 do 120 jobs maybe if you're lucky outside of the construction of them. And I'll tell you, it's like, you can ignore me if you want, but there's noise pollution. There's all kinds of pollution in the air, the water. Um, and y'all are going to regret it if you go ahead and just jump into this blindly. I encourage y'all to go ahead and actually do your research and look into the areas that have them. Thank you. My name is Anz Cobb. I do not live in Temple, but I have lots of family that does live in Temple. And I live 20 miles east of Temple. And what's done in Temple as far as these data centers is going to very much impact our lives. I think I have the privilege of speaking to y'all because we are a third generation farmers and I don't have the figures in front of me now but it has been farmers put a lot of money into temples. Uh they they spend a lot of money in temple. they always have and the farmland is being taken away from us. It's a sad sad thing. The thing that is concerning me I think the most is that you say you have been working with the county and have had longterm planning. When we asked our county commissioner if he knew

anything going on other than the solar things that are surrounding us, he said he didn't know. Somebody's not telling the truth. I don't know who is or isn't. But I do know this that the noise from the solar is very distracting. It's the cooling. So, it's the same issue, cooling, noise. I can't tell you how horrible it is for somebody that's lived on the farm, that's worked their whole life, to have a nice quiet place, now has to listen to all that noise. It is not good. Not good at all. But the main thing I want to there's several things I wanted to say, but I'm not cool and be able to say them like I want to. But I do want to say this to you and I want to say this to everybody that's here. Several years ago, my husband and I worked against the Trans Texas corridor. We had a meeting uh over in Satan that had more than a thousand people there. I'm telling you, when people get together, we can do good things. Maybe you're going to pass this, but we're not It's not over yet. It's not over yet. Let's all work together. Oh, by the way, there wasn't a Trans Texas corridor.

Hi, my name is Chris. Um, I do full first and last name, Chris Klein. Um, I am not a public speaker, so this is going to be bad, but I felt like it was important to come up here so that everyone could see how many people need to speak. And before I start this, I would like to ask that everyone could at least on the panel could at least look at me and hear me instead of looking down or on their phones or whispering to one another as I've seen during other people's conversations like right now sometimes. But I'll continue on anyway. Something else I wanted to touch on. All the facts have been gone over repeatedly and I feel like you're going to listen or you're going to not. I can't make you listen to the facts. So, I'd like to had it here have a different approach for it. I kind of want to say just look at us as humans as you are also humans in the faces in the room right now. I know we've talked about like the future impact which is very important, but just being in this room with us, seeing how upset your community is and how we're begging you to hear us. This is me approaching you as another person just asking like listen to what your community is trying to tell you. And I know Bran has provided this lovely information that you handed out to us and I want to know rhetorical if y'all have done your own independent research because it's really easy to be given information and it's dressed up all nice and it looks like a fact but at the end of the day it is our responsibility to go back and do independent peer-reviewed research not just from one side. And that includes for me. I did research on both sides because I wanted to see both sides of the coin because it's important. We've all talked about our families. It's going to affect it. It's going to affect all of us. All I can ask is that you look at us as your community and hear us because there's nine of you and there's a lot more of us. Hi, my name is Jamie. Um, I'd like to

talk about water and we're talking about agricultural land that's being converted. Um, I'm an indigenous person. Um, so water is life literally and I am called to be a water protector. my indigenous nation, we have an origin story that we literally came out of a river. And I'm not going to say which one because all of them matter. And so many different nations have the same sort of stories that go to the depths of literally the rivers all across this nation. I'm also Catholic if that matters. We're talking about holy water. Like the holy water is also all over this country and it's being sucked up right now by data centers all across the country. And yes, so that river that our origins tie us back to is being sucked out right now by two data centers. And yes, I am from the central Texas area and the water's going to run out. I don't think I have to go into how many laws have been orchestrated around my ability and my family's ability to have access to clean water, for my daughter to have access to clean water. She's too. So, I'm I'm here today as a mother and representing her as well and young people because we're busy. We're putting our whole lives on hold. And what am I supposed to do? Just like keel over and let you guys just do whatever and have this river that I don't even have the right to get to know my indigenous heritage because of like the last of our native speakers died in the 60s. What am I supposed to tell my daughter when this river isn't even there

anymore? that it once existed. That's all I have to say. Hello, my name is Laura Vivitzen. I'm a resident of Temple. Um, I wanted to go a little bit of a different route than talking about the electricity and the water, which are obvious problems, but what is AI these data centers really bringing to us? I mean, I I would consider myself a very internet home buddy kind of person, but has it I don't think anyone has really gotten much of a benefit. All we do is get ads and we get false information and we get bombarded by things that we don't we are not built for that. We're not built for a constant stream of data like this. And there are applications for it and of but this isn't it is it? It's sorry I'm not very good at this. It's my first time on but um

we need to look before we jump. Um, gambling is okay if you, you know, you're an adult and consenting to it, but this is also like gambling with people who live here. And part of the reason I'm up here is my mom has always loved it here. And I love my mom and I want her to be able to enjoy this place for a long, long time. And I don't think it's going to happen if there's data centers making it impossible to live here. Hello, I'm John Asbury. I am from Temple and been here for a long time and I was raised in West Texas in the drought. Also, if I really know about water, I've got to clarify one thing for just some information at this point. The data center that proposed here uses what they call a closed water system and that's really nothing but a great big car radiator is what it truly is. heads the engine in the car makes heat, the water comes in, picks up the heat and goes to the radiator and air cools it down back it goes again and again and again at this point it's some of some water is lost in the process periodically at this point and every once in a while it does have to be drained as somebody pointed out and that will probably have to be taken care of in a special way at this present time. What you need to know is Temple has done an excellent job over the past 20 30 years with the previous councils and uh I guess fathers of the community and getting adequate amount of water for temple for at least for the next 15 or 20 years. We use about 22,000 acre feet of water or so a year. Right now we have got water rights for 40,000 acre feet of water. That's a billion or so gallons of water at this point. Uh we

still need to use it carefully. It comes from Lake Belton for the most part and we have it available. Uh at this point we have restrictions when the lakes get low. Uh and and that's should should be this point. But Temple has got the water to use for this facility and other facilities if they need to use it at this present time. And again, it it's it's one of those things that people don't talk about because we don't get enough information sometime how lucky we really are in Temple and Bell County about water, but we do have the water at this point. Thank you.

All righty. My name is Lydia Remy. I actually moved here around this time last year, but I've been living in central Texas my whole life. I have actually never really been outside of Texas until probably two years ago. I have spent my entire existence here and so I'm passionate about the one place I can call home. In light of well, there's no light to this in all honesty. This is a whole dim situation. A lot of people are not being listened to. A lot of people are being blatantly ignored. A lot of facts are being skewed by the rich so that more people can benefit. And I want everyone to notice that everyone is here right now. And it's like a lot of other people said previously, I have never seen so many people on opposite sides of the political spectrum unite because this is not a Republican issue. This is not just a Democrat issue. This is an issue for every single person in this county. And overall, it's going to become an entire problem for Texas, the United States, and then the entire world because we are damaging all our natural resources. And the rich don't know when to stop. People don't know when to stop being greedy. And I know the people that are here from Rowan, I want you to know, we don't really like what you have to say.

It's not really going to work out in the way you want it to. And I know which ones y'all are, too. So, we have already discovered and talked about so many economic and environmental issues and I want to bring up something that someone said earlier that we are going to be handing this planet to our younger generations. I am one of the people of this younger generation that's inheriting this planet for all of you to help destroy. Y'all may not see the long-term ramifications of what you are doing, but we will. My future children will. Their children will. Anybody in here who has children and grandchildren, if you want to vote for this, you should be ashamed. There is nothing good that benefits the actual people here besides a few jobs. It is not benefiting our community. It is rising our prices and taking away resources from the people who deserve it and need it. And I want to add something that adds to the environmental pressure. You know, fireflies need water, right? My generation may be the last one to see fireflies. And I want y'all to think about that. We will be the last people to see them before they go extinct. The water ramifications, the electric, the electricity ramifications, the social ramifications, nothing is beneficial to us. And I want you to know that we recognize that you don't want to listen to us because at the end of the day, you're not for the people. You're for lining your pockets. That's greedy. That's selfish. And I want you to consider that because it affects every single person in here. It It affects every single veteran. It affects every single person that lives in this county that will or currently live in this county.

The other thing I want to mention is something that I have noticed. We have discussed that it is going to be putting pollutants into the air that are toxic. Now, specifically, Project Ranger is pretty close to the hospital, the Baylor Scott and White Hospital, and I know a lot of us have people who are vulnerable healthwise. And you're going to be putting a data center that can produce these pollutants. And you're going to be putting it near a hospital for all these already sick people, vulnerable people to inhale and become sicker. It's making healthy people sick. What is it going to do to our already sick? This is selfish. This is selfish and cruel to the people that are trying to fight against it. This is truly an issue that I'm glad all of us can unite against because I love Texas and I love I love America. I love the United States and I want to continue to see it flourish. I want our wildlife to flourish. I want our communities to flourish. But that can only happen if people like y'all listen to us. We need you to listen to us, please. because this is the one planet that we have that we can protect. There are people who have spent generations here. And why would you strip them away of all their resources? For now, I guess that's all I have to say. I hope you make the moral decision because at the end of the day, this doesn't just come down to economics or social economics. doesn't just come down to, you know, the little guys being stepped on, which we are being stepped on. This is a moral decision. And I want you to look deep into your hearts. I want you to look deep into your character as people. And I want you to figure out what you really stand behind. Is it your wallet or the people you're

supposed to serve? Thank you'all for your time. I'm I'm Robert Fleming, vice president of Bell County Farm Bureau. I represent 8,000 member families in Bell County and most have to do with agriculture. A lot of them on the east side of Bell County. I spent 20 years on the Elm Creek watershed authority. I I will know quite a bit about water. Also in my farming ranching operation in three counties, I probably oversee and manage over a 100 surface water ponds for cattle and wildlife. Quite aware of what it takes and I know how important it is of water. My granddad started digging ponds in the early 50s. was one of the first dozers in this area and I know the reason why now the environment that I manage also is very critical is very critical to me and this is all about agriculture so I'm going to bring my topic up uh Mr. Mr. Mayor, you and I had a great conversation the other day about the ASR water transfer. And if anybody doesn't know about ASR water transfer, I I want y'all to study this and it's it's happening in in our great state right now. And it's supposed to happen here in Temple, Texas, too. And in five years, we hear about $22 million. So, please study up on that. It is a dancing with the devil on our on our public water supply. There's a lot of water supplies out here. Sego, Durango, uh, OMBB water, um, Little Elm Valley, Central Texas Water that rely on this underground water for our drinking

water. So, please study up on that. Uh, Mr. Mayor, we had talked about the a lotment of water that city of Temple has for Lake Belton. Great conversation. I really learned a lot, but dog gone it, as our population grows, we're going to use more and more of that. You talked about the water line and the water rights that we have in in Limestone County and the water line that it possibly take to furnish that water here. Great information, but as a co population grows, we're going to need that water for our personal use and we have to really be careful about this industry. Even though it's going to be sewer water and it's supposed to be clean, there's always mechanical. It's reclaimed water. It's not sewer water.

Reclaimed water. It it Okay. But it is out of the sewer out of Do your plan. Am I correct? It's been cleaned. Okay. But it is out It did have turds floating in it at one time. Am I correct? Well, by the way, so did the water that came into your tap that from another community. It was just somebody else's turds, local turds. No, my my water comes from Central Texas Water and a well from OMB water supply that's 2700 ft underground. There's probably not anybody crapping in your water.

Okay. There's not. Yeah, but this water is going to be clean. That's where it came from. I'm trying to make y'all realize this. It it can it can be it can be mechanical and and mechanical and human failure at times. Nothing is perfect. Our cars aren't perfect. Anything mechanical is not perfect. Okay, big water comes is the city of Troy and it smells horrible. Okay, TECQ is supposed to monitor all this and TECQ is a joke. I've been in their office twice fighting the solar the solar facilities for five years. I was very I'm very knowledgeable. I've been I've been in commissioner courts forever on this stuff. So I I'm quite aware of it. What what I'm asking for y'all to do. Do a moratorum. Get some committees out there or something. Go study this thing. Find out what the heck is going on. What you're about to do. It may be good and it may be fine. I don't know. But just put a stop to it. There's 600 of these things in the state of Texas that are projected to be built. Go do some research and find out if it's true or not. What folks are telling us from Rowan if it's not. I know I know what the folks from told us from the renewable energy and I'm living it day from day because I live right in the middle of 25,000 acres of solar. So I know exactly what was told to us. Check check check out the environmental impact. Just just just put a hold on it. Just pause. Pause and and breathe and and study this thing. Get get an individual get a committee somewhere. Hire somebody to go do the facts. It's all I ask. I did solder the same way. Did it get done? No. Okay. This is all about agriculture. The most damaging enemies of agriculture and rural committ

communities are realtors, developers. I'm on the phone with them all the time. I know what this this farm here sold for is a mindbogling amount of money. I'm on phone with the same guys he probably after some of our properties too. developers, renewable energy land man, and now it's new on my list is elected officials. I don't really know. I got a lot of friends that elected officials, and the more and more I get involved in this, the more respect I lose for them. I'm going to close in saying this right here. Just because you were elected in your senior class president doesn't make you have the requirements to become a politician. Alan Lid, I know I've had my turn before, but I have I can't sit anymore. This is great. Look at all these people. You all, you all know me. I've been coming to the meetings for years. Oh, thank you, Alan. I've been coming to the meetings for years and many times I've sat in that seat all by myself because these people didn't give a about city government. I can't say that word because y'all get in trouble. But they didn't. Now, they found something to complain about. So, they all came up. Where were you in June, July, August when other issues were coming forward? Why didn't you come up and talk to the council? Why didn't you come up and see how your city government works? I can't say anything about this issue because I'll get in trouble.

But that's what I It just hurts my feelings to see all you people up here on an issue, but next month, next year, you won't be here. You won't care. You really don't care about your government. You elected them. Now you want to call recall them, but you elected them. Or maybe you didn't because the last time we had an election, do you know how many people voted? Less than 5% of our population voted at a city election. That's ridiculous. Any of you, if you didn't vote at the last city elections, you have no right to be here to complain about it.

That's what that's what I was um Thank you, Alan. Wasn't even close. wasn't even close to items seven and eight. That is true. Okay. But it is what they've been complaining about. I understand. I understand.

Margie Frasier, Bill County. I haven't been coming because I was told I wasn't welcome here a few years ago.

That's why I haven't been coming. But all of a sudden, I'm welcome here. And I am welcome here. So, if you want to know why, Lyall, I wasn't here because I was told I couldn't come here to complain about anything because I didn't live in Temple City. I live in Bell County, but I come here and shop all the time. I have spent multiple dollars. I spend more money at the grocery store than most people, I think, because I like to shop. It's one of my things. I buy clothes, I buy food, I buy stuff. Okay. for my little farm country out there, you know, for the chickens. Three times a week, I go buy bananas and then other stuff because I'm in the store. Okay, then I am not in favor of you making ownership to Rowan on the seven and eight. Why? Because you're just stealing our farmland. You going to be able to eat this stuff? Can you eat this hair microphone? No. Can you eat the data centers when you've run out of farmland and water and electricity because you've screwed yourselves over? Is your kids going to be able to eat it? Your grandkids, can they eat any of that stuff? You're not going to have any farmland to make food. What are you going to do? Grow it on your shelf in your bedroom or in your sun room or whatever you have? Are you all going to just move out of here with all the money you're making off of this? That's what I see. I figure y'all are going to just leave temple and you're going to go somewhere else. Please don't go there and screw them over, too. That's all I can say on that one. I'm going to say some more, though. I'm not done yet. Noise pollution. Noise pollution. Dangers of data centers. There are dangers to them that y'all don't seem to be aware of. Why?

They're large facilities. They compute a lot of stuff, right? You think they're wonderful, but they cause noise pollution well over the 85 dB that our ears are supposed to be. You know, right now, if I was to holler and scream real loud, you might get it. You just might get it. But if you have that stuff going 247 and it's next door to you, which I think the data center should be just right outside of all your homes,

you know, because I've been over to the meta center. I've driven through that area. It's loud in the industrial area. It's very loud. Y'all need to drive over there because it's going into some of these neighborhoods. I know. I know. They're going into some of these neighborhoods because there's people here from those neighborhoods. They don't want it at their back door. Is it going to be at your back door? I guess not. But there's noise pollution. That's your number one thing. Okay. There's also light pollution. They generate a lot of light at night because they turn those lights on while they're running their data center. They have to have it. It disrupts. Okay, data centers generate light to pollution. Hypers scale facilities, and this is not a little facility you all are talking about, require all night lighting. Disrupts the natural rhythm of the body, which is what we get every year, twice a year when we go back and forth and flip-flop between spring forward and fall back. I fall back and then I spring back into bed. Okay. Life pollution's disturbing to the migration patterns, the habitat development among birds, butterflies, bats, cats, and turtles to name only a handful. Okay. The long-term impacts of noise and light pollution include hearing loss, tenitis, of course, stress, insomnia. Yeah, you got insomnia. I hope y'all get it tonight. I hope you do cuz I don't sleep too well anymore. Okay. And then decreased quality of life. Just a lot of benefits there, you know, because they do have proof now that if

you go to areas that have all these data centers, your health deteriorates, too. Okay. I I don't know why you don't understand. Asthma suffers. I don't have asthma. I've been blessed all my life, but I have family that does. I have friends that do. That's a hard thing to live with. And you know, they're talking about somebody said something about going by Scott and White. You know, you got one over there. Oh, that should do a that should build up Scott and White. They're going to make lots of oodles of money off of y'all. And maybe I guess that's for the taxes of here. I don't know. Okay. These pollutants, they increase the rates of respiratory diseases, cardiovascular conditions, cancer even. Wow. We're gonna have fun with that one. says uh it indicates by 2030 there will be 600,000 more asthma cases 1300 premature deaths exceeding onethird of the asthma deaths in the US each year resulting in a public health burden of more than 20 billion well I guess we're going to have a few million out here for us huh we're just going to join right in water waste water waste they do require water to cool even when they're closed loop. You don't understand when you get a leak, there's corrosion, there's going to be corrosion in there because those are chemicals. When you got a radiator, I don't know. I I remember having to replace my radiator in one of my cars and so far I've been blessed. I have a Rav 4. It's 10 years old. So far, I haven't had to worry about it. And I keep my stuff up. I f change the oil filter and I take it to somebody. I take it to Greens. Actually, Mr. Green is very nice. I take it to him

and get my car serviced when I need it. And if I don't need it, I like him to look it over every once in a while. So, I'm supporting the economy. But if your radiator goes out, you're stuck on the road. You got to have a new one. You get to call somebody. It's a lot of work. You just put corrosion on the ground. Well, my radiator is small compared to a data data center. Their radiators are pretty big, I would think. And you guys just don't you it's an accident always wakeing to happen always. You know, I'm just looking at all of this all this, you know, increases the threat of water insecurity. I mean, I do know that we are out of water. Maybe we don't see it being out of water. I know that when Mr. Ford was talking, he's talking about the water people come in because you're only given so much water to use. We do have a lot of people here. We've got people coming in. We've got houses being built. I know. We got my my my one of my grandsons just bought a nice house over there on the I guess it's the west side in that new development over there close to where the Walmart and stuff is. Those those places. Okay. I've got children here, grandchildren. My grandchildren are in their 30s. Their kids, one of them, their kids are in 14 and under. Give me a break. They're aware of all this. They just let their grandmother come and talk because they know she's loud and proud. Okay? And it does have dehydration whether y'all realize it or not. Even in a closed loop system, there is some dehydrating in there. Let alone the chemicals that are there. Oh,

okay. There's a cost to us. There's definitely a cost to us because we're going to pay higher electric bills. We're going to pay higher water bills. Why? Because we get to help support your abatements that you gave you. You know, you pay these people that come in and screw over the citizens of Temple and any other area that does the same thing. You're actually doing that. They don't pay their fair share in utilities. You gave them abatements, 50%, right? Isn't that right? Yeah. Well, when are you going to give me a 50%. Huh? When are you going to give all these people 50% off on their bill? No, you're gonna raise them 50% in the end because it's already a proven fact within six years people's water bills and electric bills go up anywhere from 20% the first year then 15% the next till you've hit at least 60% and that's in 5 10 years max and y'all are part of that list unless like I said you take all the money you've made off of this because I know y'all got some little projects and He got some money out of it. Whether you say it or not, she can look at me like that all the time. Yeah, I guess you're stuck with it. Anyway, they are large load customers. Large load. What are we? We're a little bitty load. We're not straining it, but I guarantee we do strain it because in the summertime, what happens when the air conditioning, the electric goes down? You ain't got no air conditioning. What do y'all do? Where do you go? Go to Walmart and run around. You guys got a generator back here so that you can stay cool in the building? Because I know your air conditioning in here, I have to wear a sweater.

I can't afford to run mine at 68 degrees or 69 or even 70. I run her about 74 all the time. That's my my way of saving money. And I remember a time not too long ago when we all had to conserve. And they don't want you running your air conditioner under 76 and your heat. Well, can you run it at 60° and just put on a pair of sweats so that you don't get too cold? That's exactly what I remember. Margie, what? Please get close. I'm going to get close. I mean, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but please.

I don't want to get close because then then I want to be here till tomorrow. If that will help you, say no. Say no. Say no. I will bring you breakfast in the morning. This craziness,

you know, we pay more. It says the average, the US energy information administration says the average resident is now paying 37% more for electricity since 2020. You think the demand that goes goes on the grid from this other is not going to make it any better or it's going to make worse? Are they going to pay our bills? I mean, I'm a retired person. One of these days you all be retired, too. I hope you whole all have a lot of money. You do. You probably do. I'm sure that Rowan made sure you all are well taken care of, you know, because you can be bought. Anyway, there's a lot of different things that you, you know, air pollution, noise pollution, a few other things. You know, the the the stuff that goes into the ground when they have leakage and y'all have to clean it up. the the Environmental Protection Agency. I'm sure we'll be out here to take care of that, right? That's right.

Oh, stay up here all night. Okay. Well, I know that I say these things. I don't know. I really don't know about y'all. I really don't know. I I begin to think y'all don't have a conscience because if you did, you probably would have studied this even further instead of just taking the one-sided information. I don't see where you got the other side until you got it now. Until you have it now. When did you get the other side? Tell me. Did you all go into all the facts that they have proof? And now in the last since 2019, they've proven a lot of this stuff that we are talking about. So you don't care if our bills go up so long as you got a lot of money under the table is what I call it. Under the covers. My mother-in-law always called it people do it under the cover. The cover of darkness. I'm gonna read some of Proverbs. Proverbs 29. This is you all. Whoever remains stick necked after many rebues will suddenly be res be destroyed without remedy. I think this goes with what? Because you have been rebuked here tonight multiple times and there's multiple people behind me that still want to rebuke you all. They still want to rebuke you. Why

Margie? When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice. When the wicked rule, When the wicked rule, the people groan. Amen. My my my. By justice, a king gives a country stability. And by justice, a mayor in his city's council gives this little city here stability. You're not giving us stability. You're giving us more bills. Okay? But those who are greedy for bribes, those who are greedy for bribes, tear it down. So you're tearing down your own city. Evildoers are snared by their own sin. But the righteous shout for joy and are glad. So you know, to me it's a sin to not tell your constituents what you were up to in the first place. You think you post a little note down there downstairs. You think people are in here every day looking at that stuff? I wish they had been maybe six months ago, maybe a year ago, depending on how long you've been up to this. I think more data is coming out, as they say. More information, and it isn't just through internet. It comes through newspapers, comes through word of mouth, other people that live in other areas. I mean, I have family all over I mean, go as far as Tennessee anyway. I'm sure you can tell. If a ruler listens to lies, all his officials become wicked. So, we're looking at you as all the officials have become wicked. One's getting tired. He's yawning.

