[0:13] Good evening. We would like to call the
regular meeting of August 18th board
[0:17] meeting to order. For those who are
able, if you could stand for the pledge
[0:21] of allegiance and remain standing for a
moment of silent prayer, please.
[0:28] I pledge algiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the
[0:35] republic for which it stands. One nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and
[0:42] justice for all.
>> You'll remain standing for a moment of
[0:46] silent prayer, please.
[0:54] Thank you.
The first um item
[1:00] is the approval of the agenda and we
would like to add if we could a DTE
[1:06] community lighting for one pole on
textile road near the park. Okay.
[1:12] » If if it's okay with board members to
add that to the board agenda.
[1:16] » Yes.
>> Yes.
[1:17] » There's no objections. We need a motion
to approve the agenda.
[1:21] » So move Peterson.
We have a motion in support. Questions
[1:26] or comments?
>> Hearing none. All in favor?
[1:30] » I.
>> Opposed? Motion carries. The next item
[1:34] is a consent agenda which are minutes of
the July 21st regular meeting statements
[1:40] and checks and the treasurer's report
for June. A motion is in order.
[1:46] » So move.
>> Motion row support Eldridge. Is there
[1:51] discussion? Hearing
none. All in favor?
[1:55] » I
>> opposed. Motion carries.
[1:59] It was also um requested that we move
public comments up after
[2:04] the attorney's report.
If everyone is okay with doing that,
[2:09] » I concur.
>> All right, Mr. Wyinners,
[2:16] » I'm sure you have an update.
>> Does everybody hear me in the back?
[2:20] We had not. It's okay.
>> Um,
[2:24] I want to take uh a moment at least and
thank all of you who are here tonight as
[2:30] well as the phone calls and messages
that have come to our township
[2:35] officials, our trustees that have in
turn be have have in turn been relayed
[2:41] to me also in regards to what I would
refer to as probably the most devast
[2:48] devastating decision
that a university of the stature of U of
[2:54] M could make in regards to a their
decision to locate
[3:01] two high performance computational
centers,
[3:05] data centers on 144 acres of property
located at the Bridge Textile Road.
[3:14] And before I get into
that decision,
[3:19] uh please keep in mind that it was made
a little more than a uh this time last
[3:26] week. It was Tuesday afternoon. And in
keeping with the behavior that they've
[3:33] established and the pattern of deceit
that has gone on during the last 18 20
[3:39] months
uh this announcement came to the
[3:44] township
during a meeting with the full-time
[3:47] officials not by U of M. It came to us
by an online newspaper who called to try
[3:55] to ascertain what was our reaction.
Did not even have the courtesy to pick
[4:01] up the phone and tell us what was going
to what decision they had made. That's
[4:08] so that's part for the course. They
didn't call us when they made their
[4:15] second purchase of property either. But
all that aside,
[4:21] I think I mentioned to a few people even
today that
[4:26] growing up, u
your parents always tell you don't tell
[4:31] don't tell a lie. Cuz if you tell a lie,
you got to tell 20 more to make up for
[4:39] the first lie. That was true then and
it's true today even inside our hallowed
[4:47] halls of higher learning and our
government. And when I say
[4:52] how this whole saga began, it began with
a lie and it continues through today. So
[5:02] a fair question could be okay why do you
say that it began with a lie?
[5:07] It was in
the winter, beginning of the winter of
[5:11] 2024
when the University of Michigan
[5:17] filed an application
with the Michigan Economic Development
[5:22] Corporation
seeking
[5:26] what amounts to a hundred million dollar
corporate welfare check to build these
[5:31] data centers. Now, keep in mind in 2024,
uh, we were going through the beginnings
[5:39] and you're still seeing it play out
today where people in this county,
[5:45] especially in this township, the city,
Eastern Washington County,
[5:50] have been have had their Medicaid
benefits
[5:54] eliminated,
have had their nutritional benefits
[5:59] eliminated,
are struggling to buy groceries.
[6:04] Everybody knows what's going on at the
gas pumps
[6:08] trying to find shelter. We've seen
uh homeless encampments around the
[6:14] county uh grow somewhat exponentially
because of what's happening. It's dire
[6:21] it's dire straits for a lot of people.
