Proposed Data Center public BOA Meeting January 27, 2026. Pictured from left – Aldermen James Cleeve Ed Gass, City Administrator Lee Litterell, Mayor Heather Filley, City Attorney Stephanie Karr, Alderman Karla Stewart. Not pictured – Aldermen Debbie Kelley, Tyler Hoven and Acting board president Scott Lesh. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What They Didn’t Know
By Pauline Masson-
Members of the Pacific Board of Aldermen (BOA) who have frequently been pilloried for lack of transparency, found their voices during last Tuesday’s public meeting to discuss a proposed data center in Pacific.
In the final hour of the three and a half hour Jan. 27 public meeting aldermen spoke up.
They said that citizens were not the only group that had been left out of the loop as the city administration and staff reviewed a request to build a multi-million dollar project that could impact the air, water, noise level and quality of life on Pacific citizens and surrounding community.
Ryan Sanders, Beltline Energy partner, who spoke for the project, confirmed that aldermen had purposely been left out of talks about the data center that Beltline wants to build, saying it was his firm that wanted only the administration and staff to know about the plan.
“We did not want all of the group to learn about this project.” Mr. Sanders told aldermen. “We worked with your planning staff, city manager, manager of the public works department.
“At the same time the city staff was vetting us, to see if our project was a good fit for your community – months of work, back and forth – we’ve gotten to a place where we feel like we have the zoning application that’s been submitted as a quality project to the benefit of this community.”
Originally the mayor had planned to hold the meeting, where aldermen were to hear from the developer, in closed session and off site, not at city hall, first in the Shaw’s Nature Reserve then at the Lions Club. Local rumors say the city did hold one meeting at the Nature Reserve. Aldermen balked, saying the meetings should be held at city hall.
In the first minutes of Tuesday’s meeting aldermen voted that no portion of the meeting would be closed to the pubic, that everyone who signed a speaker card would be allowed to speak and that aldermen would be allowed to address the public after citizens had spoken.
In their portion of the meeting, what they presented to the public was an eye opening declaration that in city business “things are changin’.’”
Aldermen warned the developer that only the BOA – following required planning and zoning commission review and mandatory public hearings – has the authority to approve the project. And going forward all discussions would be in public.
‘That is how we are going to start with transparency today,” said Ward Three Alderman and Acting President of the BOA Scott Lesh, who had made the motion that aldermen would address the public after citizens had spoken.
Ward One Alderman Karla Stewart said she shared a lot of the concerns she heard from the public but there were things she still wanted to know.
“I’d like to know how it (the McLaren property) that is not contiguous to the city, can be annexed. I haven’t gotten an answer to that yet,” she said. “I would like to know who authorized the nondisclosure agreement NDA.”
“And I’d also like to know if the company that’s going to actually come and take it (the data center) over is going to get tax rates and not have to be paying the taxes when they’re asking us to support for the money.”
In his presentation during the meeting, Mr. Sanders did not disclose which firm would operate the data center once it is built.
Ward Two Aldermen Tyler Hoven offered a concise statement.
“I’d be okay with just saying ‘No’ to it and getting rid of it,” he said. “But we need to hear these people out and at least give them some sort of chance. Hopefully, these other meetings that we have will be later in the day.”
Mr. Lesh, who initiated this public disclosure, offered a sweeping account of his reaction to the lack of transparency in the city’s handling of the data center project.
“I want to echo Alderman Stewart’s comments. I share a lot of the concerns that you guys (public speakers) do. I am by nature extremely skeptical. I always want to keep the door open for opportunities for Pacific and what’s in the interest of Pacific, but at this point in time, I am skeptical,” he said.
Addressing the data center speaker directly, Mr. Lesh made it clear that the developers would help themselves by turning their attention to the BOA, which has the final say on whether or not the data center gets built.
“You have to prove this to me,” he said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sanders, but you have to, show us, (the BOA), you have to convince us.”
He said he also wanted to address the secrecy the city had maintained in talks with the developer.
“The other topic I want to talk about is, there’s been a lot of talk about the transparency issue. To this point this process has not been transparent. There’s been a lot of zeal ( by the administration and staff) to follow what Beltline came to us asking for.”
“When they (the administration) brought this to us (aldermen), it was because our city administration found out that other stakeholders in the city had found out about it. At that point, the city said, ‘I think we should tell the alderman.’
“At that point I learned that they were going to ask us to sign an NDA (nondisclosure agreement).
“Some of you know I often say. ‘I don’t work for City Hall. I work with people who elected me.’ With that, I knew immediately I am not signing an NDA. I informed our city administrator that I am not signing an NDA because I represent the people, and when they come asking questions, I am going to speak to them.