Well, I'm glad I don't have to listen to you. All I know is I don't see where you need this land. You're you want to approve the annexation of these two rowing things into the city. Why? Why are you Why are you proving that? So they get their tax abatements? Because this is saying they're not located they're not It sounds to me they're not not located here. They're not located located in the city. Is that what you're saying? They have to be annexed in. Is that what it is? They're out of the city. Uhhuh. Can you give them those tax abatements just because you brought them in or have you already given them all that?

Rowan. Huh? I don't know. I don't know if I want to hear from Rowan because all I know is that they're going to give you the fluff, but they're not going to give you what's underneath it. I mean, you know, there's a lot of rot underneath it. And can we let them can we let them prove that to you? No, I don't think they can. I don't think they're going to be able to prove to me that they're

Well, yeah, let them prove that they have hidden a whole lot of stuff because they're going to give you all the sweet talk. It's like eating an ice cream cone and getting to the bottom. Nobody likes the cone that well. there. Are you happy now? I am. I'm glad

because I can come back again in about an hour when somebody gets tired or I get tired of listening to Rowan. I don't know. Well,

uh, hi, my name is Britney Winford. Um, I was going to wait and speak later. I'll probably come back up and say the majority of what I was going to say later anyway. Um, but I was required to take an AI training for my job. Um, because, you know, everybody's shoving AI down our throats. And one of the ways that the guy who did the training described AI was it is the most mathematically probable word to come next based on the one before based on your prompt. So, our water, our air, our weather, our land, our farmland, all of these things that are going to be affected by it seems like a pretty silly thing to lose all of those based on just okay, what word's going to come next. That's all it is. It's pretty silly. So, that's all. I will be back up in a little while. Sorry. Yeah, I'm Leonard Cobb. I live east of here and I'm going to state some facts that are proven. There's a statement that records are made to be broken. History repeats itself. I remember the drought of the 50s from 49 to 57. It did not rain. There won't be any water in that lake if that happens again. And you remember two or three years ago when you cross the bridge out here, you could see the old river channel one year and we got a lot of straws in that pond now. So you better think about that. It's very serious. And the solar farms all around us, they literally tore up our good black top road and they said, "Oh, we'll grind it up, make a gravel

road out of." We've been eating dust for two years and they still haven't fixed it. The solar people that said they were going to fix it, they're not even around now. So, they got to get somebody else to come in. And that's pretty serious deal when you the cost of tearing up our structures like that, making it miserable on people. And the safety factor with all these trucks running around, some of them couldn't even speak English, running over stop signs, tearing up everything. That's about all I got to say. But really think about that. Water is a very serious deal. Hello, my name is Kyla Ardondo. Um, I'm going to take a bit of text out of Miss Margie's book and take something that is very valuable to you, which is your time. Um, I feel like I could speak on behalf of I suppose the younger people. Would that be Gen Z or Gen Alpha or whatever? Yeah, sure. All of them. We'll say that. Um, I apologize if I'm lacking a little bit in presentation. I had not prepared to say anything. Um, however, I felt inclined to. I will say I want to give a new perspective on this because everybody's of course talking about the physical the architectural um the agricultural effects on these data centers. However, I wanted to speak a little bit on AI itself. Um we are currently seeing while there is a little bit of a rise in AI usage from much younger I would say that would be Gen Alpha anyone under the age of 14. We are also seeing a rise in AI. Um I

I apologize. Um we are also seeing a rise in um AI. Um I'm sorry. Um the the coin term for it is um people are starting to realize that AI is draining us mentally also and it is causing people to want to distance themselves from it. So what I am concerned about is the obsoleteness of these data centers in years past. I'm talking I'm thinking about the future not just right now. And we already have two of these data centers um planned to come up in the case that this AI bubble I guess the AI bubble pops which is something that I have a term that I have heard from a friend who was actually a software engineer who actually utilizes a lot of AI in his work and he even says when the AI bubble pops so when that happens what's going to happen with these data centers branching off of what another individual had said earlier what's going to happen if they are no longer in use? What's going to happen when AI isn't being used as frequently anymore? You know, and then you have all of these data centers, repeating what I just said, you already approved two of them. Now you're going for a third one and possibly more in the future. What is going to happen if they are not all being utilized? There is so much competition with AI companies. I mean, this is something that you really need to think about and plan out more ahead. We feel like we the people feel like you haven't done so. We do not feel confident in your answers. We do not feel confident in the way you are engaging. Um this is my first time coming to a town hall meeting like this and my this is my first impression of you and this is my first impression of the people who are legislating and looking over us as um a county. And frankly, it is

extremely unprofessional. Even in my profession where it is not as I guess high stakes as yours, if I was on my phone, if I was acting like I didn't care, I would be penalized for it.

I mean, this is extremely unprofessional. It does not give me confidence in the people who are running this. And quite frankly, I don't see how anybody could. So you are up here and you are giving us attitude for not feeling I for for not bending over for not feeling confident in what you are telling us however how are we supposed to when this is the attitude that we're getting and all because we are concerned because behind all these snarky comments and behind all of this I guess what might feel like an insult to you it is all concern because we feel like our questions aren't being answered properly and we feel like you guys aren't as confident in this as you are claiming you are. So that is how I feel. Thank you very much. I'm Sarah and we have another thing we can talk about as soon as we um as soon as they finish up this one. But um before Rowan comes up here, Rowan, you guys, I'm not sure if you know, but we do, just got bought out 49% by Blackstone. They were also courting Kuwait, George Soros, and many other people to come in here. When we tried to do records request, it was pulled down by a company out of Austin. We asked for a records request between you and Rowan, and they're like, "No, no." So, company out of Austin said, "No, we we we decided we don't want that record to be released." So, we looked into that company. You know who owns that company? Also, Blackstone and George Soros. It's beautiful the way you guys are rubber stamping with their own environmental engineering company for our city. And when we ask you to actually go to the basin and ask them the details, I've talked to Judy Pierce. I have the answers. She said, "You're wrong. Deadly wrong. You guys need to get your stuff together and start representing us or we will find people who will.

I'm David Sufal. I do not live within the city limits of Temple, Texas. Kind of glad I don't. I live in the county. I live in the north eastern part of the county, home to the beginning of roughly 25,000 acres of solar farms. the solar farms that we were led to believe by our county commissioners and how beneficial they've been to the county has has really put an economic impact on the county on your county taxes on your county roads. It's also put a lot of of emphasis on the state of Texas because all the state farm tomarket roads it and if you've traveled anywhere in Bell County from the western side coming out of the Stampede area where they were hauling rock and stone to east out in the Falls County area where they were bringing in gravel and material from that direction all the way from Georgetown. The pressure that that put on the county has ruined our road systems. We yet today have got any of those roads repaired. Okay, that's something that the city needs to be concerned about when you want to take on more property and put in an infrastructure like this. Okay, these are things that I'm going to point out because it doesn't affect me on your city taxes or your city of what's going to happen within your city. Okay. Although that's where we shop and go. Okay. We live in and in and temples a big part of ours our life as well. But when you look at annexing this land, how many of you are really very familiar with FM 3117? You council members, I'm just asking you

a question. How many of you are really Okay. Have y'all traveled it very much? Okay. You haven't, have you? Okay. Are you aware of the railroad track out there? Yes.

Okay. That's going to be a major issue. The material that's going to it's going to take to build that data center. Do y'all have any comprehension of how many loads of base it's going to have to come in? What's it going to do to what's it going to do that further do to our infrastructure? Are we prepared to handle that? when you access that land, are you prepared to go in there and rebuild those roads for those people that live out there that have to come in 3117? You know, here a while back they were rebuilding a bridge over there. How many people in this audience is aware of uh uh are aware of Oscar store? You could not even go that way till they repaired the railroad track. Okay. You had to go plum down 53 highway and come in from the other side just to go to the restaurant. What economic impact did that have on that individual business? Have you thought about that? There's farmers and ranchers that still work land out there. Not a lot. Have you been out there and seen how many of those acres have been taken up with solar farms? They've done a great economic impact in this county. Okay. I think the other thing you have to to ask yourself before you annex these two properties, because that's really what we're talking about, y'all got to make a hard decision. When is enough enough?

Ask yourself, when is enough enough for right now for what we know in this within y'all's confines, what you really know, we've got two data centers you've already approved. Is there two two already approved ahead of this one? Somebody shake your head. You ought to know how many two I believe have been so far uh um annexed in and are ready to move forward. Okay. Two two. Okay. This would just be the third one. Okay.

Fourth one. Okay. I've heard five. I've heard seven. I'm not for sure because you're not privy to that information till it's after the fact. That's what a lot of these people are upset about. Okay. You say, "Well, you know, we put it out." You know, it's kind of like when a new industrial plant goes out in the industrial park. They put a little thing in the paper that's in fine print that's about this big. and they posted about three or four or five pages in that tells you about this new industrial site and all the hazards that may be, you know, that's public awareness. People don't get to see that, do they? And for the most part, and I hope there's somebody here from the Temple Daily Telegram

because the P the papers basically become worthless. you know, they they they hide in the background what they what's important and they put a bunch of junk on the front page to hide and and make you look for it. So, but what y'all got to do is make a hard decision about ad exit property? When is enough data centers? Do y'all really know what the economic Did y'all do an economic impact study, an environmental study on the long-term effects of of these data centers? No. Have you talked about it with the public and gave them the options?

I'm asking shake a head yes or no. Have you done it? Environmental impact studies and this is Texas. Yes.

Land over right, you know, landowner rights, etc. Environmental impact studies are one not required and two by law not required and two even if the city of Temple required them it would not um there's not a way to stop Rowan or anybody else. The the environmental impact study is not binding upon the otherwise you'd have environmental impact study for every neighborhood that was ever built, right? It's just it's just simply not something that's that's that's done in Texas across all of Texas. It it's it's not required by law and it's not bounding binding.

I'm I'm just interested why why is it important that you annex that land within the city for rowing? I mean, is there something that's why don't you just leave it in the county? Let them go do what they want to do. That's what the county does. And are and you're not satisfied with that, right? I mean, nope. Nope. Nope. And so that's and and a lot of people aren't satisfied with what what y'all are proposing. So So the city of Temple, if you're going to connect to city services, which in this case is the water system, city of city of Temple requires that they be in the city limits.

Okay. Let me ask you this. If it's not accessed within the city, is there enough water for them out there to get at at whatever they can? They'd have to get it from another source. I mean, is it available to them? I don't know what's available outside. It wouldn't come from the city, right? Right. I mean, so they probably wouldn't be able to do it, would they? Probably not. Probably not. So, really, your access annexation of this property is really what's bringing Rowan in. It's It's required. Yes. Is required. Yep. Yep.

And this is what's upsetting about this to the people. You have to ask yourself is when when is enough AI centers in this area enough? We already found out that 25,000 acres of valuable farmland in central Texas blacklands has probably not be you can ask any commissioner today and the ones that pushed it the hardest aren't there anymore and they're all back backpedaling on the decisions that they made. But it's too late now. It's too late. Most of every one of those facilities out there aren't owned by the the per the company that came in and made that deal with the county. There's several of them out there under bankruptcy right now renegotiating their contracts. See, that's a way that's a way they can renegotiate their contracts. See, and then that hurts everybody else that was involved. So you really need and I think this is a moral issue and I think you need to think about it and just say is enough enough? May maybe let's just see what these two do and how they let's see what it does on the infrastructure. See how much pressure it does? Wouldn't that be a logical thing? Water's going to be the big issue. They tell you that we use one to two million gallons on commission of these plants. One to two million gallons. That's a pretty pretty far structure. Why don't you just say we use a million for this one or we use two million? But a one to two. Okay. And we all know the closed loop system. If you have any common sense at all, any of you would know they're going to have to have some more water. Now, you've agreed to give them 4,000

gallons a month to flush their toilets and wash their hands. Maybe take a shower, whatever. But they are going to need some more water, aren't they? Yes, they're they're they're not No, they are You're saying no. They're not going to get it. They're not going to get it. Hold on. Wait. We're No. Yeah, you wouldn't want to say that. They're not going to get it. There's two different types of water agreements. One is daily use, right? In the facility, washing, flushing, etc. Has nothing to do with pumping it into the the cooling system. Correct. They can't pump that water into the 4,000 does not go into Exactly. Right.

I'm asking you, you don't think that they're going to need any more water for the cooling system after commissioning it? Um the information we have and that Rowan will share is that that in fact is not the case. They will not need anymore except for quarterly testing every once in a while. Except for it's about 500 gallons or so, okay, per quarter. Okay. Are y'all going to put that in a in a ironclad contract? Yes. Everything that we've talked about is

Believe me, they're not going to shut that thing down. Okay. If they need more water, they're going to get more water and you're going to give it to them. I guarantee you, you will. Okay. The other the other thing I think you need to be concerned about in 2021 the ice storm that came through we were without electricity in the rural area for seven days. Okay. How many of you on how many of this in this little wooden circle here was without electricity for seven days or more? Where do you live? Seven days. I doubt it. Six.

Okay. Not seven. Okay. Yeah. So, you you understand that these guys are going to have to have some backup because the power grid is not guaranteed. Okay. If something were to happen in in March 13th of 2013, there was a straight line tornatic winds that came through the east side of the county and took out 15 towers of Encore. It's about,50 ft apart. One of them was in our back pasture. Okay. They work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, pulling bulldozers through muds on wood pallets, destroying our farm to put those towers up. Because they said, "We've got to get that electricity to those people in San Antonio and Austin." You know what? I didn't give a damn about that because of what they were destroying for me. And believe me, it took us an arm and a leg to argue with them and get enough money to put our grass and pasture back like it was. Okay? But what I'm saying is they're going to have to have a backup system. They're going to have to have a generator system of some kind because if that AI system, the power grid were to go down, they would have to have that. What kind of backup system have they proposed to the city that they're going to have?

Uh generators. Generators. Yeah. Well, it's kind of like that's a secret, guys. How are they How are How are they going to p these generators? Diesel fuel, I believe. Okay. Yep.

Yeah. Very, very, very, very green. Admitting all that fuel that you fuss about everybody else doing, huh? Yeah. So, you know, when is when is enough enough is what I'm saying. When is enough AI centers enough in your location in your town? You're not happy with the two that's already there or three or four. I don't know. You know, who knows? Who knows? So, that's what I was saying. Think about it. You've got a lot of people here that that are upset and and and and they have every right to be. We all do. If if you had to live next to the solar farms, which are a quarter mile from my house, and drive through them every day in your work, you know, all the promises that they made have been kept by none. Our roads haven't been fixed. the out the outbranded out boundary line that they talk about. They back fence their their solar farms in in front of a house, but that land remains grown up in weeds and grass and Johnson grass. Fire hazard to the county. The amount of acres that the AI center is going to have, they're going to have that same thing. Y'all have something in that contract that they have to maintain that to keep that danger down for the city and neighboring communities or neighboring people that live along that area. Those are things that I I don't think y'all thought about. just thinks that, you know, yeah, they're going to promise that, but the solar farms promised all that,

too. And nobody's holding them to any of those contracts. And I'm not up here talking just to be talking because we live it every day. And until you have it by you, you know, it's all right if your house or your property is not next door to the AI center, but you think about those other people that live out there that raised their family there. you think about them and how how they feel and then you make that moral decision if you think you've really done what's right for the city and for the community and the rest of Bell County around you because a lot of Bell County trades within the city in your grocery stores in your retail outlets. So those are things you better think about because it is a moral issue and it's all on y'all's shoulders. So since it this is Joe Royer again, District 2. Um since it came up, I want to um come back to the environmental impact study. So I actually asked for this like three months ago and I have since learned some new information. I've been corrected. Um there were apparently a lot of things I did not know about environmental impact studies. as you said, it's not required, which we I already knew that part, but I had an environmental assessment firm contact me because they saw something on Facebook or something that I posted and that and he's like, I want to correct you on this. Um, it turns out an environmental impact study doesn't actually do much. It basically does a basic test of water quality and it does a wildlife analysis, which I mean this is significant. I don't want to say that, you know, it doesn't do anything at all, but it's not really a huge draw. and he was telling me like what you really need to ask for is a baseline toxicity report and I want to explain why this is so necessary

especially when you're converting a land there was a data center one of Rowan's other customers um Amazon in Mororrow Oregon that uh built they built a data center out there and the data center had been up and running for a little while and people started getting this rare form of cancer like a lot of people like 50 people 50 plus people in a small rural county and of course they did a a study and like where is this coming from? It turns out their water supply has been contaminated. Now there was no baseline study done. Everybody said it must be Amazon. They're the data center here. Amazon tried to blame a local farmer and eventually Amazon realized we're going to court over this. We're we don't want to go to court. So they decided to settle for a $20 million settlement and they agreed to build a new water treatment plant that doesn't actually address the problem. But none of that settlement money went to the community members who were affected by the cancer or affected by the fact that their drinking water had been contaminated. But Amazon was able to get away with this because there was no baseline test. Amazon said, "You can't prove that we did that. For all we know, the soil was contaminated before we got here. And this is why we need the baseline toxicity test. And this is why we have to redo this test every 60 to 90 days to make sure their presence here is not polluting us. And I know what Roman's going to say to this. That data center doesn't operate the same way ours does. But the fact remains, we don't know what the current state of that land is right now, which is why we need to do this environmental impact assessment, this baseline toxicity report, so that if something does happen down the down the line, we can say, "Yes, this appears to be your fault." as opposed to giving them plausible deniability for free.

Hello, my name is Joshua Meyer. I am a citizen of Temple. I'm from Temple, born and raised. And well, uh, generally speaking, there's no way in hell you would have ever gotten me up here. So, this is a big enough deal that it motivated me, who has no political involvement in the city whatsoever beyond the taxes I pay and the water bill I pay. Okay. I'm generally pessimistic about government and I came to this meeting pretty well convinced that what's going to happen is already going to happen. Okay? And that's not to be an indictment against you guys necessarily. And I'm not going to waste any time sitting up here trying to cast any blame or accusations. Like I said, I grew up in this area. I used to go fishing out of White Flint Park every day when I or every now and then when I was a kid. And two years ago, I go out to White Flint Park and I'm walking on dry land with brush above my head in the middle of what's supposed to be a lake. And I know there's not a thing that you guys could have done to put water back in that lake. So to me, my gut in I'm not going to sit here and try to claim that I know everything about data centers. They're a new technology for the most part. We don't know long term what they're going to do. I know there's a lot of claims that in Galveastston due to excess uh industrial use of their water supply, while they're right next to the Gulf, by the way, but through too much industrial use of their water supply, they're down to 10%. That's the claim according to the news. Now,

when I went to work this morning, I was still under the impression we only had one data center that was on the way. By the time I get off of work this morning, I find out that this meeting is supposed to be about the third. And how was I supposed to find out? I don't really participate in the newspaper, but let me propose one solution. Uh, and it's one that y'all have already used before. Not too long ago, I found out about code changes in my neighborhood that were also pretty motivational. And that came in a in an envelope to my front door. I actually thought it was a water bill at first. I'm pretty sure everybody in here pays a water bill. And I'm pretty sure that this proposed third data center is not a result of less than a month of conversation. So might I suggest that every water bill paying person in here who's affected by the Belton Lake water supply maybe get a little heads up in the form of a letter next time.

Like that might be nice. And I understand that some of that is my fault for my lack of civic involvement and all that, but I'm generally a person who wants to be left alone and mind my business. And I don't think I have answers to everything. I believe in our ability to conduct business and be profitable and but I also know that there's a point at which you're screwing yourself over if you're dealing with something as valuable as our water supply. Y'all don't put water in that lake. I don't put water in that lake. And as far as I know, the data centers, I'm sorry, three or four, they're only going to take water from that lake. And those data centers were not there two years ago. And that's really all I have to say. Oh, other than this, everybody in this crowd right now, as far as I know, is begging you not to go forward, begging you to be more cautious, begging you to move slower with this new technology that so far we're mostly hearing about problems from uh and eventually there will be a drought again. It's a matter of time. It's just the way the world world works. But please understand that after all these people have asked you not to move forward or to move forward more slowly, when that next drought hits, they're not going to be praying to God for rain. They're going to be looking to you going, "Why did you do this to us?"

And I That's it. That's all I have to say. Y'all have a good night. Alrighty. Hey y'all. My name is Summer Brady. I'm from Temple, Texas, born and raised. Um, I know y'all are short for time, so I'll save you just a minute by only talking about seven and eight right now. And I'll save my data center comments for resolution 11 here in a minute. Um, so basically we all agree you should vote no on annexing this land or reszoning the other land. We all agree we don't want that. Would you like me to save you a couple more minutes and go on to nine and 10? Yep. Okay. Um, we also want you to vote no on those. Salisbury Drive is perfect the way it is. 5600 block. Perfect the way it is. Thanks. I'll be back later.

Hi, my name's Delia Trevinho and um I wanted to talk about transparency and and this council. On September 19th of last year, the council unanimously approved the 700 acre data center. That same night, the land was annexed. One meeting, one vote, and it was done. There was no um letting the public know that this was happening. It was literally done in one meeting. If you go through I'm sorry. Worried about that.

Okay. You're coming to get me or something. Um it all happened in one night. Literally, y'all didn't let the public know. So, when people, you know, somebody can come up here and get on to us about not being present, we didn't know. You didn't put it out there. You voted on it. It passed. That was it. Done deal. The community was not meaningfully consulted at all before that vote. I they weren't I just have to put a pause because you didn't tell us. So the fact that y'all say that y'all are transparent, that's a lie. That's a complete lie. And if you go back and look at the videos that you have on your website, I mean, it's literally the same night. Um, something else that I that that kind of above everything else that was on those those videos, the fact that you the way you talk to some of the elderly people that come up here and obviously roll your eyes and and just it's not the way you're supposed to treat people, not your community, not the people that you're supposed to represent. There should be some more transparency here. There should be some accountability. Um, Mr. Carl, you're about to go out. I mean, out of this this council, not out, but you know what I mean. You're about to leave. You have the opportunity to say no to this. Listen to your constituents. You have one data center already in your district. You can put a pause to this. Put a pause. That's all we're asking. I mean, do the right thing. That's all we want. I'm not going to address you, Miss Walker, because I think you're you're going to do what you're going to do. And

obviously the mayor, he's not even looking at me all in his phone. Taking notes on what you're saying.