But against that backdrop, you have the
[6:27] University of Michigan,
the third wealthiest university in the
[6:33] United States, has a $21 billion
endowment,
[6:39] has a budget around $15 million a year.
You had them go up to Lancing,
[6:45] not with the blessing of the township.
They went to Lancing and they asked
[6:50] MEEDC,
not brother, can you spare a dime, it
[6:56] was brothers and sisters, can you spare
$100 million?
[7:00] And the reason why they got that request
before the MEEDC board was because they
[7:07] obtained what they call a letter of
support
[7:11] from the economic
development office, always also known as
[7:17] In Arbor Spark. In Arbor Spark, who's
headquartered right down in the middle
[7:22] of Ann Arbor, issued a letter saying to
me, "We support this idea of U ofM
[7:31] asking for this $100 million to build
these two data centers.
[7:35] One was for U of M, very small one in
comparison to Los Alamos."
[7:41] Now, they could have came to the
township board
[7:46] and said, "What do you think about this
project?" But I think they probably
[7:50] realized what the answer was going to
be. And so, they went in the back door
[7:56] and that's where the first slide began
because in that application,
[8:01] they said they were going to acquire 20
acres
[8:05] on the corner of Textile Bridge Road.
[8:10] and they were going to build two office
buildings, more or less 20 jobs a year
[8:17] for 10 years.
They were going to have a new substation
[8:21] built.
DTE claimed that 2/3 would go for these
[8:28] two data centers,
one-third for the general public.
[8:34] So what happened next? Well, fast
forward to June of 2025.
[8:42] The border regents authorized
the acquisition of an additional
[8:49] 124 acres
right next to the only access road there
[8:55] is into the into the township south
hydro park. Township has a north hydro
[9:01] park and south hydro park.
has a lot of passive recreation. People
[9:07] fish there on the docks, a lot of trails
people walk through. There's the only
[9:12] pathway into the South Hydro Park is off
of Tax Stile Road. And that road is now
[9:18] on one side the 20 acres of property.
The other side is 124 acres. And if you
[9:25] haven't been out to the area for a
while, go down to the uh here in River
[9:31] the the the news coverage that uh
covered the breaking news last week has
[9:36] some just absolutely beautiful
uh film of what that property looks like
[9:44] from the here in Riverside. If you're
standing down near South Hydro Park, the
[9:49] canopy of trees that exists there is
probably the most dense of any tree
[9:55] canopies in this township. And so
that is the location that the U of M
[10:04] after first telling MEDC we'll take 100
million for this 20 acre parcel, it then
[10:10] mushroomed into
144 acres.
[10:15] And when that came to the township's
attention, we objected strongly to this.
[10:21] This is the Heron River. This is a very
ecologically sensitive property and this
[10:29] is one that you would not take virgin
land and just destroy.
[10:34] But yet they said they would reconsider,
look at their different options. And
[10:39] during that year and a half,
there was not one meeting held with this
[10:45] township board with U of M's
representatives. They continued to tell
[10:50] additional lies. Uh I think they even
told their board of regents that they
[10:54] were meeting with the township. Not
true. Not true. There was one 15 maybe
[11:02] 10 minute Zoom call the week of
Thanksgiving in 2025
[11:07] where they we asked them for an update.
Chris Cob said, "We thought you wanted
[11:13] an update. We thought you were going to
give us an update." I said, "Well, we
[11:16] have we don't have no control over the
situation." And so the the meeting ended
[11:21] pretty much the way it began. And with
the comment being added, uh, the
[11:26] university moves at a slow pace, so
quote unquote, get used to it. Okay,
[11:34] that's how the meeting ended. And that's
the only interaction we've had. One
[11:38] meeting in July 25, a 15-minute meeting
in November. So contrary to all the
[11:45] public statements they continue to tell,
they meet with us, talk with us,
[11:51] absolutely
1,000% untrue. So the lies continue. And
[11:57] so what what's going on here right now?