“I have emails here that I know that the city was first reached out to by December 5. A lot of that looks on the up and up. They wanted to arrange meetings, you know, have conversations with the city as the city should.
“But I want to know if anybody else in the city knew about this prior to December 5. I also want to know – I already have the answer, but – I want it to be publicly stated who authorized the NDA. This information is in the emails that I have. I want this information to be known to the people.
“That is how we are going to start with transparency today,” he said.
“We have not been doing that up to this point. This process called for the city to come forward, for this applicant to work with the city, and then that plan gets brought forward to our planning and zoning committee. Where are they? Where are they right now? They’re our first line specialists for the city to answer these questions to flush these things out on that note.”
He also worried that the city staff lacked the skillset to evaluate a high tech-high dollar project that spoke of restructuring the city sewage system and he wanted the city to contract with data center specialists.
“I want to request that we bring some specialists in here for the city. This is at the cost of the applicant, not the city.” He said. “I want to see more specialists brought in.”
“We have Archer Elgin, who we’ve worked with a long time on our lagoon, which is Jeff Meadows. And he he’s one of the first people to ask about this along with Mr. Brueggemann.
“But we need environmental engineers and we need environmental lawyers that are going to craft this document. We need more than what we have right now if this is going to proceed.
“I want to continue to state that and make that known,” he said. “We need to request those things.”
Ward Three Alderman Debbie Kelley thanked attendees for coming, apologized for the unusual mid-morning timing of the meeting and noted that the BOA had worked hard to make sure that discussions about the project would be open to the public.
“We (aldermen) must know what’s going on in our community and be fair and up front with you. We don’t want to keep things closed or behind doors,” she said.
A primary concern was Cochran Engineering serving as the engineer for both the City of Pacific and Beltline Energy and its proposed data center, which she considered to be a conflict.
They can’t represent the city and the developer of the project, she said.
She made a motion that City of Pacific do no more engineering with Cochran Engineering until the data center is done.
Aldermen James Cleeve and Ed Gass said the city had current contracts with Cochran, which might be affected. Ms. Kelley agreed to amend her motion to say no future contracts with Cochran would be approved while they also serve as the data center engineer. Mr. Lesh suggested that a better resolution would be if Beltline hired a different engineering firm. With no response from Beltline, aldermen approved Ms. Kelley’s motion 4-2. that there would be no future contracts with Cochran while the firm represents the data center and its developer. Aldermen Kelley, Stewart, Hoven and Lesh voted yes. Mr. Cleeve and Mr. Gass voted no.
Ward Two Alderman James Cleeve said he does not often hear from the public. He urged the public to contact him at any time on any topic and he would find time to talk with them.
He said like the other aldermen he had questions about the timing of when things happened (re the data center).
“I found out on December 19. I’ve been researching, like crazy, trying to figure things out since December 19. I believe the anonymous letter (that protesters mentioned earlier in the meeting) changed the trajectory. We were still scheduled for closed session for this meetings.
“Is it a bad thing or is it a good thing? Nobody knows,” he said. “We hear a lot of things and I want to know first hand what other cities have experienced with those that are up and fully running.”
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It should be noted that the city can – and maybe should – meet without public disclosure with companies that want to bring a business to the city. It’s unclear if the administration is authorized to withhold knowledge of a proposed project that would affect the community and the environment from the aldermen. Clearly the administration and the developer have not helped their project by barring alddermen from knowledge of the proposed center.
Just who all did sign those NDA’s. We need to know this now and be aware of their intentions/motivations behind this in order for us citizens to decide if they should be kept around or not.
Well, if nothing else this might be the inflection point that changes the way Pacific does business. We live in Robertsville but the decisions made by Pacific impact us. We’ve lived in this area for 43 years now and I can honestly say that for the entirety of this time, Pacific politics have consistently seemed insufficient for the modern world, particularly the world of instant and accessible information, and misinformation, we live in. It has always been much more like a closed, good old boy network than a transparent body focused on the well being of its constituents. Perhaps this is about to be remedied.
Let’s hope so.
I’m glad to hear that an alderman understands the need for expert involvement in this process. I keep reading all sorts of opinions about data centers from people that really don’t understand the topic. Lots of emotion doesn’t equal truth. This whole situation can only come to a mutually beneficial conclusion when the truth is the center of the conversation. Hopefully, Pacific will bring in experts to keep real facts available to the public. It would be great if Beltline could absorb the cost but I suspect that would only serve to justify accusations of collusion. If this project really can bring as much benefit to Pacific as is claimed then I would think the city can find a way to pay for the experts.
My wife and I haven’t made up our minds on this yet because we don’t have the accurate information to do so. I would hope that all of us would refrain from final judgement until the facts are known.