Okay. All right. That's that's great. It's recorded. I don't think you need notes, but Mr. Mike, I um I went through your biography and I I was very very disappointed in you with the kickbacks that you're getting from everything on here and and and not not voting on this, which is really what drew my attention to you. When there's things that come up to vote on, you recuse yourself. You just you abstain from voting. Why? What do you have to do with RT Schneider who's our county commissioner on top of that?

This is not the place, but I'll be glad to tell you all about that.

Yeah, I I would I would love for you to do that honestly. And and Miss Zoe, I I'm just there are no words right now, but you honestly representing you our communities out here, you can put a pause on this as well. So, I I think maybe there's two people on this council that can do the right thing. And Miss Walker, I mean, I know you have children. I mean, I'm as a mother, think about that. My name's Casey Sandman. Can you hear me?

Uh, and I live here. I'm I have a home here in Temple. I'm not here to talk about the depletion of water or the increased cost of the water or and it electricity or to dig for honest answers. Uh I'm not here to tell you about the heat islands. A lot of people already mentioned that. Are the toxins in the air or the soil or the generated noise and light pollution. We We've talked about all this and destroying the agricultural land. We've been working for y'all as a whole. We are a wealth of knowledge for y'all. We've spent hours for you. We are imploring you to be an example for the state. for the United States, possibly the world. The data center boom is happening so quickly. So quickly that we the people are noticing and are asking is it good or bad? Did y'all ask yourselves that? We're looking into environmental effects into health risks. We're questioning our values of money versus humanity as a society. We're wondering what we are leaving to our grandchildren and beyond. We are trying to uncover your eyes from

seeing the dollar signs. and patting your pockets and are demanding a moratorum to be put in place. Allow continued research. allow time for safety standards to be implemented regarding AI's impact on us, on society, on our economy, our climate, our health. AI needs to be reigned in. The nation knows it. Why don't y'all? We're not going to stop. Thank you. I'm Neil Brenley and I was too emotional before to even say what I wanted to say and I may not live long enough to get to agenda item 11. Mr. Lidle, you're a model for all of us and I thank you for faithfully being here every single time I've been here and I'm sure every time they've been here. Thank you. And I want to thank you all for serving. We're not your enemies. We're your neighbors and we're your

friends and we're asking you to pause. My daddy had a saying. He was a chiropractor in Temple, grew up in Buckold, and he had a saying, when in doubt, don't. And so, if we have given you any doubt tonight, which I pray to God we have, then I'm asking you to vote no or table this annexation, this seven and eight. I was told by the mayor if I didn't want data centers, I shouldn't use social media. Well, I want to share with you one of my Facebook posts this week. In addition to the COVID lockdowns, letting Temple Mall die slowly, I forgave you, Temple City Council, for DEI, trying to hire lesbianowned Nova Collective, ignoring the residents concerns over zoning changes. I've sat in this chamber. I too have come not near as faithful as you, but I've listened to citizens beg you not to change zoning and you ignore them. That's wrong. And you let their property values go down. That's wrong. I've forgiven you over potholes that are so deep I try I'm going to run up on the curb trying to avoid the potholes that I told you about Mr. Kirkandile. They got painted but nobody ever came and fixed them on 31st Street. I forgave you for wasting money on a on a probably great music festival that the citizens of the temple couldn't afford to go to.

I forgave you for the ugly can opener sculptures over I35. And God rest his soul, Marvin Keyasley did a fabulous job on the landscape. It is that area is is prettier, but those cultures are awful. I just want you to know from my heart, these data centers are a red line in the sand. I'm against them with every fiber of my being. I'm asking you to listen to your constituents, not big data. Listen to the people. Listen to the people that pay your taxes. Listen to the people that elected you. The reason, Mr. Lidle, that the majority of the people in here don't come to the city council meetings is they've got jobs. They don't get off till five or six o'clock. And then they've got families to go home to and take care of. They don't have the privilege that you and I have of being old and and having time to come I'm sorry you're not old, but I am. And I'm just asking you to listen to the people. Gather more data. None of us know the complete answer. Rowan is just building it. They're they're not going to be around to fix anything. They're just leasing it out to whoever uh more meta, more more Amazon, more whoever. Please, when in doubt, don't

I just wanted to be on record and make it clear that you're annexing it so they can have our city water. But when we asked the bra the Brazos River Basin Authority, Judy Pierce, we said, "Are there any what you're supposed to do in these situations is go get an industrial water contract from the water authority." Joe and I have had to do this for our businesses. It's standard operating procedure. When they couldn't do that, they came to you. And so when we talked to Judy, we said, "Is there any other industrial water licensing?" And she said, "Absolutely not. We don't have enough water. We won't give it to them. They're getting it because your mayor is allowing them to do it. Shame on you.

Got it. All right. Three and a half hours. It's pretty good open open uh open policy. Would somebody One thing that I don't habitually do is give two bites at the apple. It's public comment. We've had a So, we're going to move on. I'm just simply not going to allow anyone else to come back up. We've got some people that have come up the second time and third time. And we're just we're just not going to Margie. We're just We thought we were citizens. You are. And and and you've you've had your peace.

I just want to agree with these ladies because I can tell you right now, you don't need to annex them in and then they won't have any water and they'll all go away and you'll be okay. Yeah. Thank you. You got your money. Um, who anyone that has not spoken on this? Are you talking about data centers? Okay, that's that'll that'll be about 10:30, I think. Yeah. Okay. Me, too. Me, too. All right. So, who everyone seems to be anxious to hear from Rowan.

So, so no. No. No open mind. Everyone's talked about having an open mind, but no one wants to hear from Rowan. Is that okay? It is three and a half hours. We're good. So, uh, I don't know. Let's Let's let him Let's hear from him. You're I was just asked what can Rowan explain to us. Let's let him. His

uh yeah, I think Rowan would be fine with Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's a it's an open it's an open dialogue. Now, one thing we're not going to do, and I've mentioned this earlier, is we're not going to shout people. We're not going to shout from the crowd. We're not going to uh shout back and forth with each other, and we're not going to call anybody a liar. So, um with that, what's your name? Rowan, guys. Was it Laura? Laura, excuse me, Mr. Davis. Um myself and Miss Young Laura Miss

feel that we haven't when we came up to speak we didn't properly get to I guess execute what we were trying to say and so we were wondering if by exception we could um get a chance to re kind of restate what we were saying in a more for vivvenson or for you too for me as well. Yeah. You seemed pretty confident whenever you stood up here and said, "I'm going to waste I'm going to continue to waste everybody's time just like Margie did." Oh, yes. You were very confident in that. And now now you don't have that confidence. Well, you feel very confident in speaking very rudely to people who are just trying to advocate for themselves in their community. That's fine.

So, I felt confident to come up here and say that as well. Okay. I believe that it is our right to come up and speak our grievances. And I believe if people haven't felt like they are able to express themselves properly, it's because of the way that we are being treated by the council members.

Ma'am, that is that is absolutely not true. We have sat here. We have listened. We we've done everything that we're required to do. And if if if you take an impression that someone rolled their eyes or that's all fine, but that's not you. You you were listened to. I've got pages of notes here. You were listened to. I think that everyone is enjoying the uh the power that you have right now over the council. We we have we we have done everything that we're required to do tonight. Well, sir, I believe that in regards to what you had just said about power, I believe that our frustration doesn't come from a feeling of wanting to have power over other people, but a feeling of feeling powerless. We truly feel powerless as a community against what you are saying. As many people have stated when they came up here, it feels like you have already made up your mind on how you're feeling and what the situation is. And I mean the only thing we can do is use our voice and this is the only platform we have. We can't we can't make these votes ourselves. I mean and even the people who haven't voted you in I mean we we we have to we have to deal with it and speak on it. So really I was just asking I wasn't demanding. I was just asking that we get a second chance to speak more properly. And if that's being denied, then that's something unfortunately we we'll have to we'll have to live with.

I I know Miss Vivson. I know her parents. I do. And um and I will uh because I know Miss Vivson, I will allow Miss Vivvenson to speak one more time. And thank you, Miss Vivson, for your courage to get up here. It's obviously not um not easy for you. And thank you for doing that. And then after that, let's move on to hear from from the Rowan folks and let's move on with this meeting. I understand in regards to my myself, is there anything you have to say about that

or I mean I I I'm just asking you because I was mostly asking on behalf of my myself, you know? I mean, I don't want to force I want to force anybody to speak. That's fine. Okay.

Thank you. Um, I I wrote down some of the things I wanted to say because I'm not I'm not very good at speaking. So, um, I think we're a lot of us are concerned that the city is being used as a a bit of a dumping ground for a business that we don't know and we aren't seeming to be welcoming of. Um it's not just water, the electricity bill, you know, we've co they've covered this. Um and you know, for those who are kind of worried about, you know, housing market, like who's going to want to live here? What what property value will you will be left? Um, and I mean maybe that's relevant to you or maybe not, but we do have countless examples of data centers across the country. And I don't I think I think it's important to take examples from other places that we see things happen. Um, and you know, a lot of people here have spoken far better about it than I have, but we don't really even have our own our own places ready for certain natural not natural disasters, but droughts and such. We we're I can't say that I'm going to have power in any given weather event. And I mean, that's important. I can't have my fridge going out when I have a cat who just needs insulin every day. Like, that's a lot of money for that. I'm sure people have medications that need to be refrigerated. They can't be worried about power going out like that. I don't think it's fair with citizens

who are already having issues with the price increases with groceries to have to worry about that either. You know, we already it it might not just even if it just not might not be the place to do it. I mean, we're already it's a very hot area. We how are we going to cool this? And I mean we you can say we have all these structures but we are having difficulty cooling our own homes. It's just not we're not being proven any way that this is going to be this is going to work. I don't think we should take the guard rails off quite yet. Um many people in here, you know, we we learn from other people throughout our lives. You know, m Mr. Davis, the your mom I not your mom, the your wife taught me.

Yes. In middle school. Yes, ma'am.

I learned history from her. I you you know, maybe maybe your son learned art history from my mom. it it's we grow with new information and people who know better than we do about certain things and I think I've learned a lot today in terms of agriculture and I think that's something we continue to do today. So when we say please learn from the people who are saying today that we need to look at it because we have concerns maybe we should stop and do that. It's it's important and I I worry because I I mean I'm scared to be up here but I'm more afraid of what this could mean if this turns into a tumor that we can't excise and if we do it'll be very expensive that it anyway

understand. Thank you. Ma'am, have you have you spoken yet? I don't think you have. Have you? I have not. Okay. I wasn't going to, but I am now.

My name's April Herb. I'm a bit nervous. That's my daughter, Kyla Ardondo. So now you know her mother as well. I don't appreciate the way you spoke to my daughter. I don't appreciate the way you told her that she wasted your time. She spoke eloquently and she demands respect and you should have showed her that. Shame on you.

Okay. I don't think you should be speaking to people that way. I'm going to speak from my heart, but I I did write something down so I wouldn't get tripped up. Um I am nervous though. Um I moved here nearly seven years ago now and uh I've seen a lot come up since then. And when people used to visit me, they used to say um how beautiful and how green it is here. And uh I used to say it is. And uh I used to brag about how many lakes there are here. And uh that's where I I take people because I believe that's a main attraction here. But it's quite different now. and the green's going away and it's become quite depressing actually and it saddens me and uh I think that's needless and with the data centers it's going to be quite difficult for people to live here and I know you want to throw breadcrumbs at us when you say oh the data centers while they're being built it's going to bring in business. The workers are going to come and, you know, they're going to eat and they're going to generate some revenue temporarily, but temporary, excuse me, temporary doesn't do anyone any good. What happens when they leave and when they're finished building? What will happen when nobody wants to be here because of the data centers? Because it's poison technically.

It leaks out into the environment and the effects of being around it. And then the people have to close their businesses because of those effects because nobody wants to come and people have a hard time selling their homes or their land. And what happens when they want to move and they can't because they don't want to be around here? And when there's no more lake, and when the grain's all gone, and when all the animals are gone because of all the pollutants, and when the ranchers lands is gone, what happens to all the livestock? Because all of the pollutants because data centers aren't popular. We're seeing that all around the country. What's your contingency plan for the next 20 years? Or do you even care? Because you know you're not going to be in the seats you hold. I'm here to say that this is a big deal. These data centers are a big deal, not just here, but nationally. And we're seeing that this is about our health, about our resources, for our lives and our livelihood. I'm here to tell you to your faces, shame on you for making any comments like any of us who are here. Excuse me. But any of us here who are here, who object to this are just some internet keyboard warriors and who have no clue about what we are talking about. where the con, excuse me,

constituents who vote for you, who give you the seats that you're sitting in. It is clear that you do not have the people in this community's best interest at heart. Because even if only two of us come in here and object to this or say, "Before you go any further, we'd like more information because so far that is exactly what's happened." And that's all we've been asking for. Excuse me. Um and um excuse me. I apologize. I've gotten lost. and and and given been given the runaround by you and and and you haven't met any deadlines for the information that we've been asking for and haven't you haven't produced any of that paperwork that we've been asking for and you're trying to sweep everything under the rug and I believe you're um excuse me you're just trying to to make us all go way. So when we come to you with our concerns, it it should just be something that sparks your interest at least because you represent us. You are our mouthpiece. And even if it's an objection by two people or 20 or 100, it should matter to you. But right now, it only seems like a certain demographic is mattering to you. and it's the one that fills your pockets. Your greed and your cowardice has fogged all of your sight on what's best for this community. You have showed that over a data center, you do not have the best interest of everyone in this room, let alone the city. And it's also brought to light

that you lack the integrity needed to fill that position. You could have just said, "We're going to put a halt on this. We're going to gather more information because We can do that right now. This is the time to do that during the development stage. And we're going to go ahead and make sure everyone feels safe and that you're going to do the best of your ability to and and understand that you can make every We understand that you can't make everyone happy, but instead you've chosen to gaslight and stonewall people, which is a very pathetic technique. And for what? Why? What's the eagerness to get these things up and running? Because we don't need data centers. It's not a necessity, but we do need water. I know that I can't live without water, but I sure do know that I can exist without data centers, and I feel like I'm more passionate about this community than you people sitting up there. Every time those of you who are sitting next to him don't get up and help represent us, we feel like and think based off of your actions by doing nothing and saying nothing on our behalf. It's that you agree with him, the mayor. So, I don't believe you're fit for your jobs either, just like I don't feel like the mayor is fit for his. And I think all of you have lost the foresight of what it means to be in the positions you're in. And we understand you can't please everyone. We understand that there's no perfection here. That's not what anybody is asking for. So, we're not being dramatic on that forefront. But we are asking to be heard because that's what we we deserve. And you refused. You

pushed back on us and ignored us and played games. That's what we're receiving now. And because you did that to us, you're receiving push back as well. And it didn't need to be this way. But because you didn't want to do your jobs for the people who elected you and put you in the seats that you're in right now, the people have to take it into their own hands to make sure that we have to we're going to protect us and our be best interest. So I really see what we Excuse me. So, I really don't see what you're doing in your position right now and what you're getting paid for. And I think even if one person in your community feels that way, you shouldn't be where you're at right now. I would feel very shameful if I was in your position right now. And I feel like all that that proves is that you've lost your humanity for your neighbors. And may God forgive you for that. That's all I have to say. All right. Who's next that hasn't spoken or that can stay on topic for zoning on items seven and eight.

Are you it? Yes. Can you stay on topic?

I can. My name is Karly Bird and I've been a citizen of Temple for about 18 years. I'm here to speak to you not only as a resident, but as someone who feels deeply connected to the land, the environment, and the shared spaces we all depend on. There is real connection concern about the long-term effects on our ecosystems, our wildlife, our water, and the balance that sustains this community. That concern becomes urgent when considering the proposed data centers. These projects carry significant lasting impacts especially on water usage, energy demand and land. Many residents feel these effects have not been fully studied, clearly communicated or reasonably understood. For that reason, I urge you to enact an im immediate pause on any approvals or advancement of these developments until transparent, comprehensive impact assessments are completed and shared publicly. This is not a rejection of progress but a call for informed and responsible progress. Once these decisions are made, they cannot easily be undone. Stewardship is not ownership. It is the ethical care of what has been entrusted to us. That includes our environment, our institutions. As elected officials, you are stewards of public trust. You are not here to stand above people but to serve them with integrity, transparenc transparency and accountability. At a time when many people are already struggling to keep up with the cost of living, trust and leadership matters more than ever. People are paying attention. They are asking hard but fair questions about transparency, priorities, and whether public service is truly being carried out in the public's interest. Your salaries are funded by the very

people you represent. People who work hard every day, often for others they never even met. That deserves not just acknowledgement, but respect and humility. I'm not speaking in hostility, but in expectation that this council will act with care, foresight, and a genuine commitment to the well-being of this community. What I'm asking is just to please pause for now these developments until the public can be fully informed and confident in the path forward. This long-term health, sorry, the long-term health of our community depends on it. Um, that's all I have to say, but I have want to read a letter from another Temple resident. Her name is Tiffany Klein. Temple City Council has come to my attention that the city council has been pushing through multiple approvals of data centers in the Temple area. My primary concern is the speed and fever pitch of these approvals. I would request that the city hold on approving and continue to build on data centers unless the following are true. First, the center must not use portable water. The center being built must use brackish or gray water that does not remove portable water from our already strained system. Second, the center should pay le pay taxes to the local community rather than contributing to businesses and nonprofits nonprofits owned or directly benefiting city council members and their families. Sorry, that really pisses me off. tax exemptions to buildings that will take up space, power, and water from the community without benefiting benefiting

our children's education or development of the city's critical infrastructure. Three, the data center must not be used in any way that would replace current jobs. These centers are adding minimal full-time employment for the resources they consume and additionally taking jobs away from people harming the local, state, and federal state, federal, and global economy. Finally, I am requesting that city council members look towards the example of other communities across Texas. The city council and College Station rejected the sale of property to a data center developer after outcry from the community. Mayor John Nichols said in response, "Even though you were not drawing our water, sorry, our water or our electricity, you are drawing on somebody's water and somebody's electricity somewhere." Residents of Granberry sued their city council after saying the city denied the required transparency and proper notice around the data center project. I would hope the city of temple has the following has followed the letter of the law to at to avoid a similar protests from their residents. Several municipalities and counties have passed moratoriums on further data center developments. While they wait to see the impact of the existing existence of these centers on residents, I would request the city of Temple to do the same. So at the end of the day, end of the day, we need to ask ourselves when is it enough? How much water is too much water? How how much electricity is too much? How much public outcry is going is it going to take before you listen to us? You work for us. You are beholden to the demands of the constituent constituents. It is time to change your mind before it is too late for any of us. With all due respect, Tiffany Klein,

um, before you before you step away, I have one question for you and then we're going to take a potty break. I'm I'm I'm getting texts. So, um, not not meant to be disrespectful, but what do you think the mayor and city council make in salary from the city of Temple? It's not about the salary. Not the salary. No, but but you said it. You said you said it. So, what what do you think? Right here. No, your your words before you read the I I don't know. I don't know what your salary is. Can somebody out there answer that? 23,000.

Did you volunteer for this? You did. Thank you. Yeah. I I mean I I just think that taking offense to things as a city council is ridiculous. You shouldn't be taking offense to anything. The lack of humility in this room is astounding.

Okay. All right. So, we we are um let's I don't know how quickly we can do that. to shoot for 9:15 and then after 9 at uh whenever we come back at 9:15, we're going to hear from the Rowan folks and then anyone else that wants to speak on this matter, we're going to move that to public comments. Okay? So, we're not shutting it down. We're just moving you to public comments after uh after the Rowan folks. Okay? Because I I think there are there are some people that are interested in hearing from Rowan. So, we're going to move to that. All right. 10 minutes. All right, let's get going.

Yep.

If we don't quiet down, I'll have to start singing. You don't want that. Okay. So, um we have some we have the rowan folks here. They are uh friend of mine asked if they could would be willing to take questions. I said yes. But again, what what we need to concentrate on is is what in this conversation we need to talk about what Rowan has control of. And what Rowan has control of is the the infrastructure. what's the they they are they are the guys that are able to speak to the water and its usage. Um we've we've said this before to those folks that have been in the audience for these meetings that um the state of Texas is responsible for the electricity. They're responsible for getting the proper amount of electricity here.

And uh and any data center, whether it's a a Rowanown data center or anybody else, will not be able to flip the switch, so to speak, and begin to operate until the state of Texas says, "Yes, you've got the infrastructure there and available." So that is not something that uh uh Rowan will use a lot of electricity whenever the city it's not the city whenever the state of Texas gets the electricity to them. Okay. So, what we're going to talk about uh with the Rowan folks is the uh is the water.

And as we've talked about here locally is that the city of Temple has put um procedures in place to uh to number one minimize noise that the data center actually generates. And then number two, if it's over a certain amount, then the city of Temple has the ability to um to require noise mitigation down to a certain level. So the city of Temple is responsible for the uh for the noise. State of Texas is responsible for the electricity and then the city of Temple is responsible to get Rowan the water and then it's up to Rowan to operate their system as they uh as they are contractually obligated to do. So, um, real quickly, uh, introduce yourself, kind of say who who you are, what you do at Rowan, and what you're going to talk about.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And first, I just want to say thank you to the citizens of Temple. Oh, sorry. Is it not I guess I'll try to hold it.

Is that better? Yeah. Um, I just want to say thank you to the citizens of Temple. It's very clear that you're very passionate about your community and that shows and loud and clear tonight. So, this thank you all for talking. Thank you all for being here. Um it's really our honor to get to partner with communities like yours. Also want to thank city staff as we've been working through these various projects. Of course, members of the council and the mayor. So appreciate the opportunity to speak. My name is Chris Curts. I am the director of water strategy uh for Rowan Digital. And part of my job is to make sure that we have sufficient water for all of our sites. And so what that looks like when we start looking at a site is understanding the hydraologic setting and I'm going to just kind of address a lot of the questions that you all brought up. And this is you know this area has drought risk right and when we look at a site that has drought risk we it triggers really two things. Uh the first thing is that it triggers and I'll say I have my colleague here Steve who's going to correct any of the mechanical names that I get wrong for the systems but it triggers use of an air cooled closed loop system and I know there's various types of closed loop systems out there. The phrasing air cooled is important because that really means that it is fully closed. So that's the first thing when we're working in a drought risk area that is triggered. The second thing that it triggers is a water positive project. And I think there was a speaker who said, "What is Rowan giving back?" You know, they're they're going to take water, but what are what are they giving back? And uh said, I guess kind of plainly, a water positive project is a project that replenishes the amount of water that is consumed. So, that is something that we're working on with city staff. Something we haven't had an opportunity to talk a lot about, but that is something that's in the works. We have another site here in Texas that has a similar um cooling

system and we were really proud to be able to announce that we um have a water positive project kind of inked and stood up. Um that particular project is investing in uh agricultural water efficiency right in that community. So we try to make it as hyper local as possible. Um and we're looking to do the same thing here. uh maybe not agricultural efficiency, it might be municipal efficiency, but we're looking to be a water positive as local as possible here in the city of Temple. So, I just wanted to let you all know that we do take seriously drought risk. Um not only because we think it's the right thing to do, but it's also to our our benefit, right? Like we we don't want to run out of water. So, we use a air cooled closed loop system so that we're not depending dependent on it. we're and our facility isn't subject to kind of the es and flows of the of the hydraology of an area. So I I just want to make it very clear that we we take it very seriously and it influences the technology we select and the water positive partnerships that we pursue. Um want to talk a little bit about demand too. Um just kind of working through some of the comments that we received. So th those numbers are are real. So we have a domestic demand and as others have stated that is our indoor demand as I like to say. So that our our kind of employee facility demand. So that is things like our you know going to the bathroom bios washing hands using uh there will be a small kitchen for staff there. Um there will be a few showers. I think there is a a small domestic like level laundry machine that's going to be there. Um, but it's just the the types of things you would expect at like a light industrial facility that is going to employ uh 40 to or 50 people uh long term. Um, that also translates to our sanitary load. So, it's kind of like what's going in is

coming out. Um, there's no really water loss there. I mean, there's splashes and stuff for sure, but like the water that's coming in is going back out and that's going to go to the wastewater treatment plant. Um that is estimated to be 4,000 gallons per day. The other demand and we talked about it a little bit. May I make a quick comment on that? Yeah, that is the that's the user service agreement 4,000 4,000 gallons a day. There has been some questions from the newspaper around why has that not been um uh the the newspaper has asked for that document

and we've told them it's just not available. Just not available. Well, the reason why it's not available is that um based upon community input, the city of Temple has put some other language in that document that is still going back and forth. So, that that util that that service agreement is not yet in place because um it it it's not been executed yet. It's not been signed.

