The city of Port Washington, Wisconsin, is currently embroiled in a legal battle concerning the release of documents pertaining to the development of a new data center. Unwilling to furnish documents regarding the data center, the city has found itself under legal scrutiny and criticism from opponents of the proposal.
Port Washington is just one case among several in Wisconsin where local municipalities have come under fire for demonstrating a lack of transparency with their communities, the latest of which being right here in Beloit.
So far, Wisconsin Watch has reported that four cities where data centers are being discussed or actively worked on have already signed NDAs, namely Beaver Dam, Kenosha, Janesville and Menomonie. Recently, however, a fifth project and attendant NDA has surfaced in Beloit. Much to the concern of community leaders, the contract reveals that plans for construction have been privately ongoing for over a year without any public notification. The contract was drawn up in collaboration with Delaware-based Cambrin LLC, the president of which had also filed for permits for a Meta backed data center in Beaver Dam.
Although the records made publically available do not directly refer to a data center, they make reference to “Project cornmaze”, which includes the construction of 700,000 square feet of buildings and around 50 employees.
News of this clandestine arrangement has sparked backlash in Beloit, prompting a town hall held in The Castle on Saturday, March 21. Present at the event were 76th district representative and gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, city councilor Yusuf Adama, and Port Washington organizers Samantha Doucas and Christine Le Jeune.
Hong, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist and progressive, emphasized the need for community trust and mutual care over profit imperatives. Hong says “there are these incentives that are bringing these companies here without the say of any of the people in the surrounding communities, and it’s not right.”
As corporations pour millions of dollars into data center construction, energy companies continue to guarantee these sites with subsidies, which critics decry as the deferral of risk to the public. Ducas says “It’s basically free money for these tech corporations, for Palantir, for OpenAI, for Meta, and specifically to do surveillance in some cases… They’re getting guarantees. It’s the energy infrastructure companies that give these guarantees. It’s not our community.”
The proposed Beloit center raises significant energy concerns as well. Comprising 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2024, and likely to increase in coming years, environmental advocates are raising the alarm. Although from where these data centers will be supplied with energy is as yet unclear, the lack of a robust sustainable energy infrastructure means that fossil fuels will likely be the main source of energy. Furthermore, Assembly Bill (AB)840, introduced by Wisconsin state republicans and currently in the senate, would limit the usage of renewable energies to those constructed on campus, severely limiting efficacy.
Says Adama, “While this moment really does reveal how predated on we are, I think it also reveals our resilience. I am so happy to see so much movement in Wisconsin, and so happy to see people like standing out and we’re making big deals about it, even as we’re dealing with misinformation and all this other stuff. People are coming together, and I think that is the most important thing to focus on, that we do have a way forward if we are working in the community and just being as relentless as they are, because there are way more of us than there are of them.”
The panel gave Hong a platform to expound her policy, including her long standing call for a moratorium on data center construction. Says Hong “When we have totally renewable energy, regulations, and accountability in place, until we can ensure that it is the community that decides for itself, that they want these data centers coming in, we have to hit pause.”
Addressing the problem of data centers, the panelists were in broad agreement that socialism is the way forward. Put together by the Party for Liberation and Socialism, they found common ground on these terms.
Le Jeune says “There’s nothing radical about being involved and demanding a place at the table and demanding that our politicians listen to us and take us seriously. So that is something that we have to continue fighting for and to keep pushing that message with it.”
Community members present at the event spoke about their personal concerns regarding how their lives would be affected by a data center. Represented by small business owners, students, Beloit natives, and activists, each shared concerns of rising energy costs, increased air pollution, and state surveillance.
An attendee named Gypsy, a Beloit resident and student at Madison College, says “I think there would be a huge negative impact, especially, given how expensive our bills already are. I have, very recently, had an electric bill that came up. They were very close to $300 for my small house. And they would just continue to make things worse for me and other members of my community.”
While spring elections are to be held April 7, regulatory discourse remains fractured and incomplete, while deep divisions exist in finding potential solutions. The panel is symptomatic of a larger trend of communities coming together against data centers being built in their communities. Whether or not a data center will be built in Beloit is yet to be seen.
Featured image: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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