Data centers again took center stage at the Aug. 4 Warrenton Board of Aldermen meeting, where Bobby Spoonster, recently hired as community liaison for Crusoe, developer of the new local facility, introduced himself.
Spoonster, who started work July 6, noted that his position itself is a new one, “so there are a lot of things that I don’t know about and things that I’m learning on a daily basis; that’s just kind of the nature of how the job goes,” he said.
“But one thing we want to start doing is to have a little bit more transparency with things. That’s kind of why this role was made, for us to get out in the community and be able to meet people within the communities that we serve.”
Spoonster said he will regularly update aldermen on the data center project. Crusoe is working on launching a website that will include answers to frequently asked questions, project updates, job openings, and contact information, all specific to the local facility, Spoonster said. The website is not live yet, however, and he did not have a web address to provide.
Building permits have been issued and contractors began work on the Warrenton project July 15, Spoonster said. Work has started on mass grading the site.
“Obviously with that comes a lot of things I’m sure we’ve all heard of,” Spoonster said, such as dust, rock, and truck traffic. “That’s all part of the progress when you’re doing a site this big,” he said.
“Looking ahead, we’ll be working on underground utility work coming here in August, and we will continue to perform mass grading, obviously. It will be a while for us getting all the ground level to where it needs to be to get the buildings up and running here in the next few years.”
Prior to Spoonster’s scheduled presentation to the board, several residents spoke during public comment, including Barry Teson, who lives next door to the data center site. A new “exit only” sign has been put up “down just a hair from the original entrance,” Teson said.
“However, that’s not an exit. They’re still exiting the main one right there in the front, and those big dump trucks that come out, they take the whole street, because I come up to work and they’re coming out the main entrance.”
Later in the meeting Alderman Christine Wait asked Spoonster about the truck traffic and he said Crusoe’s contractors are working on the issue.
“They’re pouring another outlet today on, it would be, the east side of it. We’re trying to reroute it, so they’re trying to not get everybody in and out of the same one,” he said. “So they’re in progress of working on that right now, of being able to reroute trucks on both sides, so it’s not just in and out the same one all the time.”
Concerns Teson mentioned also included dirt, gravel and rock in the roadway — “a lot of windshields get broken,” he said — as well as the 6 a.m. start time for work on the project. Wait said, however, that she was in favor of work starting as early as possible to avoid having to continue into the hottest hours of the afternoon.
Jess Sutton, another resident who spoke in public comment, has previously pointed out that Spoonster is the brother-in-law of Steve Etcher, a consultant for the Greater Warren County Economic Development Council.
“We need to make a chart of the overlaps that are happening. Just where is the integrity? It’s just disappointing,” Sutton said at the Aug. 4 meeting, and suggested it was a mistake for the city “to bring Bobby Spoonster on as your community liaison from Crusoe.”
Mayor Eric Schleuter noted, however, that Spoonster is not a city employee.
“I do want to say, just for clarification purposes, the City of Warrenton does not choose who Crusoe hires as their information person or what be it. That has no bearing on us,” he said.
Schleuter added that he wanted “to address a couple issues on some accusations that I think everybody up here has had to deal with, as far as corruption, lining pockets, backroom deals, years of planning data centers to come to Warrenton. It’s a little aggravating, and I’ve been trying to stay away from it, and I don’t think I want to anymore.”
Schleuter said he has seen no factual evidence of wrongdoing.
“With that being said, for true transparency and true consistency, people should be adjusting those opinions of other people and saying ‘Are they true or not true? Where’s the evidence to back it up?’” he said.
“If there’s no evidence to back it up, then it is nothing but hearsay or rumor, conjecture, and it is harmful to people’s characters, and then they have to defend themselves on pieces of opinions they shouldn’t have to, and that’s ridiculous. We’re better than that as a town.”
Schleuter said Crusoe recently signed Chapter 100 bonds under its 75% personal property tax abatement agreement with the city.
“And for the people that said we’ll never see any money, I can tell you we just saw $2 million deposited in our account, which means we can start doing things that we didn’t have money to do before,” he said. “So to all the naysayers that said ‘This isn’t going to happen, this isn’t true’: It is. So this is just the beginning.”
Schleuter said possible uses for the additional funds could be construction of a new all-inclusive park, paying down city debt, and improved lighting or signage at crosswalks.
Asked by Alderman Roger Romaker how people could reach him, Spoonster said they can email him at bspoonster@crusoe.ai or call 636-359-5487.
“I’m glad you brought that up,” he said. “Anytime something comes up, anybody has a question or concern, I’d love for them to reach out to us, because a lot of times we don’t know anything if somebody’s upset, like he mentioned earlier, unless we see it on Facebook, and by that time it’s a reactionary thing for us because we don’t know about it.”
Despite Spoonster’s assurances, it seemed clear from the comments of some at the meeting that their opposition to the data center will continue. These included Nathan Knuffman, who asked the city to “slow this process down.”
Other communities have approved data centers “only to find themselves asking questions later that should have been answered before the construction ever began,” he said.
“Missourians are not stupid. We recognize that many of these projects are backed by large corporations headquartered outside of Missouri. Their primary responsibility is to the shareholders, not to the families, the farmers, the small businesses who have spent generations building this community. Before we permanently transform our farm land and natural resources, we should ask ourselves if this level of expansion is truly necessary, and who ultimately benefits from all these things,” Knuffman said.
“This isn’t something simply about whether a data center should get built, it’s about whether local citizens should still have a voice in determining the future of their own communities.”