That that's true. And um I guess I'll just say that that just maybe a quick aside um the the staff that we work with when we uh negotiate the utility service agreement. I mean I mean this from the bottom of my heart. They have your best interest in mind. I I they they are just they are asking us to justify every single gallon that we'll use for our domestic use and our industrial use. They're asking us to be held accountable and we are okay with that and that's why we're working with them on measures that I I'll say um will give them the physical ability to restrict the flow in the event that we went over. So the um the city of Temple is really really concerned about water use as well and has heard the community loud and clear and has asked us uh to consider these types of restrictions which are not typical we'll say. Um but um we're we're working on getting that into a finalized agreement as the as the mayor um stated,

but there's no withholding of documents. The document that the executed document is what would be released. Yes. and the it's not been executed yet. That's right. It simply doesn't exist yet as an executed document.

Yeah. But but the the what we're talking about and kind of the kind of the description, it's it's all in the document and you will see it. Um I I would say soon, you know, next next couple weeks. Um we have we have no problem sharing it. You all can uh take a look at it. Um the other thing I wanted to talk about so I talked a little bit about the domestic demand and that's you know just like a typical office um for uh kind of personal hygiene and those types of things. Um is our ind what we call kind of the industrial the demand and the industrial demand is truly a closed loop fully closed loop system. It's that air cooled closed loop system. I'm going to give Steve a second to talk about it here in just a few minutes. I kind of want to walk through a few other comments. Sorry to get you excited there. Uh, but it it requires that one to two million gallons per day during the commissioning process. And the reason that it's a range is because there's a filling and a flushing process. And you when you get into the field, you don't know exactly how many fills and flushes that you need. And this is just pure water coming in and coming out. Um, so that that's why it's a range. That that's it. It's just kind of a geometry problem. It's like how big are the pipes? How many times are you filling it? How many times are you flushing it? Um the other thing that I want to touch on is the discharge. So for sanitary or kind of that employee use that that's just going to be just like any other sanitary discharge. Um that's you know again toilets, sinks, that kind of thing. What would come from your house? What would come from a typical office? The um industrial component of our discharge is not expected to occur hardly at all if ever. And again uh we are working with the city on protections and most of them are already in there. But the there is a uh design element where there's a

containment system where that water would be discharged into first before going to any sort of municipal system. we will be subject to what's known as a irregular discharge permit or yeah irregular discharge permit and then also the city's pre-treatment ordinance and those are all water quality related and capacity related permits and ordinances those require sampling. If we do not meet the criteria for that sampling we cannot discharge to the municipal system or to the city system. Um if if we do then we'll be treated just like any other wastewater uh contributor and we'll be allowed to discharge. If for some reason we don't and we don't expect this to be the case but just for illustration purposes, it is our responsibility to haul that water offsite to an industrial waste handling facility and this would be a certified facility and then they would dispose of it properly through their processes. So this is a common kind of industry practice not just in the data center industry but any sort of like industrial activity. So this kind of infrastructure and these services are are readily available. Um the last thing that I want to say is that we just really appreciate the opportunity to talk here. Again I am you know more focused on the water side. I know that is a really big deal for you all and I appreciate that too. I've worked my whole career in water going on 20 years now. I'm as passionate about water as you are. Um, so I understand a lot of your comments and a lot of the reasons that you all justified up here of protecting the environment, protecting the water quantity and not using a lot is exactly the same reasons why when we come into an area that is sometimes has droughts and has drought risk. we trigger an aircooled system that does not use a continuous supply of water and it triggers a water positive project which we're looking forward to sharing more about here uh in the future. So with that I do want to turn

it over to Steve who can talk a little bit more about this air cooled closed loop system. Um he's uh one of our mechanical subject matter experts. Before you hand the mic over, a minute ago, whenever you talked about the the million or two million gallons flushing and filling, you said one to two million gallons per day.

Oh, I apologize. I did not mean to say that. Sorry. That might that might be my own nerves up here, too. So, yeah, it it is it is a I call it a slug of water. That doesn't sound good either. It is a it is a one-time use of water. It is a single one time use of water. So it is at 1 to two million gallons fill filling up and um once the system they we call it initial charging water. So once the system is charged it'll stay in the loop like a car radiator and then that's where I want my mechanical uh friend Steve to come and talk a little bit about how that system works. Yeah. Okay. Thank you for catching that. Yeah. Yeah.

Go ahead. cleared up the two million, but you said just a sec, Kelly. Do do we need to be handing a mic back and forth? And again, this is this is not a typical procedure of can I questions and answers before you go down that. Um, so, uh, my name is Steve Edwards. Um, I am, um, Steve, you want to you want to hold the questions till you're done? Is that is that

Yeah, if we could if we could because I think I'm about to we're going to go over some things that will probably clarify some of your questions. Um, and I'm I hopefully that we're going to clarify some questions that were from some of the stuff that we've listened to. Um, which is fantastic. So, I I absolutely copy what everybody from Rowan has said. Thank you very much. Quite frankly, the the community of Temple being this passionate and educated about data centers. I wish a lot of people were because you guys have learned a lot. I've I'm listening to you going, "Oh, wow. These people, they they really know what they're talking about." And so, it's good. And thank you folks for having us here. Um, and uh, like Chris said, so one of the one of the main things that happens on a data center, um, and it and they call me a subject manager expert. And you know what that means? That means I have a lot of scar tissue. I have a lot of scar tissue from doing a bunch of projects and that's all that really means. Um, but I'm but I've been fortunate enough to do a lot of data centers in a lot of different parts of the world. Um, and including uh I am actually from Yavapai County, Arizona. So if you folks think you got water problems, it's not even close, right? So we we have the exact same thing. We've got we've got extreme drought and and we go for years, right? We don't go seasonally. We go two, three, four years at a time. Um, and it's the same situation. So when we I was I was uh asked by Rowan quite a while ago and they said hey would it be possible in this area of Texas to make a data center of this size this XYZ efficiency and don't use water that's what I was asked to look look into and when I looked into it the initial answer was maybe maybe because the technology is there there was Somebody I was looking for there was a gentleman with kind of a there there he

is m um who talked about um air cooled versus water cooled chillers. So we are using air cooled chillers and up until about three years ago three and a half years ago. The maximum size of an aircooled chiller you could get is 500 tons. For us that's not for a data center that's not big enough. We're going to need something much bigger to do that. And the temperatures that a chiller normally does, like what you've got over at the hospital, those temperatures are really low, which is what a chiller was originally designed to do. In a data center, our temperatures are actually quite high. We chill the water, quote unquote, down to 70°. That's it. We're not going down into the 40s like what they do in a hospital or an apartment building or anything like that. Um, so that's that's the first thing we had and that those those two things combined are a bit odd, right? Air cooled with a really high temperature. Can you make it work? The other thing that I was asked was make sure that it's just water. It cannot be propyline glycol. And so the primary side, there's a primary and a secondary loop. And I'll talk a little bit about that. The primary side, the big side is 100% water. And we were asked to do that. That adds another bunch of challenges which I heard several of you talk about and that is what happens in the winter. What happens if this dang thing freezes? Then what do we do? So we took we took mechanical systems into consideration with that. We took electrical backup systems as you've as you've talked about. And what we do is we actually heat it. If it gets below a certain temperature, we heat that water to make sure it's not going to freeze. We keep it flowing. And we've got sensors like you wouldn't believe everywhere to make sure we're not leaking, we're flowing, and we're not freezing because that's a big deal, right? Um and then on the air on the on the cooling side of things when it gets hot and we

got to we got to do that. Um we wanted to make sure that what we did did not use any water, which is what a water cooled chiller would do like the ones over at the hospital does, right? Um and uh that those two things were a huge big deal to us. So, somebody else asked, I think it was you, um, they asked, you know, hey, you've you've said 1 to two million gallons. That's a lot. That's a big huge swing. Um, and whoever asked that question, I've got a job opening for you because I like to be really finite in what we do, too. And the answer is 2.5 million gallons is the holding capacity of the building that we're doing. 2.5 million gallons, that is the holding capacity. That 2.5 million gallons is not going anywhere. It's going to be charged into the system. It will be charged, flushed, charged, flushed initially when we do the when we do the commissioning, but after that it's done and it stays there. Um, and it will it will stay there until we're finished with it. It does not need to be serviced. It does not need to be treated. It doesn't do anything like that. If we have a leak, yes, we will we will detect it quickly. We'll shut it off. We've got isolation systems all set up for that. Um, and then we'll refill it. That's where the 500 gallons comes in is that is from that from that kind of thing if we need it. But it's water. It's not propyline glycol. The secondary loop is actually where the propyline glycol is. And that's the one that we put 100% in containment. That's for the new systems that are made by Nvidia if you've done some research on it. Um that the GPUs now use. And so they have to have a different thing that they use. That's a secondary system. It's much smaller than the primary. The primary system is the big one. It's 100% water. It's 100% contained. It's not going anywhere. Um, we've done things like this. It's not new. And you might ask yourself like, wait a minute, why didn't why didn't data centers do it do it like this all the time? Why didn't

they do this 20 years ago? And the answer is the technology really wasn't there mechanically for us to make it efficient and air cooled. Those two things combined. If we did air cooled previously, it became really inefficient. So then we'd eat a bunch of power. So that doesn't get us anywhere because we'd see kind of one or the other. About three years ago, it became a real good standard of how we do compression and the refrigeration cycle and chillers. It's made it much much much more efficient. So we could do all those things. It's water only. It's air cooled. And it's efficient. We could do all three of those things. But but if you came and asked me to do that five years ago, the answer is probably no. So as things have changed, this has gotten better. And so that was I think the comment was made, you know, have we checked kind of all the boxes that are needed. We mechanically just know that those three boxes were were what we were looking for. We knew that we had to be responsible for power. We knew we had to be responsible for water. And we knew we had to be uh responsible for chemical stuff, which is don't use it. So that's that's the technology we're using. If you're curious about it, it's it's not a big secret. It's it's not a trade secret. We're not the first ones to use it. There's a whole bunch of folks because obviously, as you can imagine, that's a really popular technology these days. Um, uh, Train Technologies makes one of them, the train corporation, who you probably all know. The other one is Carrier. Carrier, uh, makes the other one. And they both have now come to this thing where they make a magnetic lev um levitation con compressor which gave us the efficiency and it's air cooled. And those two things combined is very new. But both of those companies make it now and you can look it up online. That's what we're using.

Okay. So one Oh yeah. Oh no, no, no. Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm from Arizona. It's not hot here. It's not hot here, man. Hey, hey, let me let let me ask a let me ask a question. Sorry. Go ahead.

One one thing that you know I've I mean obviously I've been trying to learn all this as fast as I can. I was telling Mr. Tyrock over there a minute ago that um I sell insurance, right? This this is not what I do dayto-day and this stuff is way out of way out of my league. But I've been working hard to learn it. And I think one thing that as I've learned is that we're all right. There are those data centers out there, the old models. Yep. That pump out and and they use a million and a half gallons a day or more.

Yeah. So those do exist. And there's also those data centers out there that are somewhere, you know, if you have the water usage spectrum, you have the ones that are using a ton of water. And then somewhere in the middle, you have those that are in their cooling process, they are eva evaporating a lot of water. So they're not necessarily just dumping it into the local water supply into the into the uh wastewater system. Um some of that's going on, but they're also evaporating a lot of water. So maybe they're not using three or four million gallons. You said it's more than a million and a half, but they may be using half a million gallons. And these are numbers are coming off my

water expert guy that sells insurance. But then again along that spectrum is this system that is fairly new. This process that you can genuinely say that water will sit there and will circulate in the system for a long time. A what you call it a chug, a plug? It's well it's it's the load. It's it's what's in the system. That system's in there. But it stays there. It's not lost to that.

The first The first one I actually did The first one I actually did was 2003, but it was a really small model. So, we were able to do it because it was so small. And that was the other thing. We had to make them big to where we could do them today. That one, that water that we put in in 2003 is still the same water that's there today. It's been 23 years. It's still the same water. We're not using it. In fact, when they close that data center, we'll be glad to give the water back. It's not I mean it's just the water that's been there for 23 years. Okay. We're let's let's finish and then we'll start.

So um yeah. So to your point about weather because that was the other thing you said it's really hot and to your to to combine those things on the mechanical world we have both of those things make a big difference to us. Um, so as we move north, as we go up into the Dakotas and Minnesota and Cam Loops, Canada, um, they use direct evap systems. 100% directive app. They're blowing water. And then you look at their water usage, it's almost zero. Go, wait a minute. How's that work? Well, it's because it doesn't come on. It's not hot enough to come on because they're only trying to cool the air to 90 degrees. Well, in Cam Loops, Canada, they'll be really lucky to get to 85. So, they just open up the air and let it go. So even though it's a direct evap system, if you go north, that can actually use very little water as well. But here and in Arizona and in New Mexico, we're not doing that. We've got to we've got to have some assistance to do it, which is where the chill water comes in.

Is that okay? This this is Are you Are you done? Yes, I am. Okay, this is the time to start passing the mic around. And the reason why we're going to pass the mic around is we want to be able to catch the questions on the recording. of this meeting. So, yes, whichever. Well, no, because we need we need a mic there for the answers. There you go. You got it. Are we gonna get feedback?

Hi. Um, excuse me, Lynn Thomas. And this may not be a question for you necessarily. Um, Louden County, Virginia, and Virginia in general has the highest concentration of data centers in the country. Texas Texas is hot to come right behind them and it wants to be the tech hub of the country. Okay. They data centers like to come here because our electric is deregulated. It's a businessfriendly environment and Abbott can't get y'all here fast enough. Okay. So my question is why are you why did you pick temple specifically since it was such a unique situation with trying to you said unusual water restriction agreements. You came to a droughtprone area on purpose. So my question is why was Temple chosen if it's going to be such a challenge? What are you getting? Why did you come here? And I don't know which one of you answered that question, but it's a burning question in my mind. I would love to know specifically why are you here as opposed to anywhere else?

Well, I I I'll just say site selection is a um is a multiaceted pro process and considers a lot of component. I just want to address the water uh component because that's you know what what I'm able to do. So um the we didn't come here because it has drought risk. When we see a site and it does have drought risk, we choose to use I'm going to say waterless uh but a a air cooled uh closed loop system that is not connected for continuous supply because it doesn't need to be. So we don't come here because it has drought risk. And in terms of the restrictions uh for drought or the utility service agreement, um those are uh those are unique to every community and we're we're always trying to figure out a way to make it make it work. And so the restrictions we're talking about with your uh city staff, uh those are unique. Um and I would just say that it it's a direct response uh from them hearing the community and uh we're working on getting that uh finalized. I would say why a data center in Temple um or in so

why did you choose this area data center selections go very commonly with where's the fiber backbone okay so member here

Ron Olson uh senior manager of development at Rowan um to your point I mean there are a ton of attributes that go into site selection Just to break it down on an over broad basis is line of sight to power. Obviously demand from our customers drives that. Then the capacity to have enough property that would support a data center specifically. And then the ability to permit or entitle that property for data data center usage. understanding the regulatory framework that we would have to work within to be able to permit one to be able to get to a point of operation.

Okay. So, you had an idea that you had a really good idea that the council was going to work with you. No, I I don't think that's ever the case. Did I understand that incorrectly? No, it's just understanding the regulations that a city of Temple or any place in the country is it something that we can work within that regulatory framework. For instance, you know, if water usage is a big deal, you know, then it's so restrictive, you know, you can't even use a million dollars or a million gallons to charge a system. So then you know that you're you're not a candidate at that point. So,

and so with Urkott being so unreliable, that didn't concern you a little bit given that well, it's not reliable and you need an awful lot of electricity. Don't deal directly with her. We deal with utility in this instance. So, of course, we have those conversations with them and the, you know, their confidence levels what continues. I mean there's so many the utility would be Encore. I'm sorry. Is that correct? Right. So So is the sort of the the regulating administrative body. Yeah. Regional transmission authority or that oversees all then encore builds the lines.

Yes. Yeah. Okay.

So the fact So it you feel confident that y'all are going to have enough electricity. we're not gonna have a problem with it running. I I I think the problem that that a lot of people are concerned about is the electric bills going up so high because of the draw that the data centers are going to have on our system and we've already seen that whether I know isn't the one is Encore the our system's unreliable. So I I I don't know. I think maybe that's a two-part question. Why did you come here when our system appears to be unreliable when we have outages? And then what are we going to do when our electric bills go because can you address the our electric bills being raised because we think they will be? I want to add on to this specifically the fact that it is not just about three or more data center and we data center. The question we want you to answer is Do you think that this area can sustain three or more? That's what we're asking. We don't want to hear about one particular data center. We want to hear about how to imp It's more about answer

the design. So, so all so three data centers are going to be using 4,000 gallons of water each day. No, we don't use any. That's what your found

Let me Yeah, I'm happy to jump into and explain. Give me But from the city perspective, let me address that. Okay. Um, 4,000 gallons a day, it sounds like a lot, but in the water world, that's nothing. 4,000 gallons a day. Um, our homes, the average home in Temple of three people. I saw we had a presentation earlier. One of our neighborhoods has one of our neighborhoods has 2.9 people, 2.95 people per household. And I manage a facility with that. I have 80 to 100 people on site and we don't even go through that. Okay.

I'm I'm just telling you just a second. Um I'm just I'm telling you that the average household of three uses 500 gallons a day. That's that's average. And so again in this we have two different sets two different sets of water. We have the regular dayto-day water, the flushing and toileting toileting, right? Just in an office of of 40 people. Mhm. 4,000 gallons a day. And then separate from that 4,000 gallons a day is the the plug, the chug, the slug, the one time the one time slug

of a mill two and a half million gallons. To put that in perspective, the city of Temple on average cleans and uses 22 million gallons of water per day. So that is 2 and a half million gallons is roughly 10% of one day's usage that goes into the system and is used. We have used 10 to 12 years. You say that there's y'all have a system that's that has been running for 23 years. So again, all of that millions of gallons seems like a lot, but in the water world, a million gallons is is almost it's not nothing, but it's not um it it it's not a substantial amount of water. And whenever you take the slug, um that will be timed with the city of Temple's infrastructure system. More than likely what'll happen is they'll take that slug at two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning, whenever it's not an impact.

They said 4,000 gallons of water a day for employers.

That'sion four and a half million gallons a year. So you got 4,000 gallons a day. for 365 days. That's a million and a half roughly times three, you're looking at about half million gallons of water, which you're saying is a drop in a literal drop in the bucket compared in the water world that that's not that much. It's not. But what we're saying and and I get it, but but what we're saying is when we're scared to death of how much water we're not going to have in the future, anything that we give away is a big deal.

That that I think that's the difference. I understand you guys are looking at like in in big picture it's not that much water, but when we're we're out here going, "Yeah, but we're looking at a drought and any amount of water big deal and we're not willing to give any amount to an organization. We don't feel like we're getting anything for it. We don't have to give it to them.

I I think that I think that's my that's my perspective. That's why I asked why are you here? And another gentleman also asked what are we getting for this? We could bring in any fast food restaurant. 40. We can we can do that. What are we getting? Okay, let's I can address that. Is there any is there anybody else that would ask like to ask questions around the water usage? Okay, let's let's do that now. Got one right here and one over here. I'll come back to you ma'am.

Come back. the three data centers that all three of these we had a whole bunch of hands just go up. So let's let's handle the folks that raised their hands. Where where's the mic? I'm going to pass it right here. Okay.

Hey, so um Brazo's River Authority um which you didn't go through. You went through our municipality, which is kind of um not the right way to do things uh because you guys knew we didn't have enough water. They said, "Don't worry. We've got a contingency plan. So, just so you guys can all feel better about this, they're going to dig out more of our our ponds in our lakes, and it's going to be a $5.5 billion expense to us, to all of us. They're not paying for this. We are. Um I know this isn't this is the to be clear, everyone keeps putting all these um data center numbers around. We've got Meta, we had Mariah, which you guys failed. We have Temple Central. We have Stampede. This is Ranger. There's a fourth one coming on soon. And you guys have pre-decided seven of them. Have you ever built eight data centers in one location before? You say that, but we see the numbers you have. You don't even have one online. The only one that's been online is failed. Also, if you do you actually care about these people? Because if you do, then why won't you pause instead of giving them pressure to push it through so we can get a baseline test and you guys can be open and transparent about what actually is going on. We need baseline test. We need to know what the what the noise level is going to be. These people have invested into this city because we trusted these traders. What are you guys doing?

So I I think there was a water question there at the beginning that we can address. So there was a um the reason why we asked the city if they would consider service is because of the approach that we were taking which was to use a air cooled closed loop system and we were requesting domestic service. Um it I'm I'm not saying that we're a residential neighborhood I but it would be no different if there was like a few houses getting built and they were requesting uh service on the edge of town. Um and we fall within the city of Temple's larger broader uh service area as well. So it it made sense to make that request uh considering it was just the domestic flow.

Yeah. And I'm Aaron Henry, director of economic development with Rowan. So uh I just want to talk about one of the benefits of Rowan annexing in for the community. So what is that? do testing. We go on and test before you do that. We do look at soil. We do phase we do studies environmentally, internally. Uh but I can speak to some of the tax stuff. Uh that's my area of focus. I'm a CPA. Yeah. Actually, we pay 50% of our taxes. So, uh the incentive agreement I have to pay 100% of my tax. What kind of tax?