So what what's what's where do we stand
[12:01] at the moment right now? Okay. During
that last year and a half, this township
[12:07] board did its own investigation, its own
due diligence, passed resolutions,
[12:14] appealed to our US senators,
our congresswoman, the governor's
[12:21] office, the Michigan legislature,
our state senators. We appeal to
[12:26] everybody to please take a stand.
Tell us your position in regards to Los
[12:35] Alamos National Laboratory and U ofM
building these data centers which in the
[12:42] words of U of M's own vice president
they have quite a few of them. This is
[12:47] Vice President Cobb. He's the one said
these computers are going to be the
[12:54] biggest, the baddest, and the fastest
computers in the world.
[13:00] Now think about that for a second. Of
all the data centers that are being
[13:03] built throughout the country, and there
are hundreds of them, this location here
[13:10] in Township is going to house the
biggest, the baddest, and the fastest
[13:17] computers in the world. And it's also
going to require
[13:23] the construction
of a 110
[13:28] megawatt substation.
I think we got a picture of what a 110
[13:32] megawatt substation looks like up there.
[13:37] Okay, there there you go. That's what a
110 megawatt substation looks like. and
[13:45] it's going to be pretty close to what's
going to be built if they have their way
[13:50] on the corner of Bridge and Textile
Road. Now,
[13:54] DTE,
not to be outdone
[13:58] in terms of telling untruths,
they have a meeting with us and they try
[14:04] to convince us this is a good thing
because if this comes into fruition,
[14:11] your rates are going to go down.
Okay, your rates are going to go down.
[14:17] In fact, Supervisor Stumbbo, you should
go out there and tell your residents the
[14:23] rates are going to go down.
Fortunately, Brenda did not drink that
[14:27] Kool-Aid either. And as we pointed out
to them, rates are going up right now.
[14:34] Without data centers, rates are going
up. And like we said before, may have
[14:39] been born at night, but not last night.
And so we all know the truth here what's
[14:45] going on here. That's what they want to
build on the 20 acre property on bridge
[14:51] and tax road. So
we now move over to okay
[14:58] the actual decision made by announced by
U of M to build these data centers. Now,
[15:04] make no mistake about it, uh, the
university president wants to pretend
[15:11] like
Los Alamos is not a high value target.
[15:17] Nothing could be further from the truth
or reality. The federal government
[15:23] itself has 10 criterion
that they rely upon to determine what
[15:30] constitutes a high value target.
And there's 10 criteria. You don't have
[15:36] to meet all 10, but in the case of Los
Alamos, they check box all 10. Their
[15:43] national security, it's restricted
entry. UFM has even said they won't be
[15:49] allowed to go inside to see what's going
on.
[15:53] They uh are going to be developing
uh they had the brains of the Los Alamos
[15:58] facility
in New Mexico.
[16:02] And you have U ofM's response saying,
"Well, we're not going to store any
[16:06] nuclear material there." Thank you.
We're not going to assemble any nuclear
[16:10] bombs there. Okay. Thank you. But this
is where the brains of the operation
[16:15] lies with that facility. They're going
to be doing millions to billions of what
[16:21] they refer to as computational modeling.
And they're also going to be doing
[16:25] research for what they refer to as the
next generation of plutonium pits.
[16:32] Plutonium pits is what triggers or
activates a nuclear missile. All this
[16:39] research is going to be done in a
facility that's near schools,
[16:46] parks, apartment complexes, churches,
residential properties right here. Now,
[16:55] there's no protection. You're seeing
what's happening play out right now in
[16:59] the in the Middle East. We were told uh
back in February, this war is going to
[17:05] be over here pretty soon. It's not going
on. You've seen data centers attacked in
[17:12] the Middle East. Amazon lost two or
three. MA lost a data center. Those are
[17:20] commercial data centers.
What is a more valuable target than Los
[17:25] Alamos who as you know is the one
responsible for the manufacturer
[17:32] of the atom va they want located right
here on textile road two-lane highways
[17:37] going textile and uh bridge road right
near the yucka wastewater treatment
[17:44] facility right near the yucka water
storage tanks on bridge road right near
[17:52] the Willerin airport,
right near Metro Airport, but we'll
[17:57] locate it over here. There's no And the
president goes, "Well, there's no
[18:01] evidence that uh this is an imminent
threat." Well, I think all of you still
[18:08] are able to do your own research.
