Community members will host a town hall meeting on January 29 at 7 p.m. in the Montgomery County High School gymnasium. This will be an open forum to discuss the 5,000-acre proposed mega site in Montgomery County.
Residents will be able to express their thoughts and concerns along with learning more information about the project. All residents are encouraged to attend to be informed about and have a voice in the future of Montgomery County.
Guest speakers include Jeff Zerr, a Farm Bureau member who will explain the new data center resolutions that were recently passed, Steve Jeffery, attorney with Jeffery Law Group, LLC, and John Bognar, RG, former chair of the State Geologist Registration Board.
Currently, there are two proposed data center sites for Montgomery County, Projects Green and Spade. Project Green is an Amazon Web Services data center, projected to use around 1,000 acres on the north side of Interstate 70 between High Hill and New Florence.
Montgomery County Commissioners approved a tax abatement on December 29, for Amazon Web Services. On the south side of I-70, Project Spade would use approximately 850 acres for another data center campus to be operated by Google.
Concerns associated with the mega site include usage of resources including water and utilities, social impact, and lack of project transparency.
The January 29 town hall will be hosted by citizens. On December 8, the county held a town hall meeting that drew more than 500 people to answer questions regarding Project Green. Some felt questions and concerns were not properly addressed.
“I would like to invite everyone to the town hall meeting to learn more about the future of our county,” said Tom Westhoff, community member and conservationist.
Montgomery County High School is located at 394 Highway 19, Montgomery City. The meeting is organized by Preserve Montgomery County LLC.