Yeah. So uh we pay property tax uh roughly with our minimum investment of 700 million uh that we look at for one phase. Uh that's our minimum requirement. We we hope to beat that. A lot of the technology we talked about today is very capital intensive. Um yeah uh

correct sales and use tax exemptions. uh at the state level it is and it's very important to our customer and that is a a big reason why uh we come to the state of Texas too as one of the aspects that gets factored in in the to our decisions because we're a friendly business business friendly and they'll bend over to do everything they can to bring in well we view it as a partnership so when we come into the city what are we getting

yeah so we on our calculations the 700 million with that initial investment. You see about 7 million annually that goes to the city, county, the various taxing jurisdictions. The city alone gets about 2.8 million a year based on that that rough estimate and and that's one phase that's after the abatement. And that's after the abatement. Can I again let's if we talk perspective?

Yep. that that property the the 300 acre property that um that is being annexed in. I I know the man that owned that. I go to church with him. I see him. He opens the door every he he's the door holder at church. Um nice guy, good guy, good man. It was corn. He owned the land. And because Texas is also a pro property rights state, he sold that land. He made a bunch of money on that land, but it was his land. So he he sold that land. But do you know what that piece of property before he sold it when it was when it was a land, the property tax on that property in the last full year that he owned it, $300.

So in your rale, your You're saying if we give them 50% tax abatement, we're getting more than $300 a year. So that's a benefit to our city and that's worth doing.

Okay. Well, I I asked I asked staff to pull it up on that piece of property. It was 300. Yeah, just the city of Temple tax, which you know, school district and Okay. All right. Well, then I guess we could probably But either way, if we're if if we're talking about the benefit to the city and what are we getting, then we are getting increased tax revenue. And we can talk about whether that matters or not also. Well, it um

will it be enough to offset y'all are looking at a text message project, you know, pick an infrastructure project. Temple College doing a big bond right now doing a $700 or $700 million investment. Okay.

And and one one thing Oh, sorry. I was just going to say one thing I would highlight is uh you know, we did a property tax abatement with the city and county, but we don't do those with the schools with Temple College. We know those are very important areas that need to be funded and so we don't uh take those and do those. So we pay those 100%. Uh through property taxes. Yeah. That we pay uh with the city and then we also pay to that uh jurisdiction as well. And also the the state of the state of Texas only allows an abatement for 10 years. So after 10 years all that rolls off and they pay full vote. Then is that good for that company? It follows the project.

Another big concern though is there's a lot of triple digit summer. That's not unheard of in this area. That's an issue with the air closed loop air system. Okay. The energy usage on that. Okay. Hey, we need to we need to we need to pass the mic around. Yeah. I don't want to interrupt my fellow citizens, but I had some specific questions I wrote down and Well, he he was working on something. All right, cool. Would you would you hand him the mic?

All right. I don't want to be here tonight, guys. So uh um so the closed air cooling system uh the issues with those uh from research anyway is uh triple digit heat puts a major strain on that. I understand that the minimal water usage. Okay. Sure. All right. And Okay, we'll go with that. Um the issue is electrical load. I understand y'all y'all chose this area probably because we have Panda the uh power grid or power plant there. So that was attractive. Um and then fiber is expanding in this area too. So data. Okay. But the issue though, I'm sorry guys, but the city doesn't seem then there's also a a obligation on the city side in in this agreement on infrastructure the water the easement all you know that sort of stuff um so far our area is uh expanding and developing very rapidly and a lot of the citizens here uh are noticing that um sorry guys that uh the city is having trouble people walking and chewing gum at the same time. Managing

rapid growth. Well, not just finance, but but rapid growth, but also maintaining existing infrastructure and services. And so y'all are coming in and this is kind of part of the reason why everyone's upset and there's this perception. And so, how's the city? So far, the city has not had the confidence of the community that it can handle uh existing infrastructure and and expansion. Um, how is that how are y'all going to be able to do this on top of other development project? This isn't the the only thing going on. There's neighborhoods, all sorts of stuff. I sit on the zoning board of adjustments. I I see some of that stuff and I'm I get it. But the city has doesn't have a good track record so far and there's major concerns here. And sure, they seem to have an answer for the water. Okay, great. But there's a gentleman here earlier. There's a lot of straws in our lake right now. We're constantly fighting Austin, Georgetown. We saw what happened with Colleen and Stillhouse and those ongoing issues. So that's the really Okay, sure there minimal water, fine. Okay, but they're not the only ones. So, but infrastructure and power, those are the big things. Uh, help me out here. Help us out. Explain.

Yeah, I can speak to uh some of the energy stuff. We don't have an energy expert here, but the one thing I would say is we work with Encore. Encore has a load study process. So we put a defined amount of power that we believe we need to run the data center or Encore takes that. They meet with their engineers. They look at that. They understand. They look at two things. They look at well they look at mainly one thing. Transmission. Do we have the power lines to get it there? Are they ready to go? That's all they really do. Yep. doesn't

So then they got to go to Urkott OT and they send that load study back up to Ot then looks at that holistically. URK's changing this process. They're going to look at it as a cluster even more holistically, right? They're doing on a project bypro basis, but as you guys alluded to, it's important to look at multiple data centers together and the impact, right? So's doing that. Um but then that load study comes back from both Encore and Urkod and they come to us and they say okay you asked for X amount uh we we believe you we can give you that X amount and it it's going to be by Y date and because they pick that date is if they have transmission upgrades they need to do if they need to upgrade lines if there's old infrastructure there that maybe can't take that load. uh that all has to be done and that's something we pay for and we put into an agreement with them on what is it that needs to happen over this period of time until we can really flip that switch. Um and so we work then very closely with Encore through their agreements. uh we're financially bound by that and those dates they pick you and sometimes they push those dates they they thought they could meet it they can't and so we kind of are in line with them and they do that with every project uh large low loads you know industrial projects you have to go through that and so when we talk about hey it's really hot we're going to have to use more power well that's a trade-off that has to be made because we only have an a lot amount of power that we can use. So, we actually draw that power to make sure we can cool and those GPUs actually don't run as efficiently as they should, right? So, uh it's a tradeoff. It's never we're just going to take more power uh and and figure it out. Um we actually have to trade that off uh which is an important thing to note there. So,

I just want to talk about the energy. We designed a worst case scenario which is actually 125 temperature like Yeah. Did you just jinx us?

Oh, those tornadoes.

Okay. Uh, while I got the mic, there's been throughout this evening um some talk about city council taking kickbacks and and y'all are pedalling influence for city leadership. And I I I can say I I know I know y'all pretty well, well enough to know that's not how y'all operate. And u that's not what y'all do. And um but the perception though of it looks like influence you're trying to buy off influence from local stakehold stakeholders whether they're nonprofits or the uh school district and it you can just it's the perception and you know how politics is. Perception is often reality whether it's true or not. And so I can tell y'all they're not getting, you know, kickbacks and that's not how this is working. And y'all are in a difficult position budget-wise all every year going through the budget and all that. And this is the biggest draw for data centers for for cities is the tax revenue. Now, we're not they're not going to see tax revenue for 10 years. Okay. County, local. Okay.

We'll see 50%. It will see some of it. Okay. Yeah. I read the uh the agreement two weeks ago. I've I've slept since then. So, it helps city budget time. Okay. And the the uh theory is that they'll use this to supplement the budget and tackle infrastructure issues and and whatnot. But again, back to my point, we got some issues with maintaining existing infrastructure. So, I'm going to yield my time. Yes. Of course.

Um, when you're speaking about you're not the power guy, but will you transmit your power through Encore lines? Yes, that is uh the agreement we have in place to transmit power uh they will send it through their lines. Correct. And and in doing that, you pay a a franchise fee. Correct. Yes, we do. Yeah. I don't know what that is, but yeah. And and with this when looking at the revenue generated from the project, the franchise fee on a 400 megawatt power user could be as much as 5.5 million a year to the general fund.

And that is that that is not part of the that is not that's the it's far exceeds the property tax. And the reason that is the general the general fund gets that and that is what goes to pay for police fire infrastructure but it would be a significant um increase to the revenue from just that and I've estimated at like I said 400 megawatt plant or power use it would be about close to 5.5 million a year per year plus the abated 2.8ish. eightish.

Okay. Do we have a chemical engineer on staff? I deal in a lot of chemicals. I'm not a C I'm not a C. I'm an Okay. Okay. So, let's go back to the closed unit system. You've got a closed unit system. You what gave it a 10 year 20 year lifespan?

Yeah. Okay. So, how often do you go into that closed unit system to test the quality of that water and see if it's off leachching from the pipe system? Because we all know here, you put you put regular water in, not deionized water, and you're going to have leeching of chemicals into that system

from your water source. Well, you're not using deionized water, correct? You're using regular tap water that we pull out of the tap. Okay? We have heavy chemical water here. We have heavy mineralized water here. And I can tell you, how often do we have to flush our water heaters, which is a closed loop system? Well, right. Yep. So every year we're we're told that we need to flush that system because you get the mineral buildup within that water heater.

I don't know the specific answer for you. I would think that it's probably we'll do a test and whatever we need to do for the first few months and then it'll be it'll go less and less and less and less. Well, and and the longer you leave that water and you never get rid of it, you don't recycle recirculate or refill it during that 10 years, 20 years, it turns into sludge just like in your in your um car radiator, just like in your water heater. Is it the materials of the heat exchanger itself?

No, no, no. It's it's the the chemicals, the um minerals we have Silicon lime. Lime. We have lime here. Calcium. Yes. So, was there any water tests done to see if the chemical makeup of the water is compatible with the system?

I know the chem the initial water quality from this area was is documented. But if you had a chemical engineer, they could take a look at that and see, okay, we store it for 10 years. What happens? We store it for 20 years. What's the breakdown of the chemicals? And then is it a mixed metal and PVC system? No, for ours, no, we don't use PVC. Ours will be copper is the heat exchange. Okay. Is there any other mixed metals? Absolutely.

Okay. So, you're telling me that you don't put any chemicals in there. So you have a mixed metal reaction, chemical reaction because once you start mixing your your metals, one metal will contaminate the next. It'll be steel and copper on the primary side. On the secondary side, yeah, exactly which side where you have the mixed metals. I don't know how many pinhole leaks our boiler had at work. copper lines from temple water

and when you're high pressure water system you got to deal with something yeah I I think this might be a case of we don't have the right uh probably have the right staff member here um I do know that there were tests and compatibility was considered um in the event that it wasn't we would have specified that we need to treat the water and that didn't come up so I apologize We don't have the right uh tap uh person here. Yeah. Yeah. There was a full test. There was a full set of tests. Yeah. A certified laboratory. We do. Yeah. For our own for the protection of our equipment.

We don't we don't independent contractor. It wouldn't be us. We don't do our own test. What does that mean? Correct. That's correct. Yes. We wouldn't do that. We want somebody who's a specialist in chemical. I I think that's what we're saying is we don't have the right staff person here who's in charge of that, but we we can get back to you on that. So, you're telling me that you do have a chemical engineer on staff?

Uh, so we do have a public website um that talks a lot about the frequently asked questions. So we can post it there. I I imagine you all will be asking about it. So why would you be responsed official? Are you?

Um no no I'm not an elected official for the city of Temple. So um we you know we're doing our best to answer all of the questions that you all are asking. stumbled across one where we need to get with another staff member. Um, we will work to get that posted uh to our FAQ and our website. Um, I don't know the exact uh URL. I don't know if anybody knows it off the top of their head, but

row temple.com. So, yeah. Oh yeah.

Behind you too. Behind you. So you don't have all the answers don't believe.

We're looking forward We're looking forward to getting you the answer as soon as possible. It's not it's it's just that the people up here tonight do not have it. It's not that the company doesn't. So, we're looking forward to getting that answer posted as soon as we can. Yeah. My name is Nate Shrivever. I'm director of site development for Rowan. Um before we purchase a property, we do a full suite of due diligence on it. That's really for our protection as much as it is for anyone else's. If we make a big investment in a property, we want to know that there's no contaminants on site. Um, we also want to know the soil conditions. Uh, we want to know if there's any threatened or endangered species on site or habitats on site that could house those species. Um, we also take a look at where there are wetlands, where there are flood planes. um we look at mineral survey or we look at mineral title, real estate title, like there there's very many studies that we do and so I'm not familiar with the definition of a baseline study that you're using, but we do a lot of the things that I think you're talking about. All we're talking

So, uh, we're not doing it one night. There's been multiple hearings. Um, and and Tim, I don't know if you want to talk about the the uh open house that we did as well that 70 people showed up to. I'm saying that we're not doing this in one night and that there's been I I can say that we've done a tremendous amount of due diligence on the site and there's no contaminants. The answer of no reason.

Thank you. Yeah, I I'll take a look at what due diligence materials we can release, especially we we have asked third parties to do that. I I I don't think that's my decision. We're following the city's process which has included multiple hearings and a voluntary open house that we did for the entire community.

I I I don't I don't think we're pressuring anybody. We're just following the process. I I think the request that you're making is probably of city council. We're just following the process that is outlined through the city. And so we're asking people,

we're just trying to follow the process that's outlined by the city to move forward with the project. Why don't you guys have investors that are expecting an

Yeah, I think everybody works for companies of Wait, this is this is Yes, they have investors. They have people their investors. They have a timeline to get to

He just said that they do environmental studies. They have those on file. They don't have to they don't have to um they don't have to release those. Like you said, that's and many times it's for their own protection. It we talked about somebody said something about Amazon not doing a baseline study and therefore they didn't have the the right information to defend themselves later or whatever. they're going to do those things. A company like this comes in and they do a lot of work um in we're talking about $700 million. This is not the first time they've done this and this won't be the last time they've done that. We said earlier an environmental impact study is not required and if the city of Temple if we said we want to require it, we can't force them to do that either. The state of Texas, the the state of Texas, the state of Texas does not allow that, which by the way is also the same state of Texas that encourages data centers by giving them a tax exemption, a sales tax exemption on servers. So, someone said it earlier, ma'am, I think it was you that said the state of Texas um their their hope, their goal is to become the largest data center state in the United States. So, so a lot of these uh these issues are pushed down to the local level. In some ways, our hands are tied as to, you know, whenever you talk about a uh actually requiring all the things that Sarah just talked about. Um those things cannot be required by law. They can't be required. They're going to have it. They're going to do that themselves, but it's proprietary

information then. And then at that point, who is us? samples. That's private property rights. I can't I can't come on your property and do it. No. No. The city of Temple does not. I know the guy that owned it. It's the door holder at church and he sold it to these guys who now own it.

Who again? Who is we? You are asking to go onto their property and require something. I can't do that at your house. No, we cannot do that. I just said that.

I I I do have specific like datadriven questions for the team from Rowan if nobody minds. I I'm I'm sorry. I I know we're all upset about this, but you know, um I I think if we focus on actual questions instead of airing our grievances, we'll make more progress. Um okay. So, uh I don't know who's going to be the best person. How many to date? How many closed loops air cooled systems has Rowan completed construction on? Two. Two. How are those both online and operational? Semi. So neither of them are fully operational. Okay. Centers don't come online and just take years and years to come fully. Again, this is this is very very new technology.

I I understand Mr. Davis. I'm just I'm getting clarity just you know to get on to the record as well because you know okay um I did hear him say earlier that the technology is about three and a half years old. Okay. And in that three and a half years you have not gotten a single system fully online and operational. Okay. Understood. Nobody does. All right. So so far there's not been a single closed loop air cooled system that has gone to full operation. There's several of them not at this size because the technology is about 30 years old but getting it to this big is about

so at this scale it's an unproven technology. Okay, good. All right. Uh so um so you don't have any that have been so what your longest operating closed loop air cooled system is zero years. Okay. Okay. Of these closed loop air cooled for Rome and I understand but you'll only be able to answer questions for your company. So that's what I'm directing them towards. Um, how many of these have you constructed or planned to construct in droughtprone areas or drought risk areas?

Well, I can the as I've said before, drought in a closed loop system, 2 and a half million gallons, 10% of what the city of Temple cleans in one day. I I understand Mr. Davis, but I am asking the team from Rowan some specific information about their company which we are using this time for. So I would prefer if they could answer the question. Thank you sir. We're considering other areas that are worse than this. Okay.

Understood. So of these uh I remember you sir I'm sorry I don't recall your name Mr. Curts I believe. Um you said that your systems are designed to be water positive. Sorry that's correct. Yes. Okay. Um could you explain that a little bit more? You kind of went over it briefly. Obviously, you're not going to create more water. Um so, how in what way is it water positive?

Um well, there are instances in which you can create, but um it's really there there's two main ways you can make a project water positive. So, the the first is understanding your demand. And so, we do understand it. We know how much water we're using on the closed loop system for that initial charge. we know how much water we're using on uh a daily basis for the employee facilities. Uh that's totaled up and you do have to pick a time frame. It's uh the industry standard is to pick a 10-year time frame. So you total up all those gallons and then you go and you look for one or the other side of the equation. And what I mean by that is you look for either the supply side of the equation or you look for the demand side of the equation. And I will say typically um water positive projects focus on the demand side of the equation. So that can in a municipality that can look thing like an investment in a leak detection and leak reduction uh program. Um in agricultural that could be like investing in and helping support a transition from say uh flood irrigation to um uh like center pivot sprinklers. And so you're you're gaining a lot of efficiency in that. Um on the supply side, uh there are are projects out there they if you're looking at kind of like a land use scale, they typically focus on like vegetation ma management. So sometimes there are um invasive species out there on the landscape. uh uh like here in Texas like various types of junipers, they kind of act like upside down umbrellas that and they intercept the water and then it evaporates where before those invasive species took over that water would uh you know hit the ground and either go to a river or recharge the aquifer. So, and I'm just giving an example of like what a supply side could look like. Um so you literally go in with crews. Um, it's pretty labor intensive, but you take out those junipers. You recede it with native grasses and other types of

hardwood trees that would have been there kind of before any sort of human influence, kind of getting it back to its natural state. And then that uh increases the supply of water that otherwise would have just evaporated locally. Got also the the leaky pipes, leaky toilets, things projects that you guys have talked about that is actually in our system that could that could That's correct. Those are those are the projects that we're evaluating now is like how local can we make the impact and and we are focusing on the demand side at the moment. So my understanding of it is it's not so much about creating positive water flow out of your facility. It's about offsetting your water use elsewhere in the community.

Um yeah you for a water replenishment project that is the way to do it. Yeah. Is is you and we we try to do that as close to the site as possible. Okay. And well that does actually bring me to my next question. And so I know you said that several times that it has been designed to that you work towards water positivity. Now I know you don't have any fully operational facilities. Um but in your facilities that you do have semioperational have any of them achieved water positivity or is it purely theoretical at this point? Um no they they have well I guess I should say we have a project that's in the development phase a little bit further along. So at this time it is not actualized.

Um I would appreciate it just to be able to explain a little bit more. Yeah. So, we have a project that's in a similar um development phase um here in Texas and we went and we partnered with the Edwards Aquafer Conservancy to invest in a agricultural water efficiency project. So, that um agreement is in place. Those funds have been provided that um they they run it as like a grant cycle basically and so that grant cycle starts well it is April. So, I think the grant cycle has started now. They'll distribute those funds in June or July to the recipients and then they basically have until the end of the year to uh convert from flood irrigation to um uh center pivot irrigation systems and this is all managed uh by them. Um and then so starting in water year 2027 is when those benefits they call them volutric benefits um will actually start generating. So, we're not generating those yet, but we're really really proud and super excited to have uh that partnership with EAC. So, we're those benefits will start acrewing in 2027.

Okay. Okay. And I'm glad to hear that. But just so I can get a really clear yes or no answer, at this time today, you do not have a water positive facility. Um we we consider I mean I guess we consider it to be water positive in the future. This facility isn't operational right now. So, so you have not pro So, so you've not proven that you have a water positive facility. You have plans in place that will theoretically make it water positive, but that has not been actualized. Yes or no?

Yeah. So, so I just want to back up and talk a little bit about the process of what that looks like. So, there's a standard out there called the Volutric Water Benefit Accounting 2.0 guidance document. It is the industry standard for how you validate if a project when it's in a planning stage which I think we c you know can agree that projects have to start in planning before they go into implementation and so we have worked with a you know a certified uh validator of that and so the project has been validated that yes it will work um I I can't take us forward in time to have the project be implemented but I I can say that it has been validated Oh, I think sorry I turned it off. I appreciate the

I do just want to actually touch on that a little bit too. So um typically um when when uh folks go out there to create a water positive project, it has been more common for them to wait until a facility is actually operational and then they kind of retrospectively look back and say, "Hey, you know, we we understand water's important. We we should do this now. We should do this now." Rowan takes a different approach. We say, "We we know water is important from the beginning. We make selections about our cooling technology that reflect that. Um we enter into agreements with utilities that reflect that and instead of waiting for a project to be operational, we actually start those water project positive projects in the development phase. And that's what we did on the project that will be generating those benefits in 2027. And that's what we're going to do here with the city of Temple as well. And so we we try to get those water positive projects stood up before we're even operational. That's not typical and it's something we're really proud of.

Okay. Thank you for those answers. I'd like to move on if it's all right with you gentlemen uh to the primary and secondary loops. I have some questions regarding those. So when we were talking about the primary loop, you did mention a flush fill cycle. You said the building capacity was 2.5 million gallons. So I just want to get some clarity on that. So the entire primary loop when it is full will use an enclosed 2.5 million gallons roughly. Conservative number. Yes. Okay. Conservative. So that would be a lower end. That includes a fire that includes a fire tank too, a fire suppression system. But you did mention that it might take multiple flush and fill cycles. So each flush and fill cycle would use 2.5 million gallons. It wouldn't have to, but the answer is we've planned for it.

So you plan to have multiple flush fill cycles of 2.5 million gallons? It's a total of two million gallons. It's a total. Yeah. It's not You don't fill it up all the way. You run the water through the system and then it's flushed out the other end. So you don't fully charge when you're doing the flush fill cycle. It's broken into it. It it also is broken into segments. So we'll do I think the first one is quarters. So we'll do 25% of it and it'll go flushville fleshfill. Then we'll go to the second one. It'll be flushville fleshfill. So that total combined would be that number. Gotcha. Okay. Understood. All right. Um so then on and that only has to be done during the initial charging after it's operational. It doesn't have it's not a regular maintenance thing.

Okay. All right. Uh so then I wanted to ask about the secondary loop. So you so the primary loop is pure water um or tap water. Secondary loop has the propyline glycol added. Yeah. So the secondary loop is actually secondary loop is actually a thing called dowrost LC25 and that is specifically made to reject heat from liquid to chip systems. So it has 25% propyline glycol. It has a biological inhibitor in it and it has something in it that um increases the viscosity of the liquid. So it actually because they these are really really minute

things on the on the server itself. So that's what it's designed to do is to reject the heat from that server. And they're actually 50 micron openings. So we have a proprietary coolant. Uh no it's D. You can look it up. It's Dowrost LC25. It's used by everybody who's doing L um I was just that that system uses coolant, not the primary, just the secondary. That's correct. You're absolutely right. What's the size of the secondary system if you can divulge that? How many gallons in the secondary system? I will give you an answer on that. I don't have it at the moment. And I do want to know if that I I need to check to see if that's proprietary for us or not because it it's not as big as the entire system. I know that as far as if we were looking at megawws, it's not that big.