There's been over 40
[18:13] cyber attacks during the last four to
five weeks on wastewater facilities in
[18:19] Minnesota.
in Michigan, think even in Georgia.
[18:24] But the president said it's Minnesota's
fault. They blamed it on the governor
[18:28] there in Minnesota.
So there's a denial of what's happening
[18:33] at the federal level. U of M who used to
be I think in in all of our eyes uh an
[18:42] institution that had values, a moral
compass, we could not be compromised for
[18:48] its integrity. We watched them uh sell
their soul by virtue of eliminating at
[18:54] the insistence
of the Trump administration. They
[18:57] eliminated their DEI program.
They abandon what they called the PhD
[19:02] project which was a project that was
going to allow or encourage and help
[19:07] facilitate minorities who are going to
major in business to get a PhD. They
[19:13] eliminated that and they proudly
declared that they're now considered to
[19:17] be uh aligned with the Department of War
and they've aligned themselves with
[19:23] Hillsdale College as opposed to MIT,
Harvard, Georgetown, other prestigious
[19:30] universities. This is who they are now.
They have lost their moral compass along
[19:36] the way. It's a very very sad I think uh
day for us to say this because all of us
[19:42] have grown up in the shadows of these
universities of the University of
[19:46] Michigan here and we all know very
familiar we all and the students by the
[19:50] way and the faculty we continue to hear
from them on a regular basis with uh
[19:57] their support their uh their belief that
uh U of M is totally wrong in this issue
[20:04] and fortunately many of them have told
us also So they fear
[20:09] retribution. They feel being being
thrown out of the university if they
[20:15] speak up, express their opinions.
Any event,
[20:20] we now reached last week and the
decision is made
[20:25] to p to locate these facilities at the
corner of bridge and textile road. Keep
[20:33] in mind also
a month or so ago again just prior to
[20:39] this announcement U of M announced that
they has they are going to purchase
[20:45] Concordia University
also located on the banks of the Heron
[20:49] River and ironically
consists of the same amount of acreage
[20:55] as the one in the corner a bridge and
textile road.
[21:00] And so you have a professor uh Steve
Czechio who is leading the this project
[21:08] right now. He he was asked uh uh back in
April as to uh why did why did you not
[21:17] uh consider building these facilities in
in Arbor? And this is a quote that I've
[21:23] kept in front of me.
It says that uh U of M has said it
[21:29] picked Ipsane Township rather than in
Arbor for infrastructure reasons.
[21:34] Stephen Czecho,
project lead and U of M engineering
[21:39] professor, said in an interview with the
in-house communications website that the
[21:46] university wanted to build in an arbor,
but the township emerged as a better
[21:52] option because it offers quote the
required power, water, and zoning. Now,
[22:00] stop right there.
All of us already have learned U O U of
[22:05] M is is exempt from zoning. Okay? So
zoning doesn't matter. They can plant
[22:11] their flag anywhere they want to in this
state because the Michigan Constitution
[22:16] allows them to do so. They don't have to
comply with any zoning
[22:22] uh ordinances. They have no site plan
review. They don't go before the
[22:27] planning commission. They don't come
before the township board. So if you
[22:30] eliminate zoning because it doesn't
apply in Ann Arbor anymore than it
[22:35] applies over here. What he's really
saying because we have required power
[22:41] and water.
Have you driven down to downtown Ann
[22:45] Arbor lately? You can't get around Ann
Arbor because of all the construction
[22:50] going on downtown Ann Arbor. They're
building as vertical as much as they
[22:55] possibly can. They have plenty of power
and they have plenty of water. We also
[23:01] have on record where the NRA planning
commissioner, I believe it was a
[23:06] chairperson, was quoted as saying that
the NRA planning commission would never
[23:12] allow a smoke stack facility or a data
center to be located in Ann Arbor. Okay.
