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Logan County Board
Logan County Board Sends Data Center Moratorium Back to Committee
[May 01, 2026]
On Wednesday, April 29th, the
Logan County Board held a special regular meeting regarding the data
center moratorium that had been previously passed and is set to
expire this month. No motions were made at the previously held
regular board meeting to extend it. After some inquiries by members
of the audience, board member Joseph Kuhlman agreed to try to get a
special meeting set to discuss the moratorium.
This special meeting was held at the Logan County Courthouse
starting just after 6:00 p.m. Unlike most meetings, this was not
held in one of the courtrooms, but rather in the rotunda on the
first floor. The reason for the unusual location was due to the
elevator being down. The first-floor courtroom was too small for the
number of guests that came to the meeting, and hosting it on the
second or third floor without an elevator would have placed the
Board in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Before attendance was taken, Gil Turner was invited to give the
invocation. He spoke on Aretha Franklin and her song “Respect.” He
quoted from the Bible about judging your neighbor and being judged
yourself. He then prayed over the meeting.
After the invocation, the Pledge of Allegiance was performed, and
then attendance was taken. Of the eleven members of the Board, ten
were in attendance. Present were Chairman JR Glenn, Vice Chairman
Dale Nelson, Gil Turner, Lance Conahan, Joseph Kuhlman, Hannah
Fitzpatrick, Bob Sanders, Jim Wessbecher, Keenan Leesman, and Kevin
Knauer. Kathy Schmidt was the only member absent. Michael DeRoss
recently resigned from the board.
Guests were then welcomed to introduce themselves. Some members
present included Circuit Clerk Kelly Elias, Allison Isley (who
identified herself before announcing that she was running for the
Board), and Administrative Assistant Madelyn Hinton.
Nelson’s first action was to make a motion to “send the data center
moratorium back to committee for further discussion.” This motion
was seconded by Turner. Nelson explained his motion, stating that
his idea would be to set up a special Zoning and Economic
Development Committee meeting on May 13th. At this meeting, he would
invite both Hut 8 and members of the community to have a discussion
and make an informed decision on whether to extend the moratorium.
Knauer asked if the Zoning
committee would still be acting on the ordinance changes for data
centers that have been working their way through the Regional
Planning Commission (RPC) and the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA).
Nelson informed him that this is still the plan.
Glenn stated that he knew DeRoss was following state legislation on
data centers and was unsure if any other board members were doing
the same. When no one spoke up, he stated that, should this motion
pass and the moratorium be sent back to committee, he would charge
the committee with working with both Senator Sally Turner and
Representative Bill Hauter on following updates regarding
legislation.
Nelson then asked if they needed to look into extending the
moratorium until the next regular board meeting. Glenn stated that
this would not be needed due to the lack of an ordinance in place
now. He stated that Hut 8 would have to apply to have land rezoned,
the ZBA would have to give public notice and hold a public hearing.
Glenn then reviewed the ZBA process, as well as the process of
getting a project approved after an ordinance is passed. Glenn spoke
on DeRoss’s resignation. He stated that DeRoss was the one working
on getting the ordinance through as the Zoning Chair but has now
resigned. Glenn additionally stated that he has not had a chance to
appoint a new Zoning Chair.
A vote was then taken on the motion, and it passed unanimously.
The next part of the meeting was for public comments, and this
section was very lengthy, lasting over two hours. Glenn asked
everyone in attendance to please be respectful of the comments of
others, stating that “if we can’t control ourselves, we will end
public comment.” What follows is a summary.
A commenter asked what the process
would be for a battery storage facility, and if it were the same as
the process a data center would have to go through. He stated that
he heard if Hut 8 does not build their data center where they are
looking to, then a battery storage facility will be built there.
Glenn stated that the county has an ordinance, which means they
already have a process to go through. It would then go through both
RPC, ZBA, and the Zoning Committee.
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Another commenter
asked if the Board would be able to alert the public when an
application is submitted. As it stands now, the public gets to
know 48 hours in advance when the agenda for a meeting is
posted. Glenn stated that he does not see a reason why this
could not work. They would just need to get a process set up to
post on the county website.
Later, another commenter stated that she has family that lives
in DeKalb and the surrounding area, where they just agreed to
allow a data center to be built. According to the commenter, the
city of DeKalb now has twelve more data centers that are looking
to build there. She wanted to know how many Logan County is
going to let in if they let Hut 8 build and more companies come
looking to build. Glenn said that there are only so many areas
that data centers can build. The substation that Hut 8 is
looking to build next to is valuable to data center companies
because of the amount of energy it can output. This is the only
substation like it in all of Logan County. That being the case,
there are not various locations across the county where data
centers would be wanting to set up.
Glenn continued, stating that if
Ameren builds more places for data centers to hook into the network,
and if the state requires counties to start allowing data centers to
build, there could be many data centers across the county.
There were several comments addressing the vote to send the
moratorium back to committee. These comments expressed frustration
about what they thought was going to be discussed at this meeting
compared to what was actually discussed.
Another commenter later stated that the number of people against the
proposed data center far exceeds the number that are for it. Elias
then made a comment, clarifying that she was neither for or against
the data center, stating that, generally people who are against
something come to meetings to oppose that thing, while people that
are for something do not. She finished her comment stating that
there are a lot of people for the proposed data center. There were
some more comments made back and forth to which Glenn slammed his
gavel and reminded the commenters about the agreement to be
respectful.
Next, a commenter asked a question regarding the data center
ordinance. She asked that, if the Board passed a very restrictive
ordinance, could the county still say no to a data center that fills
out an application. Glenn stated that if this company met all the
guidelines they set in place, then the county could not “change the
rules in the middle of the game.” This was to say that the county
would not be able to say no in this case if the company met all the
requirements.
A later commenter then stated that she FOIA’d (Freedom of
Information Act) all the emails that people had sent members of the
board that were either for or against the data center. She stated
that eight of the emails were for the data center, while “the
remainder” were all against. She stated that this showed that the
people of the county are “overwhelmingly” against the proposed data
center.
Two of the representatives from Hut 8 were present. They explained
that Hut 8 is not in the business of building battery storage, and
the battery storage facility that is being proposed near Latham is
not theirs. They also stated that they are committing to $65 million
in tax revenue for the county. This was to address an earlier
comment about whether Hut 8 could apply for tax breaks and get a lot
of money off the taxes they are stating the county would receive
from their project.
The comments then started to turn toward union jobs, and discussion
over how many union workers from Logan County are going to be
working on building the data center were it to be approved. Isley
then asked the Hut 8 representatives about what an “operating
engineer” is. The representatives began to answer, but Isley stated
that they were not answering her question and wanted to know what
the resume of an operating engineer would look like. She followed
this up with a similar question about a “building controls
technician.” She then asked about the salaries of these positions.
Isley then argued that Hut 8 will not be able to train people for
these positions in the high school and Heartland Community College.
It was about this time that the Board started discussing among
themselves. Glenn then stated “yeah, make a motion.” Turner then
stood up and stated “I am going to make a motion that we close this
meeting. Can I get a second?” before sitting back down. Isley
continued talking, and Turner stated that there was a motion on the
floor. Glenn stated that no one was paying attention, then said he
was taking one last call for public comments. He allowed Isley to
continue talking for a moment. Nelson then seconded the motion to
adjourn and the meeting was adjourned.
[Matt Boutcher]
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