Can you give us just a rough range? Like can you give us a magnitude? Are we talking tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of gallons, millions? What's what scale are we talking? It's probably in the neighborhood of a million. Okay. So So in addition to the 2.5 million in the primary loop, there is an additional undisclosed possibly millions of gallons of water in the secondary system. It' be a sing it wouldn't be millions. It would be approximately a million because I'm thinking like 900. And does the does the dowrost water in that system come from the city of temple? No, it is it's it actually comes in a tank truck and it's pure in its form and that's how we take it out too. We don't we manage it 100%.

Okay. And that I think that answers my uh second question which is then is that secondary loop also a closed loop? Yes, 100% closed. Yeah, specifically that one and it's stainless steel pharmaceutical grade piping very very very tightly closed. Okay. Uh, and I'm assuming that, uh, you're most likely required to have emergency plans if there was a leak or a spill or something of that effect. Emergency redundant. Emergency redundant. Three sets of belts and three sets of suspenders.

Awesome. Uh, so then I just have one last topic and then I will let you guys uh, move on to the next person. I think someone's waiting. Um, okay. So, you did mention earlier that you do have limits uh given to you specifically for your electricity and um your water usage. Uh it may have just been electricity. I'm sorry if I'm misremembering that. Um and then you did mention that you are limited after you go if you hit that certain number. You didn't say you were cut off. So, I I think I would like some clarity about what happens if you you know you reach your usage limit. Are you cut off? Are you or are as I was saying earlier during my comment period, do you simply just pay a fine?

Um what it would be is a ratcheting back down to the contractual value if we were off by a little bit. We don't expect to be off by much. So it would just be bringing us back into compliance basically. I think that one question demand on energy uses and if they were to be cut off, what would they do? Yes. Yeah. So, I was asking about water, but I was also asking about energy. So, your electricity usage, you were talking about having a usage limit. And

so, what happens, you know, if you go over, you're talking about ratcheting back down. What's the enforcement mechanism? Is it just you're supposed to or is there is what's the what is the uh it's a physical device that would do it that would limit the flow? Okay. So, you're physically limited from going over a certain wattage or hours it's measuring. Oh. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm talking about water. I Yeah. Yeah. Apologies. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I get that with water. So, with So, with energy similar to demand of a cotton gym,

cotton gin goes out buys so much energy and they have to use it or they don't have to pay for it. But if they need more energy, they have to buy volume that they may or may not have to pay for. No, we so we don't have the that person here, right, who can speak detailed about energy. Uh we're happy to do an FAQ on it and add it to the website of you know what is in our agreements with Encore on that. Okay. Uh understood. I'm just since a lot of people express you knowing a lot of concern about electricity costs. I'm just trying to get some clarity on that. Um I just at this time it's really not clear about you know how you're actually limiting yourselves. Um but it's it's regulated. A a lot of things are regulated man.

Okay. But we're not self-regulating, right? Okay. Thank you. I do appreciate that. Yeah. That that's the kind of answer I was looking for is is someone else enforcing this or are we just taking your word that you're following a limit? Understood. All right. Um okay then my final question I'll hand it off to this gentleman uh behind me and this is uh more of a personal question. So, of course, you're not um obligated to answer, but I am just curious if any of the Rowan staff present here today or uh involved in the site planning, development or operation of this plans to or currently lives in the temple area.

Thank you for your time. My question,

okay, my question to y'all is when we were talking earlier about our data center versus y'alls, y'all said y'all run y'alls at 70°. Okay, we run ours between 39 and 42 degrees. So, I don't see how y'all can cool with 70°, but that's beside the point. We treat our chill water systems that go through it, and we have a sock in the system. Um, there's going to be a lot of very big difference between what we run ours and what y'all do. And like I was saying, I don't see how y'all can cool anything. But the thing is, uh, there's going to the higher the temperatures go up, you're going to have a conductivity that's going to go up. Ours does. I mean, I'm comparing our condenser for the cooling tires verse chill water. What do y'all do to control the high conductivity? Because conductivity on once that water is running through them tubes, the higher the conductivity is, you're going to plug those lines up. So, what do you all do to keep the conductivity down?

Yes. Check. Check. So, keep in mind, we don't have we don't have cooling towers, right? Ours is 100% air cooled. So, there is no condenser water. There is no the warmer the chill water, which I'll call it chill water, the lukewarm is a lot what that's going to be. And I I can tell from the temperatures you've talked about, you're talking about a data center that's based on Intel uh chips and ours are because of the temperatures. I can tell you it's going to be based on Nvidia GPUs. But what do you all do to keep the conductivity down? So ours again, it's it's closed loop. So it's Yeah, it's a closed so you can't bleed it off because then you're going to be using more water. Correct.

But the higher the conductivity is, you're going to plug those lines up. I know when we p pulled like chill water line uh pump self, you'll get some pitting in there, but there again, we're running coal and we're treated water. Y'all running higher water, y'all said. So, you're naturally going to get a lot more conductivity. So, what do you do to stop the conductivity? Because the conductivity will plug up your coils as the water's running through it.

So, two things. Number one, I know that the the coil sizes are designed for massive massive things. It's not a the So, the chiller coil itself for ours are huge. They're they're uh 5/8 inch. They're really big coils. It's not like it's going to I don't uh ours run from half to I think 5/8 also, but we still Okay. have to I don't have a good answer for you, but I'll I've got it on my list. Okay. And the second question is earlier it was said uh the guy paid only $300 taxes a year, but how many acres is this? U how many the data center, how many acres does it consist of?

300. 300. Okay. I also own property in Milm County that I farm. I got 91 acres there. And Milm County is cheaper than Bell County and I'm paying I don't know $450 $60. So I don't see the taxes are way too cheap. That's that's that's data that's that's not relevant to those guys. That's data I had. Oh. Yeah. That's not that anything to do with them as far as whether that's that amount is correct. But but it did seem cheap when you said $300. And that's for the city of Temple tax. That doesn't include the county or anybody else. Yeah. And all right, mayor. I'm sorry. It's it's 350,

not 300. I hope that kind of you had a question earlier or you were saying something so I kind of hope what maybe I asked answered. Well, no, they didn't address it because oh using two different metals in a closed loop system and we know that when you use more than the same metal through any system, right, you have corrosion, right? Because those metals don't like to play together, right? Then you add high mineral content water, right? And heat, so you're making a chemical soup within,

right? Right. Uh, do y'all treat y'all's chill water? Well, I will say this again. 70 degrees is not really chill water, but that's what y'all say y'all use. Do y'all treat y'all system the water clos loop? Again, the chilled water system that we that we have will simply be water. Right now, it's designed to be 100% water. It'll be strained. It'll be strained and clean, but right now it's designed to be 100% water. It will plug up. It will plug up. I will defer to carrier and train and we will figure that one out.

It plane with fire. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. I just have one quick question. It may have to go to the mayor. Uh $700 million investment whenever it gets completed. So, when is it going to be completed and when will they start paying property tax? No, they'll be paying 50% right when they get done.

Yes. And excuse me, until it's 100% complete, they will not start the abatement. So, there'll be partial years that they'll pay 100% tax on something that's not 100% complete. But once it's completed, their abatement kicks in and it's 50% of the value on personal and real property for the city of Temple and that is for 10 years. Right. But we will collect taxes on the 50% that is not abaded. Correct. Just but just on the value of what they've built so far. Yes, that's my question. How long is it going to take you to put this thing together?

Yes, I can speak to that. So specifically for Ranger today, uh we're doing an annexation reszoning uh and then we we look at that project. We understand market demand uh and we put a plan together of uh attracting a customer there hypers scale customer. So for this specific one today, we we don't have it timelined. Uh we'll probably chew it up with what uh Encore has given us from a power delivery date. Um so so that one uh I think is in 2028 uh where tax revenue from a fully completed facility will be done throughout construction and and as we put you know parts of the building together and progress and if it's split between years we do get that you know partially assessed and looked at and and you do pay taxes on that. Uh and then when we go operational that's where we then they have the full value there. question.

Oh, no.

So, I'm uh I have to say I'm really skeptical that uh your water's going to last 10 years without using anti-corrosives, but I guess you don't really have a working system yet. So, it's not like you can say, "Yeah, we've tested this and proven that it works, right?" And uh similar problem with the heat island question because you you don't have a fully operational system. So we don't know how much heat island you're going to create. Is that correct? Is all this waste heat has to go somewhere. And we've seen thousands of case studies on other hypers scale data centers around the world. You know, they're they're creating heat islands anywhere from four to 16 degrees that reach anywhere from two to six miles. And I mean six mile heat island that would cover downtown that would cover the golf course. I mean that's pretty significant. And we it already gets warm here but we do we have any data from you guys on heat islands? Actually we do. So we've got a full CFD study that we did on on the on everything on the everything we've done to date has full CFDs on it. And so we've got full data on the temperature exact temperature gain that we'd be we'd be putting in. We map it directly with uh prevailing wind data um dependent on and we did it monthly basis. So we've got all that data together and I don't think there's anything there that's too confidential. We could get some of that data out.

Share that with us. I I'll want to make sure we're not getting across any confidentiality stuff. Um earlier you talked about the um uh the water disposal is how every all of the waste water is getting tested and if it doesn't pass the test then you've got to like actually truck it out. Um how much does that cost to truck out the water when it doesn't pass the test? But I'm just comparison. Yeah. Yeah. The cost is is on us and um I don't have the numbers off the top of my head but it is uh because it doesn't happen that frequently. It's just a kind of a a general operations cost that we would incur. Any rough ballpark idea?

I I I don't want to give you a wrong number. Yeah, it but it it's a standard practice. So, it's not it's not an impediment to operations or anything like that. Yeah. I'm just curious how the cost of actually shipping off, you know, bad wastewater would compare to like the fine of oops, we accidentally discharged it. Like like what are the what are what's the scenario look like there? Um well yeah again we would if we don't meet the city's pre treatment ordinance or obtain an irregular discharge permit we won't be discharging. So that's that's just not possible then. Um Right. Yeah. We would we we comply with all laws. Yeah.

Um so and I don't expect you guys to be able to answer this one because it's probably going to fall under some sort of trade secret for like um purchasing agreements. Um, I've done a lot of research on the cooling system that you're describing, and they're very expensive. Um, the best price I've seen for something the size of um um Stampede, for example, is about 450 million, and it's more likely closer to 900 million. And you're committing 700 million to this project. So, is the cooling system really the majority of your cost for the entire data center? I I could at least speak to that 700 million number. So that is a minimum number that we put in the um incentive agreement of a minimum investment that we knew u we could hit right and meet uh and what we don't want to do is overpromise a number. Uh and also a lot of the capex that we spend is going to bas be based on final design, the cooling we do, the customer that comes in. Uh, and a lot of that changes throughout the process until we get something on paper of what we're going to build. Um, so that's a conservative number. Um, as this project progresses, as we choose cooling equipments like this, we will put the capex forward to build the building that is design as designed. Uh, so we we expect that our investment will be above 700 million, but that is the minimum amount that we know will happen. Um we we we we know it's going to be more. We we hope it's more, right? That means more tax revenue uh for the community. Uh and so it probably will be more. I can say it's going to be more than 700 million. Yep.

So So is the cooling system the vast majority of that cost.

I can't speak to break out a cost. Um and in it I not don't have an exact number and I wouldn't want to violate any sort of proprietary thing but what I can say is that the decision to go with that it does come at an extra cost to use that type of system and it's an intentional decision the company makes to balance um our sustainability goals and to be as water efficient as we are. So it is extra money that we incur on purpose because that's the type of developer that we are. If we wanted to do it for less expensive, there are other options out there, but we choose not to use those.

Yeah, the uh less expensive options would actually consume a lot more water, obviously. Um, so just um Yeah. Oh, yes. And just so just for my own memory, when did we first start discussing the uh temple project? How long ago has been has that been nowbody? Like how Sorry. 2025 Temple project the first one. Okay. So, um the cost of these cooling systems have come down substantially in the last couple years. So, that cooling system would have been actually a lot more expensive when you first pitched the project. So, I thought that was kind of odd, too.

I I haven't seen what you're talking about. I don't want to get into exactly how much they are because that is right. But if you're decrease I'm saying I've seen a price decrease over the last two years on these systems because they were a lot more than that a couple years ago. So

that's that's basically what I've got. Uh do y'all have a backup battery storage in your facility also for temporary outages or a spike?

Oh, there it goes. Um depending on which part of the system, yes, they are on what's called a UPS, an uninterruptible power supply. The uninterruptible power supply is by nature a battery backup system and that'll ride through that'll ride through a little bit but yes there are portions of it that are battery backed up. Does that help? And that way we can get to our backup generation system typical of a data center operation. Does that satisfy that? My final question for y'all is your the pamphlet that y'all gave out today mentioned that the water that you're all putting in that with the you're flushing you're doing the things and then it should stay in the system for your planet says 10 years. My question is what thought process has gone through for say in 10 years y'all need to do another flush out recharge done to the system and this area is in a severe drought and that water is not available to you the citizens to y'all what is your contingency plan?

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the question. um it's within a volume that you could truck that water in from somewhere else if absolutely needed. We would hope that wouldn't need to happen. And if that is the entire state because I have seen that in 10 years I've been here where pretty much the entire state is in a severe drought and we're having fires everywhere. Um what is your plan?

That probably to leave it in the system a little bit longer. It wouldn't be like it's it's not binary where it's like one day you can have it in and one day you can have it out. It would just be operating a little bit less efficient and we would wait until there was water availability either from uh the city or from a a way to truck it in. I would suggest before moving forward with your project that you have something in consideration that would go a long way with the citizens of this area that say we understand that this is something that could happen in the future and we have a plan for this. Sure. Yeah. I I I hear you loud and clear and um uh hopefully we were able to address your question. Thank you for that.

I have uh two points I want to make and a point and then a question to the city council. If Rowan doing their due diligence and doing the soil samples, the air samples to protect themselves, how much more important is it for the city of Temple to do that for us, to protect us? I got it. We don't own the land, but we don't have to annex them until they let us do it. They give us permission like we've asked to do this this third party testing. So, we know from the get-go. This is what's in the soil. This is what's in the air. This is what's in the water. Everybody's on the same playing field. So, that's what I'm asking. Will you let us do that? to protect the city like you've protected you. We all want to be protected. My my question my next question is you're the developer. You're going to build this thing. Well, I hope not. But you're going to build this and then you're going to hightail it back to Denver and Australia. Who is actually, since none of us have seen this nebulous contract that hasn't been executed yet, who is going to actually be responsible for all of these things? We're talking about your tenant, this unknown tenant, this this mystery tenant or you? So I think the first question your concern was if the site is contaminated before we purchase it. Is that right? Or

no compare it to after contamination after you guys have been using our water. Oh okay. So you want a environmental picture of the site as it is today. Correct. Yeah. I we talked about that a little bit earlier. I'll take a look at what we can release. Um, we wouldn't move forward with purchasing the site um and taking ownership of any site that was contaminated. I'll say that. So, no, I I I understand. I'll take a look at what we can release.

I mean, that you're I mean, you're a good businessman. I get that. We should we should do the same due diligence for our citizens that you are doing for your stockholders. We are stockholders in the city of Temple and in Bell County. Amen.

We should have the same safeguards in place that you have for you. We should be on the same playing field. I I hope and I pray that nothing goes wrong. None of us wants an environmental disaster like has happened. Yeah, I I think there's um I I'm not an expert on environmental contamination. Uh but I think there's federal regulations uh that stipulate what happens if there is contamination and who owns that, right? the contaminator, whoever owns the site, who produces the contamination owns that and the liability going forward. Um, so that's probably something we can add to the FAQ on the website. Um, and and provide like what the regulations are on that and who how we're held responsible if there is contamination. Uh, there there was a second part of your question that can you remind me? I asked since you're the developer and the builder

and you're going to be gone, who actually has to enforce this nebulous contract that nobody has seen? Uh, your tenant or you? So, uh, Rowan is a developer and a builder of data centers. Uh, we are long-term holders and owners of these assets. So, we s we sign long-term leases with customers and we operate the facility during that lease period. Uh, yeah.

I I just wanted to talk about the contracts that we hold with the city and that we're the ones that hold it and not the tenant. Uh, so maybe Erin, you can talk about that a little bit. Yep. So all the um um dev agreements and incentive agreements we hold as a developer and owner of that asset in the long term. Uh so we're responsible for for meeting the minimums. We're responsible for annual reporting uh of the jobs, the wages, the capex that is spent uh and making sure that we're living up to those agreements that we put into place. And that that's big for us. um for the life of the project.

Uh well, for the life of that agreement, uh so any agreements that are in place, I'm speaking to the agreements only. We'll manage that asset long term. Uh so taking care of it, doing upgrades, making sure it is working for that customer. That falls on us. That risk is on us. So, and that's a big part why we do so much community engagement things like this. We're here long term in the community. You're going to see us coming back, you know, here. We're going to be here once it goes operational after construction. We'll have Rowan individuals here on the ground uh living here uh for the life of the asset. Um so that's important to us. It's why we look for great partnerships uh in some of our you know site analysis that we do early. Um and so that's important to us.

Yes, sir. Uh, Robert Fleming, I'm trying to get this amount of water kind of in my head here in the type of water. So, we got a one time slug is 2 and a half million gallons. So, we have four data centers. So, that would be 10 million gallons, right? Am I Am I doing this right? If they were all the same size, you would be, but the answer is that's the biggest one and the ones after that are smaller. So, they're actually less.

Okay. So, the type of the water in the slug. Now I got I got in trouble for using the ugly word. So that type of water is is cleaned doer water. Correct. Is it is it clean sewer water? It's portable. Sorry. Can you have it? It would uh come from the portable system. Yes. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. Explain to me. I'm I'm confused. Potable. That's the That's That's the clean water. Oh, yeah.

The clean water from the Doerre area. Yes. the same well same water that shows up well you I think you mentioned you live east of the but if you're if you're on city of temple water service it would be the same water that shows up at the house in the city of temple there's no interconnectivity between this okay so it's it's it the drinking water has never been through the dozer services right never has okay so it it's drinking water huh Huh? If it's coming from dozer, it's not drinking. So, it's not coming from dozer. No, it's coming It's coming from the water meter. Dozer is the end of the line when it gets clean.

Yeah. Okay. So, this is this is water meter. Water meter. Water, right, David? Okay, that's a good way to think about it. Okay. So, so the secondary loop is 1 million gallons and it's water that's hauled in, right? Idiz water or something. You said it's hauled in water. Fluid and it's hauled in. It's hauled in. That'd be 200 truckloads. Y

Okay. So, this 4,000 gallons a day times three data centers, that's 12,000 gallons a day times a year, that's 4 and a half million gallons per year. Now, is that water is that water drinking water or is it dozer water? So, all of this is dozer water. I mean, all of it is drinking water. All of it's drinking water. Yes. So, no lake belt and water. It's all lake belt and water. It's never had any contaminants in it. You I I enjoyed our conversation around ASR also, but forget about it. None of that has anything to do with this

today. Today. Today. Okay. So, it's all drinking water. Yeah, we will we are required to supply drinking water to our employees or to the folks that would be at at the facility. We it will not be rec it will not be I think you might be thinking of like a reclaim system um that would not at our facility sometimes in other areas that can be applied for other uses like outdoor irrigation the water the water that's trucked in is not city of temple water I realize that okay

so we're looking at 4 and a half million gallons uh two two and a half million gallons and could be multiple times so we're looking at six six 7 million gallons of of water initially or 4 and a.5 million gallons per year and 2 and a half million gallons initially, right? For the first one. For the first one, the other three could be less per unit. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just say four million gallons. And all this is drinking water. Okay. All right.

So, we're talking about a lot more water to We're talking about a lot more water now when we're talking than just the annexation of this particular acreage and this one unit. You're talking about all data centers whenever they come online. Exactly. Understood. Because I think everybody's worried about water. So, it's not just this one they're worried about. It's it's all of them consuming that water. Okay.

I do Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. We we had major droughts in Texas in 2011, 2015, and 2022. Y'all are probably well aware of that. Okay. In 22 alone, Steelhouse Holla in Belton Lake was at roughly 60% or less of its capacity. I think got down to about 57% of its capacity, water capacity. Okay. I guarantee you, you wouldn't you wouldn't have sold this to anybody, right? in in in 2022.

But but remember and I I know you know but that water whenever it came into the system if we drop the water in there today and this is 2026. We're talking about 2040 before in between now and 2040 we may have two or three droughts but that water that we gave them today is still in their system operating their system today. So you know again perspective yeah is that that water sits there a long time it it understand whenever you do the math I understand

whenever you do the math actually somebody do the math two and a half million gallons of water one time if it lasts 15 years how many gallons 400 gallons a day for employ

we we have a pretty good idea of how many times it takes I I believe it's four to six flushes to and it and it's not it's not it's not the mult how many data centers is that based on um I mean it's based off of all the data centers that one operation there are there are the data centers like this that are in operation that use very similar systems that these uh calculations are based off of I I don't have the exact number hundreds okay hundreds hundreds yes hundreds hundreds that are hundreds that are currently operational.

So, I I I do want to just say that the the num the numbers are known. They they are um for the industrial loops. It's really just based off of geometry uh the volume of the loop the the the number of cycles it will be between four and six. And so that's why we provided a range. Yeah. The on the um So, wait a second. That's based on the size of the pipes and things like that, right? That's right. Yeah. Okay. But that's not based on your other systems that you're currently managing. Uh we we do have other systems or we have other data centers. Yes.

Um as uh Steve said, we have another one that's in development, but these types of systems have been uh deployed around the country and around the world. I just want to ask one thing. Where are you guys all from? Because I have a feeling that you're cities that do not allow such as we have nine right now.

Doesn't make any difference to an air system. Nope. An air cooled system does not use wet at all because AC because you're bringing in air that's latent. We don't outside.

Okay. All right. It's time to move on. I I got one. I got the mic in my hand. I got one question. One more question. I'm gonna quit. I'm having my head getting my head. So, if this thing popped up, we built all three of at one time, we could use 15 million gallons at once. Is that correct? 14 or 15 million. If we built all three or four of them at one time, would we we could use if it all came online, we could use 15 million gallons. You mean like in the first year? Yeah. The first start? Yeah, the first year.

I I guess I it's getting a little bit late, so I'm not going to run the mental math right now. But it it it's 2 million gallons for the initial fill. That water recirculates for approximately 10 years, and then it's 4,000 gallons per day. And th that type of number is for what I'm we call employee facilities. It would be whether it's a data center or like a a a new shopping center that would come in town or a fast food restaurant I think was referenced earlier. Uh it's really just based off of employee count. So it's it's just proportional to the number of jobs yet. How how many the size of the data center that's proposed on on this track of land, how many square feet is under roof or how many how many cubic yards of concrete are you going to put on that place?

