Why I wrote this
I spent close to thirty years running operations and budgets inside public and quasi public institutions. Cornell. Syracuse. Large hospitality organizations before that. I have sat on the side of the table that had less time, less staff, and less specialized counsel than the people across from it.
A data center developer arrives with hundreds of pages, experienced attorneys, and consultants paid to secure a yes. Across from them is frequently a part time council, a planning office already at capacity, and residents who will live with the outcome for thirty years.
That gap is not anyone's failure. It is a resourcing problem, and it is solvable.
This guide will not tell you how to vote. It will make sure that whichever way you vote, you voted on the actual deal rather than the presentation.
Where I stand
I am not against this infrastructure. I run an artificial intelligence firm. The compute has to live somewhere, and somewhere is going to be a real place with real people in it. Communities that host it well can do genuinely well by it.
And I believe a community should negotiate from strength. Those two things are not in tension. They only look that way because the public conversation has been flattened into for and against.
Opposition is not leverage. Neither is enthusiasm. Leverage is knowing what you are being asked to give, what you are being offered in return, and which of those two is written down.
If you take a hard no into the room, you will be managed around. If you take an unconditional yes, you will be given the standard terms. Take questions instead.
A community that cannot read the deal cannot negotiate it.
Everything that follows serves one purpose: moving you from reacting to a proposal, which is weak, to interrogating one, which is not. You do not need to become an engineer. You need questions that are difficult to answer vaguely.
Officials and residents
The expensive failure is rarely a bad vote. It is a council and its own residents spending six months in conflict with each other while the developer waits for the clock to run.
This list is deliberately identical for both. When officials and residents ask the same questions, three things change.
Answers become comparable. You find out quickly when a developer says one thing in a council session and something else at a community meeting.
Officials gain cover. A council backed by an informed public can press harder in negotiation without appearing hostile to investment.
Residents gain standing. Specific questions get answered. General opposition gets managed.
Timing
Maximum leverage. Parcels are being optioned quietly, often through entities that do not carry the end user's name. Nothing is public. Almost no community acts here. That is precisely why you should.
High leverage. They now need something from you. A zoning change, an abatement, a utility commitment. Whatever you want in the final agreement, you ask for it here.
Moderate leverage. The deal is largely shaped. You can attach conditions, but you are amending someone else's design.
Minimal leverage. Anything not in writing is now a favor you have to ask for.
If you remember one line from this guide: the moment a project starts to feel urgent is the moment your leverage has already peaked. Urgency is a negotiating instrument, and it is usually aimed at you.
Part two
Every answer in writing, with a number attached and a source named. An answer you cannot check is not an answer.
Area one
How many megawatts at full build, and at each phase? Not the site's theoretical capacity. The load they intend to draw.
If new lines, substations, or generation are required, does the developer carry that cost, or does it enter the rate base residents pay into?
Will you commit in writing that residential rates will not rise as a consequence of this project? If the answer is no, ask why not, and record the answer.
During a grid emergency, who curtails first, the facility or the households already here?
How many generators, what fuel is stored on site, and how many hours per year is running permitted?
Area two
Gallons per day at full build, in a normal year and in a drought year. Insist on both figures.
Municipal, groundwater, surface, or reclaimed? If groundwater, which aquifer, and who else draws from it?
Evaporative, air cooled, or closed loop? This one decision can move water consumption by an order of magnitude. Have them commit to the design in the agreement, not the application.
What returns to the system, at what temperature, carrying what treatment chemicals?
Under restriction, who is curtailed first? Whatever they say, put it in the agreement.
Area three
How many permanent on site roles after construction ends? Ask for headcount, titles, and wage bands. Construction jobs are temporary and belong in a separate column.
What share is filled locally, and what training will be funded to make that achievable rather than aspirational?
What is the tax yield after every abatement, exemption, and incentive? Have your own finance staff model it. Not theirs.
What new public expenditure does this create across roads, emergency services, utility staffing, and inspection capacity?
If the jobs or the capital investment do not materialize, what is recovered, on what trigger, and who determines it?
The comparison that matters: measure the incentive package against permanent payroll, not the headline investment figure. Most of that figure is equipment, bought elsewhere.
Area four
How many workers, over how many months, housed where? A large temporary influx into a tight rental market raises costs for the people already living in it.
Will the developer fund temporary accommodation, or is the assumption that local supply absorbs the demand?
What is the current rental vacancy rate, and which residents are most at risk if it tightens further?
What happens to that pressure when construction ends, and what remains in place?
Area five
How many acres, in what current use, and what habitat is displaced?
Decibel levels at the property line and at the nearest residence, at night, with cooling at peak. Ask for measured readings from an operating facility, not modeled projections.
What is the lighting plan, and is it shielded and directed downward?
What are generator emissions, and where does the plume travel relative to homes and schools?
If this closes in fifteen years, who removes it, and is that obligation bonded now rather than promised later?
Area six
Is your department trained and equipped for high voltage systems and lithium battery storage? If not, who funds the training and the equipment, and on what timeline?
What capacity on site, what chemistry, and what is the suppression plan? Ask specifically what the response is to a thermal runaway event.
Is there a written agreement, and has your chief seen the site plan before approval rather than after?
Who provides it, who funds it, and what does hosting critical infrastructure change about your community's risk profile?
Which station covers this site, and does the project change response times for everybody else?
Part three
A commitment made in a public meeting is not enforceable. These belong in the agreement itself.
Part four
A deadline you did not set. If the decision must happen in three weeks for reasons belonging to them, the deadline is an instrument, not a constraint.
A non disclosure agreement ahead of a public vote. You cannot represent people you are not permitted to speak with.
Job figures without titles. Genuine staffing plans carry roles and wage bands. A single headcount number is marketing material.
An entity that will not name the operator. You are entitled to know who will actually run the facility in your community.
Commitments described as standard practice rather than written into the agreement. If it is genuinely standard, they will sign it.
The honest boundary
This is a checklist, not an evaluation. A real decision on a real project requires specialists, and you should budget for them before you need them.
Any advisor who tells you they cover all of that alone is selling you something. The role of strategic counsel is to help you ask the right questions, coordinate the specialists, and hold your side of the table. I name the gap deliberately. It is what makes the rest of the advice worth trusting.