[23:22] So, we know it wasn't the zoning. We
know it's not the money. They just spent
[23:26] $60 million for a Concordia. We know
they're the third wealthiest university
[23:31] in the United States. They spent $12
million on a law firm just to tell us
[23:37] what everybody else already knew that
the football coach had crossed the line
[23:41] with his behavior. Okay, we knew that,
right? They spent $12 million at $890 an
[23:47] hour for their attorney to do this
report to say, "Yeah, this was a bad
[23:51] thing that he did." He spent another
million dollars or close to it on
[23:55] investigating one of their own regions,
Jordan Aker, who crossed the line with
[24:00] his uh misogynistic and sexist comments.
And even after they did this report and
[24:07] he had to finally come clean and say,
"Well, I first denied it, but I said
[24:12] it." Even after they spent a million
dollars, he still didn't resign from the
[24:16] board. He's still on the board. So, they
got plenty of money over there. So the
[24:20] question is right now okay so if they
if they wasn't because of power or water
[24:27] it wasn't because of money or anything
why did they pick bridge and tax road
[24:32] and I can say this unequivocally
I'll take off my jacket angry
[24:43] » appreciate
okay
[24:47] get a little bit get a little bit air to
you okay So what was the real reason why
[24:51] they picked this location? Okay. And
Paul Brown understands it. This he's a
[24:58] region up up for election. This board
understands it. The reason why they
[25:03] picked bridge and tax road, this is a
classic example, a textbook example of
[25:10] what environmental racism looks like.
Okay.
[25:21] That is the reason that they pick this
site and they know that and they know in
[25:27] their hearts they know that. So what
they've done is they have continued to
[25:33] make decisions
and they want to go into communities
[25:38] that historically has had
this more black and brown poorer
[25:45] historically burdened by environmental
inequities than the affluent committee
[25:49] than the affluent community from which
the project originates. Now you can go
[25:55] to your US census right now and you can
find this out. Ipsson Township's
[26:00] population is approximately 31% black,
52% white.
[26:07] Hispanic 7.3%.
In Arbor, 6.6 black population, almost
[26:14] 70% white, 5.5% Hispanic.
It's no it's it's not it's not any
[26:20] mystery right now that uh how diverse
our population is as compared to Ann
[26:27] Arbor. But that's not the only uh thing
you should look at here. The median
[26:33] income is like 32,000 in the township or
the countywide over 50,000.
[26:40] We have a much higher poverty rate. We
also have uh lower less access to health
[26:49] care than most other parts of county.
Less opportunities to actually uh get
[26:57] educational opportunities in eastern
Washington County. We right now
[27:05] have in in the in the black community in
our township, they have a lower life
[27:11] expectancy of anywhere from 12 to 17
years. That's a fact. So this is what
[27:17] environmental racism looks like up here
when you make a decision based upon the
[27:23] fact that county continues to be divided
by race and place. has been that way and
[27:32] it basically right now once again shows
how a university with the power and
[27:40] reputation that it has can basically
select a community with Ipsy Township
[27:48] like Ipsy Township with less political
and economic power and deem that to be
[27:54] an acceptable place to put this
intensive
[27:59] land use as as opposed to putting it in
Ann Arbor. They did have an alternative
[28:05] to this site. It's called the city of
Ann Arbor. Okay. If this was so
[28:10] important, this project is so important
to the University of Michigan and Los
[28:15] Alamos, who they claim have had a
partnership for many years, if it was
[28:20] that important to them, they could have
located this facility and still can
[28:27] within the city limits or in the campus
of University of Michigan. They won't do
[28:32] that because they know that the people
in Naira right now would push back as
[28:36] they would and as they should just like
we are going to do as well. So at this
[28:41] point in TIME
[28:47] also want to also uh point out that you
know it's not lost upon any of us right
[28:52] now. We did a foyer request. I asked uh
for a number of documents, environmental
[28:59] studies and land use analysis, what your
water and power needs are going to be.
[29:04] And I got a response from their FOIA
officer.
[29:09] Now, keep in mind, I have a very small
law firm, okay?