Um I I don't have that number. I I do want to just ask the mayor because he did say he I think wanted to try to get the discussion back on to the items seven and eight that we kind of got. Yeah. I mean, this is this is um it's becoming argumentative and it's becoming I mean, Joe Joe back there, Joe, I love you, but you're price shopping um cooling systems, which isn't really relevant to what these guys are talking about now. We're talking about cubic yards of concrete, which isn't really relevant. We're talking about Tim, it's actually relevant because the amount of infrastructure that's going to be built is going to really tax the road system in in Bell County. Well, and on on their side, it's going to be a lot of concrete.

Yep. And then whenever when and if they have a leak, that water is going to run out on the concrete and they're going to suck it up. I'm not worried about talking about soil samples. I'm worried about the damage to the local infrastructure that all of these citizens are going to drive and commute on every day. Okay. The damage done to the roads. Okay. Who who is responsible for the damage? Are y'all going to help pave the roads like supposedly the solar system said they were going to do but they didn't? Because the contracts in your abatement or your contract with them. Did you figure any of that in?

You know, I don't I don't know the answer to that. That would if it's not in the contract, it would be the city's responsibility to because those will be those will be local roads.

Well, I would be concerned about that because I go on a little stretch of road to work every day on the South White Hall Road where y'all annex some land of the city that's really nothing but farmland, but you know that it was coming out west of the airport, so y'all wanted it. But that that road does get no attention from the city virtually. Very very unpassable. And if that's the way you're going to handle the road structure, I think that needs to be addressed because it is a major issue. There will be hundreds of trucks hauling fuel in, won't it? thousands of trucks may

and a lot of them will end up hauling some of that back out on roads that needed to be put in temporarily that no longer need to be built.

Mayor, I know this was also asked earlier and I just wanted to point out that in the um in the zoning ordinance, one of the conditions um reads as follows. Traffic impacts required submittal. Prior to the issuance of a plat, the company shall prepare and submit a preliminary traffic impact study to the city for review to evaluate the need for a traffic impact analysis. The preliminary traffic study shall be prepared by a qualified licensed traffic engineer and shall comply with all applicable city standards and guidelines. The preliminary study shall include at a minimum existing and projected traffic volumes for the surrounding roadway network, trip generation estimates specific to data center operations including peak construction as well as operational phases. Evaluation of site access points, internal circulation and emergency vehicle access. Analysis of impacts to the nearby intersections and roadway sections, including level of service and identification of any required roadway, intersection or signalization improvements necessary to maintain acceptable traffic operations and safety. If the preliminary study calls for a full TIA, a final TIA will be provided at a building per at building permit submission and include an analysis identifying deficiencies or adverse impacts. The developer shall be responsible for funding or constructing all necessary off-site and on-site transportation improvements as approved by the city. No certificate of occupancy shall be issued until all required transportation improvements have been completed or financially guaranteed to the fat satisfaction of the city.

Here's your answer.

Y not the state was paying for that. The city was paying for that. pass that $2 million where the last meeting that we had something in your budget. I don't I don't think it's relevant to this project, but it was on the same road. It was part of the infrastructure. Yes. For Hartrick Bluff,

but the city paid for it, right? I guess so.

That's Yeah, completely different area. Okay.

That's that's that standard.

Oh, you can go ahead. Um, I was going to ask, um, if it turns out that, um, we've overinvested in this infrastructure in general, like the AI bubble pops and maybe you don't get a tenant. Um, who who's liable for that kind of failure? Okay. Can you hear me? Okay. Uh yeah, this is a totally private investment. So, uh any failure in the business is owned by Ron. Um I do feel like um a lot of the questions have been mostly surrounded around like um they've been very specific like what what if this fails but I wanted to ask what makes you feel confident enough in this project and in these sim systems you're speaking about because as was kind of mentioned before you guys don't really have a long-term I I suppose you don't really have a long-term um what's the word for like example of this on this on this type of scale. So what what exactly makes you confident that these like everything you're speaking about is going to be like operational in the way that you're you're explaining to us successful.

Yeah, it's peer systems. We have peers, right? There's about 180 data center developers around the world and bunch of them are in the America in the United States and so a lot of them have done this already. Some of the hyperscalers have done this already. So we've seen this from our peers and then in addition to that we've already performed some of the factory witness tests. So we've seen this the systems tested for example at at an in an ambient chamber where we brought it up to 135 degrees and said hey does this thing function? And and so it's a combination of testing and what our peers have done. Does that help? This might be a city question or road question. In case of contractual failure, is there a tax clawback policy written into the contract?

Yeah, I can take that. Yes, there is. So, if we um either fail to make the investment, uh we we don't get to start the incentive. So, you got to meet the um you got to meet the minimum capex to start the incentive and go operational. Um and then the jobs, you have to you have to maintain those jobs for the life of the agreement. Uh should you and we annually report that u in exhibits that we have within that agreement. uh should we fail to do that at any time through that 10-year period, that money gets clawed back uh all of the incentives. Um so that that's kind of how it is in the agreement.

I have a question for y'all now. So you brought up the water flush and that would need to be done about four to six times. Are you able to reuse the same water for those flushes or do you have to use new water every single time? Yeah, it's uh so those flushes, it's uh I guess a new stream of water and that how that's how the summation gets up to around uh two to well 2 million for the system and 500,000 for the fire suppression system. Fire suppression system, I should clarify, isn't flushed. That's just a fill up the tank and then it's it's there for in case of an emergency that we open. Okay. So that is included in the total amount of water. That's correct. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. I have another question and it's about how many megawws specifically project ranger will consume. Is that confidential?

Okay. Because uh from what I've seen a lot of data centers take up about 600 megawws per facility. Now I know this isn't the biggest facility but it's still a facility. it will still take up about 600 megawws. Even with our solar panels, we will take up we have a reserve of around 500 megawws during the winter and 700 megawws during the summer. That is a concern. Where's the extra power going to come from?

So, kind of going back to that load study. So, Encore looked at uh the load we requested uh and they confirmed that they can deliver that load via their transmission. Uh and they also that'll be new load that'll be new capacity. Yep. And then Urkott looks at that and confirms that they can provide the generation or the actual power from generation that Urkott has. Um and and so that's the combination of that power getting delivered. I guess I looked up.

I'm sorry. Just a second, mayor, before we continue anymore. I'm going to try one more time. Um we are well off the um agenda item and we have been for quite a while and I know there has been a lot of discussion in the audience about the desire for the city to follow the laws and since the open meeting act does require us to keep our topics on on topic and on the agenda I just need to point that out one more time. Um there is still citizen comments upcoming where people can talk about whatever they want but I am concerned that we have been well off the agenda topic

and I understand that and I agree. Also, um it's been my intention this whole time to be sure that everyone um has has an opportunity uh states their states their concerns, have those answered, um you know, at a reasonable level. And and I think that we've accomplished that tonight. And we have we have we got here at 5:00. We were pro we probably started on this item at no later than 5:30, probably more like 5:15. So we are 6 hours and 15 minutes into this. And um and it's uh again I I think Rowan has done a bangup job. They flew they flew folks out here to uh to give information and um and we appreciate that and I think that it's I don't know that continuing this is going to bring any more clarity or any more satisfaction to anybody and so um so I am uh I'm I'm fine with with moving on. So

no ma'am. Okay. I mean, we've been we've been doing this five and a half hours. One more question I don't think is going to move the needle on anything. So, with that, thank you um everyone that's participated. Thank you to the residents. Thank you to the Rowan team very much. Um, so council with that all of that conversation I will entertain a motion on pardon I have to close the public hearing. Thank you Allan talking about being audited. I will uh close the public hearing on item uh on items seven and eight and council I'll entertain a motion on item seven.

I move to approve item seven. Um, I want to second, but before that, I want to say if we just to the council, if we don't approve item seven, then we can't do item eight, which is all the stuff that we want to tell Rowan that they can't do. Basically, the stuff the sound mitigation and all of that if they're not in our city, we can't do that part. And much like the the uh solar panels that everybody doesn't like that the county couldn't stop, I don't know of anything that says they couldn't just build it in the county. and we don't get to do any of these things and try to stop them from being allowed and and uh all of that other stuff. So, um so with that, I'll second the motion.

All right, councel. I have a motion by Mayor uh I'm sorry, by um Councilman Kirkindall. I have a second by Councilman Pilington. Council, please cast your vote. Carl and I are stuck.

Yeah, I think our system set too long. They have answers for all those questions. All right. Item seven passes four votes yes, one vote no, I'm sorry, four votes yes, zero votes no, and one abstension. Item eight, uh, council, I'll entertain a motion on item eight.

Move we approve item eight. I'll second it. We have a motion by council member Kirkindall. We have a second by Mayor Pro Tim Walker. Item 8 passes. Four votes yes. zero votes no and one abstension. Moving on to item nine is to consider adopting an ordinance authorizing a resoning request from light industrial to commercial to neighborhood services on 0.51 plus or minus acres in Northwest Hills first extension replat lots 5 and 6 block 12 city of Temple Bell County Texas addressed is 2202 Salsbury Drive. Mayor I think you get me.

Okay, let her go. So, uh, mayor and council, thank you. This is a, uh, proposed zoning change from, uh, light in industrial and commercial to neighborhood services. Uh, the location is 2202 Salsbury Drive. Um, so you can see here uh, on the screen the current zoning map. Um, this property is split between two current uh, zoning districts. And then you can see the location map. It's located just off Salsbury Drive um and is adjacent to um the uh Temple Community Gardens. This um uh use has historically been a daycare. Um it has been used as a daycare since the 1970s. Um at some point uh in the past the day the the daycare facility closed, the previous owner vacated the property and so uh the proposal now is for a a new daycare to be opened. But because that use was abandoned um and it was not compliant with the commercial and light industrial zoning district, this property needs to be reszoned and la in order to allow that daycare use to be reestablished in that facility. Again, it's been a daycare uh since the 70s and that's the continued proposed use for this facility. It is consistent with um the Northwest Hills neighborhood uh planning district plan, which is um the neighborhood district that this uh particular property is located in. Um the hours of operation for the facility would be 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and it would be for children. It would serve children from six months old to uh five years old. uh our uh uni unified development code does have certain uh limitations uh listed uh uh requirements listed for daycare facilities. You can see their uh

those on the screen. Uh they include uh uh construction and safety standards uh to protect uh the young uh clients of the facility. This uh is this request is compliant with our comprehensive plan. You can see here um adjacent photos. Again, the uh the current facility has been used as a daycare for a long time. It is adjacent to the Temple Community Garden to the east. There is some um apartment complexes to the west. There is water and sewer available to serve the site. Um the thoroughfare plan shows Salsbury Drive as a neighborhood collector. Um and that is an appropriate uh thoroughfare for a daycare uh facility to be located on. We did provide 17 notices uh sent out to surrounding property owners uh within 200 ft of the resoning uh request. We received one response in agreement, one response in disagreement, and the notice of the hearing was published in the Temple Daily Telegram on March 26, 2026. There's your compliance summary. It is compliant with the future development plan, the surrounding uses and zoning. There are public facilities available to support the request. It's compliant with our thoroughfare plan and the neighborhood plan. Staff does recommend approval of the resoning request from commercial and light industrial to neighborhood services. PNZ reviews it reviewed this request at their April 6, 2026 meeting and they also recommend approval of the resoning request. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. This is subject to a public hearing.

Thank you, Miss Myers. Council. Anything uh any questions for Miss Myers? Not any questions, just a statement that we did when we're going over the neighborhood plan. We did talk about sidewalks in that area. I think that's really important and possibly some striping across the street since Little Blue Stem Park is close by. Staff will certainly look into that and we talked about that a little bit in the workshop as well. So Aaron is on that. Very good. Anything else? All right. Item eight subject to a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this item may do so. Ask you step to the podium and state your name.

Alan L. live here in Temple and attended the planning and zoning. This is absolutely the best thing that could happen there. As you saw in the pictures, there's an apartment complex just to the west and and obviously a great place for these folks in the apartment complexes to house their children. So, thank you for approving it. Bet. Anyone else? All right. With that, I will close the public hearing. Council, I'll entertain a motion on item nine. I'll make a motion to approve. Second.

We have a motion by Mayor Proim Walker. We have a second by Council Member Pilington. Item nine passes, five votes to zero. Item 10 reads, uh, it's first reading of public hearing to consider adopting an ordinance establishing a speed limit of 45 miles per hour from the 5600 block of South 31st Street to the 6,800 block of South 31st Street.

Mayor and Council, this is a request to consider um reducing the speed limit on this section of 30 of South 31st Street um to 45 miles per hour. Due to uh the development along South 31st Street, we are seeing uh additional traffic volume and higher density of access points along uh this stretch of roadway. Staff feels that the safety of re residents navigating these new driveways and intersections would be served uh best served by a speed reduction. Uh the current speed limit is uh 50 miles per hour. Uh we as as council uh is aware uh 31st street is actually a text highway or a text dot road. So uh they actually uh control what the speed limit would be. Uh so uh we go through the process that they require us to do. Um we requested a traffic study be done uh by them in accordance with their process. Uh they did so and uh did uh find that this uh recommended speed limit was appropriate. Uh they do also require the local governing body to approve uh the request before it can be implemented. So we are here tonight seeking um a public hearing on that request and then your consideration uh before sending that back to text dot for implementation if you uh so um if if that is your desire. Um this is roughly between the uh intersection of S drive slow drive rather and 93 would would be the reduced area. I'd be happy to answer any questions. This is also subject to a public hearing.

Thank you council. Anything for Miss Myers and her presentation. All right, I'll open the uh public hearing on item 10. Please step to the podium and state your name. Alan Lidle and I actually traveled this portion of 31st Street many many times and I appreciate the 45 but honestly that's not going to make a heck of a lot of difference anyway we can convince them the text to drop it to 35 that would be much best bet I'm disappointed in you as a Texan wanting to lower a speed limit we don't we don't really do that well only on city streets

oh Okay. Police department might appreciate that. All right. Very good. Um, thank you. Anybody else? All right. At this time, I'll close the public hearing. Uh, and council, I will entertain a motion on item 10. I move to approve item 10 is one step towards what Allan wants at least. So, second.

We have a motion by Council Member Pilington. We have a second by Council Member Kirkindall. Council, please cast your vote. Item 10 passes five votes to zero. We are now going to move to the public comment section uh of this meeting. And um first up is uh is it is it Keith Gilbertson? About three. Keith stood up before. No Keiths.

How are you? I'll need to see your driver's license to No, you bet. Go ahead. Thank you. Can I have your social?

Good evening. Thank you for your time. My name is Nell Newbie and I live in district one of Temple. I was given a letter by someone in the room who um is really shy and has a written out typed out note for all of you. So, that's what I'm going to do right now is express this constituent's uh feelings, which you all have heard graciously all evening long, because we do have a voice, and we thank you that you're allowing us this evening to use our voice. Good evening, council members. Temple residents are being asked to trust city leadership with yet another major expans expansion pro uh project despite repeated evidence that this city is already struggling to manage the growth it has. Let me be clear. I oppose these data center projects and I urge this council to reject them. Temple is under drought conditions and it's only April. Our infrastructure is strained. Our roads need work. City services have struggled to keep pace with the growth already approved. Yet despise despite these realities, city leadership continues pushing expansion at all costs as if growth itself is the goal regardless of whether the city can responsibly support it. Temple has demonstrated that it cannot effectively expand while maintaining the infrastructure and services residents already rely on. And residents do notice.

We notice when taxes go up while the city spends public money on failed vanity projects like a music festival many locals could not afford to attend with little benefit to local vendors and economic projections that fell far short. We notice when the city discusses new bonds for infrastructure that should have been maintained proactively in the first place. We notice when leadership appears more focused on attracting outside investments than addressing the needs of the people who already live here. We notice when the city's health care plan is routed through the mayor's own company, structured under his son, creating at minimum the appearance of a conflict of interest and reinforcing concerns about inside decisionmaking. We notice when a city council member's son serves on planning and zoning alongside a former council woman with criminal record tied to misuse of city and county resources, raising serious concerns about oversight, accountability, and public trust in the development process. And we notice when developers seek approval, begin handing out grants throughout the community while asking for public support, creating at minimum the appearance of influence buying, whether intentional or not. At some point, residents are justified in asking who is the city government working for, developers or the people of Temple? Economic development is not automatically good development. And when it comes to these data centers

specifically, the concerns are not theoretical. These facilities place heavy demands on water and utilities. While developers often point to closed loop cooling systems as a solution, those systems are not as efficient in practice as they are presented, especially in hot climates. They will require substantial water input and losses through evaporation and maintenance or unavoidable. When growth threatens our water security, burdens our utilities, strains infrastructure, and comes from a process residents do not trust. The responsible answer is not quote unquote approve it anyway. The responsible answer is no. I urge this council to reject these data center proposals and begin prioritizing the needs, trust, and quality of Temple residents over unchecked expansion. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry, I failed to say whenever um whenever I called the first person up that um public comments is limited to three minutes. We ask that you keep it uh very close to that. Okay. So, I gave you a little extra time because I didn't tell you. I didn't know.

I know. I know. So, Stacy Gordon. Thanks for letting me speak today. I'm sure everybody's seen my sign, but this is my brother, Billy Gordon. I've worked alongside and have very close relationships with some of the city of Temple police department, city officials, and Bell County for over 27 years. I helped start the actual first meeting of the police department and all property managers in Temple to get our stat reports and help crime come down with monthly meetings. Baskerville, Mueller, Praau, countless others, Lopez. I would strategically place officers around my community to deter crime. Constable served my evictions and rid of possessions, etc. So, my point is is that I am not here to bash police officers or my city of Temple. I'm very knowledgeable also of who my servants are in this community. I'm also here not to demean our officers, but deescalation is key. Mental health is a very prominent problem. The waiting list for Scott and White to get an appointment is over nine and a half to 12 months. One in five people in this room in in the United States has a mental health problem. There are nine members on this board, one of you has a problem. Whether it's depression, mental illness, um anything. I struggle with depression myself and I'm not afraid to say so. What I'm here for is for justice and not even justice because justice will be served by God at the end of the day. I am here to raise awareness.

Let me continue before I get off track. So my point is not to demean officers. Deescalation and mental health officers that are certified in the area to deal with welfare calls is what I'm advocating for. The system that we have in place is not working. Look at the deaths. Do your research, Temple. Do your research. Every officer you see here in this room, including the chief, the well ex-chief, they have a sworn duty to protect life. My brother was a member of this community for over 40 years. And most of Temple PD remembers him. Carpenter, I believe it, not Carpenter. Um, Glover, you remembered him. You told me. And listen, if I were to hear of a gentleman being tased to death while seated on the floor from behind, I would think that he would have done something. I really do. I would have been like, "Man, there's got to be something this guy did. He came at somebody." I want you to hear the only words my brother spoke as he was encountered by the police for a welfare call. He was not a suspect of any crime whatsoever. The first Never mind, I will not speak that word. I will say my brother said the first time that anything touched his body that went said I love you son. The second time the he said I love you Jesus. The third and fourth time my brother said I love you man. I love you man. The fifth time he said why'd you kill me is all the breath left in the body. I didn't understand the two I love you mans. I really didn't. My black old friend, Miss Hazel, looks at me and said, "Baby, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven with unforgiveness in your heart." And it was for Officer Timothy Lawrence and Officer William

Nasser. Tim Davis, sir, you told me you told this room, the last meeting on March 19th, that the reason you have not they have not released the body cam footage is because the family has not has asked for it to be released. That is simply not true. I've actually sent a personal email to the Temple Police Department and asked you guys, there are numerous requests, pup foyer requests by myself and many others in this room, including news stations and everyone. Make sure that you are giving reliable and true answers and correct information when answering questions regarding the release of body cam footage. If there's nothing to hide, why not release it? What's the problem? What is standing in the way? I notice a trend in this room with transparency. Mayor Tim Davis, you stated on April 9th, 2021 while running for office that you serve in you serve in a mission leadership role at Western Hills, which you also um verified today out of your mouth and you asked the community to allow you quote to serve us. This is your opportunity for Billy, for the data centers, for everyone in this room for their concerns. We are a voice and we are people just like you. I'm almost done. This could be your family member. No matter the outcome, I want it made very clear. God has the final say. Not Tim Davis, not any nine people on this board. No matter the outcome of the lawsuit that we currently have against the City of Temple Police Department, God has the final say. When you lay your head on that pillow at night, you're the only one left with yourself and your thoughts. I pray that you do what's right and honorable. Stand up for what's right. It's your duty. Besides, you'll stand up before God and you will answer for every account of your life, your actions, and your stewardship. That is Romans 14:10-12. Thank you for allowing me to speak. You can contact me on Facebook, Stacy Anne,

and Justice for Billy Gordon. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Jenna Hall, Jenna Hale, Jenna Hall. Uh Sarah Royer.

Okie do. Sounds good. Adam Pers, is that right? P R Yes. Put someone on deck. Oh yeah. David Sufall. David, you still here? You're you're good. Okay.

Hello, my name is Adam Pyers. I'm a resident here in Temple. Um, for about the past over a year now, I've been trying to get the footage that Stacy mentioned uh through a foyer request. Um, I got to say this city has been the most difficult of uh getting my foyer requests uh complied with. Um, I want I want you the residents to know what happened to Billy. Okay? So, I'm going to read you something here. Now, you've complied with a lot. You've given me a lot, but I have more than just that. And I know what's on the body camera. All right. That's the only thing I want right now at this point. It's the only thing that I don't have is the two body camera footages. That's it. And right now you're currently claiming a privacy exemption for the tenant of the apartment that the death occurred in. But you don't even give a about his uh privacy because you doxed him to me in in the the previous release. I have his name, his full name, I have his full address, and I even have his phone number. Now I have to redact that before I release anything publicly. Anyways, I'm going to read to you guys what the incident was per the Texas Rangers investigator report.

Stay within a minute 40.

Yeah. Um, yeah. At 12:10 p.m. on October 3rd, 2024, the 911 call was received. 12:13 p.m., Corporal Timothy Lawrence, Officer William Na Nasser were dispatched. 12:18 p.m. First unit arrived on scene. 12:19 p.m. 12:19 and 19 seconds p.m. Lawrence and Nasser entered the apartment and uh yeah, at 12:20, 40 seconds afterwards, Lawrence did what's called an arc warning where he dryfired the taser. Right. 40 seconds after arriving on scene, Billy was not a perfect person. He was overweight. He was disabled. He was amputated recently, about a month previously, had his foot removed. Yeah. So, at 12:20 exactly was the arc warning. At 1220 and 9 seconds, the first full deployment. This is per the taser logs that I read. 12209 first taser deployment. 1220 and 18 seconds. Second full deployment. 1220 and 27 seconds. Third deployment. 1222 in two seconds was the fourth and final deployment which was more than likely the one that actually killed him. Now, my background when I was in the military was I was a gunner's mate. And one of the things that I know like the back of my hand is use of force.

