A delay in grating permits for the construction of new Data Centers in Laurens County will come before the county council for a Public Hearing & 3rd, final reading on Monday night.
The council's regular monthly meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the 2nd floor council chambers of the Historic Courthouse in downtown Laurens. Second reading of an ordinance making a change to the approval process required for Major Subdivisions, and 1st reading of a 26-page ordinance regarding Solar Farms also are on the council's agenda.
The meeting is open to the public, and Public Comment time is Agenda Item 7. Council limits these comments to agenda items, and conducts a quarterly open-forum-style meeting in which anyone can ask the council about any issue.
Data Centers are a nationwide issue. Published reports indicate that more than 10 states's officials, including those in Illinois, New Jersey and Washington. They are examining tax breaks for these massive data-collection campuses, with their battery-storage units, and these actions have become part of a movement treating the "AI boom" as less of an economic driven to more of a liability in a political sense. Data Centers-growth has a strong ally in President Donald J Trump, saying communities that turn them down will be "backward".
Vice-President JD Vance recently explained further the Administration's viewpoint “What the president said about data centers is they’re an important part of the AI economy. But when people build them, they have to build the power plants along with the data centers. … I think probably 99% of the backlash to data centers has come in areas where building a data center means higher utility and higher electricity for the people on the ground. So I think what these companies have to do is take advantage of some of the federal deregulatory efforts that we’ve undertaken. If you build a data center, you should be putting power back into the grid, not taking it out. And if that is happening, I don’t think the data centers are that controversial.”
Critics say Data Centers are bad for communities because they take too much open land, they produce a low-frequency "hum" that can adversely affect mental health, they take too much of a community's fresh water for cooling, and - without their own dedicated power source - they will be first line for a city's or county's electricity, leaving regular customers with "the leftovers", and they produce few new jobs.
Laurens County citizens have generally supported a delay, and much more study, in local Data Centers' development on readings 1 & 2 of this ordinance, proposed by Council Vice-chairman Matthew Brownlee.
Also Monday, the Council will recognize Emergency Preparedness Month and the retirement of Sheriff's Captain Charles Boyce. Three appointments are scheduled: GLEAMNS Board: private sector - Janice Robertson, and low-income sector - Bertha Rice; and Assessment Appeals Board - District 6 - Melinda Gray.
The County Administrator's Report comes before Old & New Business; and Council Council Comments round out the agenda.
Agendas here.
POWER BLIP here.