And I can already tell you just based on the logs, just that alone, this was not a reasonable use of force. This was an excessive This was excessive force. And I can guarantee you that when Stacy takes you guys to court, you're going to lose. big and you're going to have to pay out more than if you just settled. You're you're you're spending all these resources trying to fight this. And I don't I don't want to be here just like a lot of these other people don't want to be here. I'd rather be at home landscaping my property and enjoying my early retirement. But I I I have not been able to let this go because you just won't be transparent and just release the footage. And and I'm also going to let you know that the privacy exemption that you're you're claiming for the person that that was the tenant of that apartment, public interest can outweigh the privacy. There's actually a law on it. I don't have it off the top of my head, but there is actually a law. So, you can choose to quit giving these exemptions on the foyer request and sending it up to to to Ken Paxton. You can choose to not do that and release it because there is public attention on this. There's public interest in this and it outweighs the privacy of the tenant. So, you guys just got to quit playing these games. just reopen my foyer request, reopen it, and send me the body cam. You already sent me the dash cams. I have the the the call logs. I've got the 911 call recording, and I even got a hold of obviously not from you, but the Texas Rangers investigative report, which tells you basically everything. So, either I'm going to make a video about this one way or another, and I don't know how many views it's going to

get. Sometimes I've had things get tens of millions of views and sometimes only a couple hundred views. But I'm going to make the video on this regardless. And if I can't include that little bit of information that that body cam because you're refusing to release it based on everything else that I have that I'm going to present to the public, it looks really bad on the city council. It looks very, very bad. And it seems like with what's going on with the data center, you're you all are pretty much on thin ice. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Evelyn Valley Bali. B- A L I

Mr. Fleming Larry. Uh, is it Greor Anz Cobb? Joe Royer. Hello again. You know me, I'm usually off the cuff. I don't normally bring uh notes. So, we heard from Rowan tonight, and I know I got a little bit off of topic, but it was really great to have an opportunity to ask a lot of these questions.

I I enjoyed that thoroughly, and you get that five seconds back. Thank you.

Um, but at the end of the day, um, they're giving us guesses. I mean, there's some there's some engineers working on this. There's some highly educated guesses, but they're still guesses. like this is they don't have a working example on this scale. Now, if this was the very first data center they were trying to build in Temple and they had gave us a bunch of really good educated guesses, this might be an interesting conversation. But the fact that you guys would actually approve a third or fourth build when they haven't even finished the first one and they don't know for sure that any of this is going to work the way they think. That's just irresponsible. I'm very disappointed. And I have to say, I mean, with all the stuff that's been going on, and I'm sure everybody's heard the news and read the paper and whatnot, I I'm just generally sad about this whole situation. I mean, it's not personal, right? We we've tried to work with you. I mean, we've spent months on this is what going on three months now. Um, also, I'm I'm curious. I know you don't have to respond, but you said you did not sign a non-disclosure with Meta. That's interesting because I've heard testimony to the contrary of that. So, there's some more investigation to happen there.

Pardon? Okay. The city has Well, what I saw was that we now have proof that Tim Davis signed. That was that was the testimony I heard, too.

Interesting. But when we started this whole data center investigation, um, it was I don't know if we sounded friendly enough, but it was pretty friendly. We thought we were helping you guys out, right? We thought you needed us to come make some noise so that you could save face and reverse your decision. Like, we really thought we were helping. And then you doubled down like, "No, we're going to do this. We're going to push these through and we're going to push these through as fast as we can." And so then I started thinking maybe you're just not that smart or maybe you don't have time to do proper due diligence. And so we kept building data. We kept doing the research and presenting more and more stuff for you to consider and still nothing. And several people asked me early in this process, do you think our city council is corrupt? And I said, no, absolutely not. Like I I've met a lot of these people on a personal level. Like I don't believe that for a second. I think they're misinformed. I think they're not doing enough due diligence but not corrupt. Now, this is what really makes me sad. Someone suggested that we do more homework. And that was a really bad idea because now I've learned a lot of things that I really wish I didn't know, like things I never wanted to know. And I was crushed to find out that I was wrong. So, I I don't want to do the recall. I don't want to see your names dragged through the mud. So, please, for the sake of the community, for the sake of all of our experiences, please just resign.

Thank you, Joe. Uh, Boil, is that right? Boil. B Y L E S. It looks like from this handwriting. No. Uh, Jose Martinez. I don't see Jose. Casey Sandman. Casey. Nicholas Stone. Mayor. Well, Mr. Stone is walking up. Um, I do have the answer to the question about um the release of the body cam video that Mr. Py asked about.

And I just wanted to pull up the statute and make sure it's correct. But um if a recording if a body cam video is made within a private space, it cannot be released unless there is written authorization from the subjects who were recorded. And so it's my understanding that the owner of the apartment did not release um agree with the release and so we are not able by law to release that video. Okay. Does that does that require does does that require a signature from that person that would say I do not

allow or I I I I do not acquies to the release unless we have a written statement that they do agree with the release then we cannot release it. So silence doesn't equal consent in this case. the the comment from the speaker that sometimes public interest overrides the personal interest. That may be the case, but it doesn't override the law. We have to follow the law. Mr. Stone,

thank you again. Okay. Thank you again, council, for the uh time to speak with you today. I will try to be brief. I'm aware I only have three minutes. I'm going to speak very, very briefly on the data center. I I think we've all heard enough on it. We've kind of gone around in circles. Um I think you've been given if you're if you did not see a valid reason to deny it if you were approving it because hey that that is a I'm not going to deny it. It is a lot of money for the city and you know when Rowan's presenting the data, I'm sure that there are not a lot of reasons to say no. But the many many citizens that came to spoke today that you know spoke for over 6 hours on this topic alone today um I hopefully has made clear that there are many reasons to reject it. And now as um councilman uh Pilington I believe uh even stated at one point you know uh the city doesn't have any say if it remains in the county. So, I can even um understand annexing and even reszoning that land so that the city does have more say. However, I do think uh the council should seriously consider still rejecting resolution 11 in regards to approving the development plan for that particular data center. We have given you moral reasons. We have given you environmental reasons. Rowan has given you one reason and it's money. And I understand and I'm not saying to you personally, but to the city. And I understand that is a lot of money for the city and Temple's a city that doesn't have a lot of money to spare, but I I think the citizens have made it very clear that we would rather make our own way without the money from Rowan. And you have many many many reasons to say no. And the only reason you've been given to say yes is money. So I I just please consider those other reasons. And I know how tight the budget is, but please please consider how else this will affect the citizens. Um, so the other thing I wanted to touch on that took a little longer than I thought was decorum and and I'm not actually coming for the council on this one. Uh, so you

guys have a very hard job. Uh, you're volunteers. Uh, none of you are paid to be here. You've spent your entire I'm sure you guys probably all worked all day and you spent your entire evening sitting here just getting yelled at basically. And that can't be fun. So, um, unlike some of my other constituents, I don't I don't fault you at all for having a reaction to what we're saying. It's got to be hard to have people coming up here telling you everything you're doing is wrong, that you're a liar, that every choice you've ever made is bad. And I'm not saying that. I don't have any personal animus towards the council or towards the gentleman from Rowan, I have no personal animus. Um, however, I I am just very passionate about my city. I even if this is my first council meeting, I have attended and I am very, you know, passionate about uh protecting that city and protecting its environment, protecting its citizens. And I think the best thing to do for that is to reject that. Um, and then just last note on the decorum. Uh, so I did before I came to the meeting, I did try to find a written code of conduct or rules of decorum for city council meetings and could not find one. Uh, and I could tell that there were a few times where the council was trying to kind of bring things back into focus and there was a lot of struggle and a lot of push back from the audience. I believe just written rules of procedure or you know rules of decorum would go a long way to kind of keeping things more civil in the future. Um so I'm sorry for how late this meeting has gone but I thank the council for their time and I hope you guys have a good night.

Very good. Thank you sir.

Absolutely. Uh, Larry Quick, ratio Marquez, Penny, uh, is it Bowen, Bowie, Whitney, Tero, Good evening. Um, mayor and council. I'm Whitney Tero. I'm the president of the Temple Chamber. I'm also a resident of Temple. Um, want to thank you guys for the opportunity to be here this evening. Um, even though it's been a long evening. Um, I have a um comments that are kind of contrary to what has been said this evening. And um, good or bad, it is what it is. But it's it's on uh principles of uh free enterprise is is where I stand um being the president of the chamber of commerce and that's where I'm coming from. Um Temple has been shaped by long-term really intentional um businessled decisions and those decisions have not been easy. So you're you're talking about the sighting of the interstate and the creation of the lakes and um you know things that were really monumental to what we have today in terms of success for our community. Those were made by people who sat on this dis and people who sat in rooms similar to these made hard decisions. And um they were thinking about the future of the community. From that perspective, they were also

looking to see what was going to keep local businesses strong and our economy moving forward. So again, more of a long-term thought. And that didn't include just big business. It included businesses of all sizes. So that includes small businesses, locally owned businesses, and large employers. So an investment like this that's being proposed by Rowan um item 11 that is um yeah it's not going to create a large number of jobs but um it strengthen strengthens tax base and we've already talked about all these things in terms of the infrastructure roads and public safety in terms of um those sort of things but we didn't talk about how that decreases the cost of the burden on residents and small businesses. So that paying into those coffers helps reduce the cost for us and for other small businesses. Um, so having that strong economy, that ecosystem, if you will, again, from the free market, free enterprise standpoint of capitalism, um, it's not just built on one project. Temple's got a diverse economy and an investment like this, it's not going to bring jobs, but it brings stable funding and it matters. Um, We need to be thinking long-term impact. Yes, there's environmental concerns and the water which I think all of those have been addressed very well tonight. I know that the long term in terms of this maybe the um test case proven test cases haven't been

been done yet. But we also have the opportunity be to be part of what is the future. Um, so that's how we can support local business and keep our economy strong. Thank you. Thank you,

Jamie Williams. Mike O'Donnell, Delia, is it Trevvinho? Trivia. No, you're good. Carly Bird. Hope I said that one right. Kathy Rasmusen. Lydia Ramy. Lori Broton. I have a name that's been marked out. Anita, somebody. I can't read it. We're good. No. Lori Broton.

Oh, okay. No. Uh Lynn Thomas. I don't see Davis Ford. I think Davis left. Wayne Tyrock. I think Wayne left. Uh, Elena, you're not gonna say my last name. Uh, Voit Voitco. Good job. Is that close? Yeah. I thought we're on a firstn name basis. We go we go back just a little bit.

We do. Um, even if we had the water and the electricity and the power and the environmental tests, we don't want it. Even if we had the resources for Row and for the data centers, we don't want it. Do you guys understand that? Do you understand? We don't want it. So, how do you I understand you don't

how do you not do what the people you serve want? Do you know better than us? Do you guys think you know better than us? What time is it right now? Midnight.

Okay. You went on a long list of names because people had to leave. We have lives and we have families. You have lives. You have families. But there is something well worth it in here for you, Bren Meyers. Well worth it for you, Zoe, all of you. We may or may not find out what, but there is an ultimate judge. If there is an ultimate judge, we don't want it, Tim. What are you going to do? We don't want it. Even if we had the water, even if we had the power grid, we don't want it. All the other all the other um data centers all around are coming up with major issues. The people don't want it. What are you going to do? You're going to do what the people don't want in our community. Yeah, you're going to do it. We're all here. It's past midnight. We don't want it.

You're not all here. Some of you are here. There's lots of people here. No, we had to. Many of us have already left. Yeah. No, but but we're not all here. There's lots of people out there that are absolutely for it. I've received a ton of emails about that. We're not all here. Just because you have opposition, two or three or five or 40, that's not everybody. Well, let's get a petition and find out how happy people are with your decision. Okay. I I understand that starting tomorrow. Yeah.

Well, you guys have a wonderful night's rest tonight. And no, we tried and we tried to work with you. The city is upset. Not all here because they have children, they have family, they have jobs. That's why. And by the way, my Facebook post has over 10,000 views and a hundred likes over your misleading and mis um

mis misrepresenting us. Okay, that's a lot. And it's not people from all over. Your gig is up. The gig is up. Do you understand? It's up. You know, you use the data center to for that, right? Okay. And they can build somewhere else and supply their own water and electricity. You're so cute and sarcastic. Well, Elena, you're you're yelling at me

because you're not listening to us. We have tried to be nice for three months with you. And I have video of you not even knowing what you're doing. You don't know if you have an NDA non-disclosure agreement. You don't know. You know that that that right there is one of the reasons why people get upset about public officials and what they may or may not do. what they know

there there there is no there's no room for error there's no room I mean so if I I said um you know what we may have an NDA about that and many times an NDA is about very specific stuff like how much water they're going to use or how much there's some things sometimes that we didn't know if there was going to be toxins in the cooling system toxins that would affect us and our families but that doesn't mean I'm lying about an NDA I simply now I turned to Nell and apologized and all of a sudden I'm instead of saying here's a public official that that misspoke is here's a public official that lied and that gets so

I didn't say I lied. You can go read my post. I tagged you. No, but I've been called a liar about it and it's so this is why it becomes so much easier just to sit back and not say anything. It it's it's it is safer not to say anything. We want transparency. Okay. Whenever I make a mistake, don't burn me down. Okay. That's all I'm asking. A mistake at the cost of our livelihood. Toxins about whether or not I had an NDA.

No, I'm talking about the the next thing you didn't know. You didn't know if the cooling system had toxins in it. How how basic of operational system? I how would you not know that? You brought Rowan in here. They couldn't even answer about chemicals.

That's why it's not worth it. Okay. I pray for y'all. You bet. Really? Yeah. Summer Brady. Summer. Lexi Garcia. Oh, there you are. Oh, okay. Let me pull up my speech here. Hey y'all. My name is Summer Brady again. Born and raised in Temple, Texas. Been here all my life. I came here today to stand with my fellow Tempalonians. I don't know what we refer to ourselves as Templeites.

Templeites. My fellow templeites, um, we all came here today to oppose the data center. We don't want it. Um, you've already voted to give them some land. Hope you can take that back. Um, let me get back to my notes. I only got three minutes. She gonna keep me to my time. All right. Um, so y'all cannot breathe, eat, or drink data or money. So I hope you know that, Tim, even though you're not listening. Um, hopefully you know that already. So, why are y'all choosing to waste our natural resources to line the pockets of these gentlemen? 48 jobs is nothing compared to the 100,000 people in this town. 48 jobs is the number that I heard they were going to create. I don't know if that's longterm or short term, but it's definitely not a dent in the unemployment in Temple. This is obviously my first time seeing the way that the city council operates. What I've seen today has been extremely disgraceful. Y'all talk amongst yourselves. Scroll on your phones. Looks like you are passing notes, blah blah blah. Ordering Chick-fil-A. We came here to be heard. It's about time that y'all start working for us like you should be. Um, you know, I'm just going to remind you one last time. Y'all do work for us, the Templeites. And if you choose not to listen to our outcry, you will be removed. Don't mess with Texas. Hello. Hi, my name is Lexi. Um, actually, I know a couple of you sitting on the panel. I go way back with

actually a couple of your kids. Um, I really don't even know what to say right now. I am kind of just at a loss of words at the fact that we are discussing water. Water is a human right. I guess I don't know. I've just got so many questions. If this does contaminate, you know, our water, say their infrastructure just goes to and it just doesn't work. If we start getting sick, I don't even have insurance. most jobs that you know I'm I'm fighting for jobs right now. I don't have insurance. Who's going to foot the bill? Who's going to foot the bill? I have a a mother right now on a lung transplant disease and from what I heard, this isn't going to be good for the air. This isn't going to be good for the environment. I mean, that's that's common knowledge. If you know that you're one of the largest hospital centers, you know, in the area, we are a hub. That's what we're here for. And you're going to place a data center right next to it. Where is the logic? I'm sorry. It's It's just a little frustrating. I know y'all are well educated people. I know y'all are good people. It's just right now this decision that y'all are making as y'all have seen hours and hours of your community members begging you not to do this and y'all just do it. What do y'all want us to think of y'all? I've got a lot of respect for y'all, but right now it's kind of like and another general thing, look at this room. Look at everyone sitting next to you. I made an observation that the people that are going to be impacted the most lower income are not able to make these meetings. I understand it's a five:00 thing. I got to take it up with the state. You told me that, I think. Um, but y'all have said nothing about how that's going to hurt that group of people if they're already struggling. It's only going to get worse. I'm 30. No kids. A lot of my friends are like, "What is the point of bringing a kid

into this world when look at the direction we're going? You're going to kill wildlife. You're going to kill farm animals. You're going to kill land. And then ultimately, you're going to start killing people. people won't be able to afford and there's going to be a lot of blood on those hands. Fix it before it gets too far. Thank you. You're on the list, Alan. Yes, sir. Neil, you're next.

Alan Lidle. The first time that I've been coming here, I get to say this. Good morning, mayor. I do it. It's past midnight. My original reason That's weird coming from you, Alan. I'm not comfortable with that. My original reason for signing up had to do with an entry in your workshop, but you've been beat up so much today. I'm not going to beat you up on it. So, I simply want to say if I have offended anyone when in my previous comments in the in the audience, I apologize. It was not my intent. I was just so proud to see so many people show up as city council. It really astounded me. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Alan. Miss Brinley and Dr. Raspberry, you're after now.

Neil Brenley, Temple, Texas. First off, I want to thank you officers for being here all this time to protect us. Thank you, Dr. Grant. Thank you for abstaining. I wish you voted no, but I do thank you for abstaining. I want to go make this public that the on items seven and eight, the gentleman who made the motion is not an elected was an appointed councilman who this is his last meeting. he will be replaced at the next meeting. So this monumental decision was was put forth by an unelected appointed council member who this is his last meeting. Sadly he's my representative and I'm I'm shocked. I'm disappointed. Um so I just wanted to make that public. I want you all to know that um in the Bible there was a persistent widow who kept going before the judge. And I'm that persistent widow. And I'm not going to let this go. I don't want y'all to be recalled. I don't want our city to be disrupted. I don't want our city government to be disrupted. But y'all have caused such division. I never thought I would agree with Bernie Sanders on anything. But here I am opposing data centers with Bernie Sanders. Y'all I don't think you realize you you've kind of created you've kind of risen up a sleeping giant in this

community. Ellen, you may have you know have to fight for a seat from now on. I thank you for listening to us. Again, we're not your enemies. We're your constituents. We pay the taxes. Yes, I know the money looks good, but I'm telling you, God will provide for this city. Temple is a city set on a hill. God has provided for us before and he will provide for us again. We don't have to build data centers to be successful. College Station just just vetoed them. Other cities are vetoing them. Please follow their lead. Please listen to your people. Don't listen to the snake oil salesman. Please.

Thank you, Neil. Margie, you're after Dr. Asbury. And then Britney Winford. Is Britney still here? John Asbury, Temple, Texas. I was on MHMR board one time. Went to 3 in the morning. It gets worse. First of all, Carl, thank you for serving where you did. I'm sure it was a little bit more than you expected, but I'm glad it was you and not me at this point. Secondly, I think I'm the only person in this audience back here who is happy that that that we're going to get this data center. Uh really am. I think it's going to be beneficial to us. We have plenty of water. We have billions of gallons of water that we could put access to if we need to. at this present time. Uh we've got the electricity we and we soon we're going to have enough trans movement of electricity from lines and we'll have plenty of battery storage. So it's going to be a win-win. I think I have two quick points and everything else been covered. First to the rowing people when you're finishing up your campus out there and if you got some empty space for for native grasses and stuff like that, we'd really appreciate that. That's black land prairie out there and getting the native grass out there would be a very good thing. And the second thing is I'm a little concerned about is a railroad crossing right by your campus. If we happen to have a big train wreck out there with hydrocarbon tank cars, that's going to be a mess. So when you begin to design your building, watch out for the potential of a rail accident right there at that end of a a big truck come through that thing and hit a train and that could be disastrous. So look at that. Okay. Good night. Oh, I gotta be at Cafe with Chalet tomorrow morning at six o'clock to start cooking. Thank you.

Well, but but we can't for the recording down the way, please. I wasn't going to speak again, but because I know I'm not being heard because we already know y'all made up your mind. I just know that there's no necessary reason for this data center. And they're right. There's been many cities now rescending their data centers that they were trying to they were going to bring into their community. They rescended. Wonder why. Maybe if you really start studying what's going on now and what kind of problems are going on rather than going back to what you first started with, you might know that it's time to stop this whole deal because it's just a deal. and you take you cut and you take your losses. It's just like when you have a home, you cut and take your losses sometimes because that's all you can do. So y'all need to do the same because this is their home and my home too because in the end I'm here and I don't mean

Thank you, Margie.

All right, council. I will uh I will entertain a motion. I guess I should read it in. Uh item 11 is to consider adopting a resolution authorizing a development agreement with Rowan Ranger LLC for the development of the Project Ranger data center campus. Miss Myers. Thank you, Mayor and Councel. Give me just a second. Okay. So, uh this uh is uh item 11 is a consideration of approving a development agreement with Rowan Ranger LLC. Um as we've been talking about a lot tonight, this is for an approximately just a little over 300 acre uh tract of land. Um previously uh you heard cases on tonight's agenda for the annexation and zoning. Um while this development agreement is not a not something that is mandatory in our development process, it is something that um the city and Rowan have negotiated to provide clarity for uh the development process and some guard rails as we move forward with um considering uh this project. It does establish broad terms for the development of the property uh for the data the proposed data center project. Um so again it governs the development of the approx just a little over 300 acre data center campus. Um some of the key provisions is it does establish procedures for um uh Rowan and the city to work uh through alignment for improvements um that might be necessary in the future um either from the city or state uh for East Blackland Road and FM 3117. to make sure that we are reserving um plenty of rideway along those road

sections to provide for any future expansions that might occur uh of those roadways. It does provide for um a phase permitting process um which um is not uncommon for industrial developments where um the first phase would be the grading permit, the second phase would be um utilities and foundations and then the third phase would be the vertical construction. Um it ca it commits a dedicated plan reviewer for the project to ensure consistency. Um it does uh uh codify um the uh process that we typically use again for um commercial and industrial process uh projects where we um are able to authorize a temporary CO or certificate of occupancy um on a per building or space basis. Um and then uh it also establishes that we will work together on any needed infrastructure improvements. I I read you the full language of the required uh TIA and that process a little bit earlier. And then again, it does require that before a building permit for phase three can be issued that Rowan must enter into a utility services agreement with the city of Temple. that is for um uh the uh city of temples protection to ensure that we have a maximum uh use of water established and parameters for how that water usage is enforced. So before they uh can be issued a building permit that utility services agreement has to be in place and this development agreement establishes that process. that was also a condition as you may find that familiar that was also a condition in the zoning case that you considered earlier. So, it's really listed in both locations um as is a very important um criteria. Uh I'll be happy to answer any questions

that you might have. Council, any questions for Miss Myers? And if not, council, I'll entertain a motion on item 11.

Move approval of item 11. We have a motion by uh Council Member Kirkindall. We have a second by Council Member Pilington. Council, please cast your vote. Item 11 passes. Four votes yes, zero votes no, and uh one abstension. Carl, I uh I want to thank you for your time on the council. I've really enjoyed uh getting to know you better. you've done yman's work and um you you came in with confidence knowing what to do next and I truly appreciate that. I I've thoroughly enjoyed my time with you and thank you for that.

Thank you. All right. Very good. Good morning. It is 12:40 a.m. and uh I will adjourn this meeting. And by the way, everyone here was part of a record for the longest council meeting I think in the history of Temple, Texas.