[29:14] Very small law firm. The U ofM has
legions of CPAs, attorneys, outside
[29:21] legal counsel, etc. I write one foyer
request asking for these documents in a
[29:27] very identifiable format and they write
back saying we just don't have the
[29:31] ability to answer these questions. Now
keep in mind you're building the
[29:36] biggest, baddest, and fastest computers
in the world, but you can't answer a
[29:41] small township attorney's foyer
requests. Well, some of those foyer
[29:45] requests asked for environmental
studies. It asked for their land use
[29:50] analysis, things that are very
sensitive. And I think right now there's
[29:53] a reason why uh they did not answer
those. And we'll get into that at some
[29:58] point in time, no doubt. But I also
can't help but be reminded right now
[30:02] that this decision of environmental
racism on their part is somewhat
[30:10] consistent
with how they also treated the Native
[30:14] Americans.
>> Okay. Now, Many of you may not know that
[30:22] back in 1817,
the University of Michigan
[30:26] received by way of a treaty almost 2,000
acres as part of this treaty of Fort
[30:33] Meeks and it was involved the
Nishami uh Indian nation and section 16
[30:42] of that treaty said that U ofM in
exchange for receiving
[30:48] these 2,000 near 2,000 acres. They were
going to provide education for native
[30:54] children. They sold the property, kept
all the money, and never ever lived up
[31:02] to that promise in that treaty. And it
wasn't until 1970
[31:08] when a U of M student challenged the
university that they finally had to have
[31:12] a reckoning in regards to that history
involving
[31:16] indigenous disposition dispossession and
they finally establish established a
[31:22] land culture memory and repair project.
Their own historical records acknowledge
[31:28] that its origins and financial
foundation are intertwined with
[31:33] indigenous land acquired under a treaty
that contemplated educating native
[31:39] native children. The university benefit
benefit from the land but for
[31:44] generations did not deliver the
educational benefit contemplated by that
[31:50] agreement. Now the point I'm making is
that when people tell you who they are
[31:57] and they act a certain way and they
continue to do so over a period of time
[32:04] going back to that treaty in 1860
to their decision made in 2026 when
[32:10] people tell you certain things believe
them. Okay? Believe them because there
[32:16] is nothing that will come. You'll never
see a more clear example of
[32:22] environmental racism reflected in a
decision than what you've seen here in
[32:26] MC Township. Now, what's going to happen
on this property they have their way?
[32:30] Well, we know what's going to happen.
They're going to destroy
[32:33] the the environment. The natural
environment would be destroyed. That
[32:37] tree canopy is all going to be
destroyed.
[32:42] The natural habitat will be destroyed.
the wildlife
[32:48] that right now uh roam there freely will
be gone.
[32:53] Uh we got a lot of pictures of American
bald eagles. They have nests on that
[32:58] property. All that's going to be at risk
and that's why the township right now
[33:04] has also said that we will do whatever
it takes to prevent U of M from building
[33:10] these data centers on that property. And
we continue
[33:22] and we continue to look for the best and
the brightest people to assist us. and
[33:27] we're getting phone calls every day and
we're doing our triage and trying to
[33:30] make sure we make the right
recommendation to the township board
[33:34] because as some of you may recall it
wasn't that long ago at the Meccano
[33:40] policy conference up here on Mechanino
Island that uh there was this big panel
[33:46] of very important people there. You had
former governor Jennifer Granhol sitting
[33:50] up there. You had John Roa who is the
chairman of the Wallbridge Alinger who's
[33:56] building this link ship data center
in in regard
[34:02] in regards to what they were talking
about. Nobody rebuked them but this
[34:09] township board because during that panel
conference John Makulta Jr. said
[34:15] Michigan should build a 100 data centers
and they should open the Great Lakes
[34:22] and use the Great Lakes water to cool
these data centers. That's on the
[34:28] record. That's what he said. And he said
>> and he said by any means necessary. So
[34:36] this is what you're dealing with right
now. You have a state that has basically
[34:43] lost its moral compass by
allowing a 6% sales and use tax
[34:50] exemption for these data centers, saving
them billions of dollars. And none of us
[34:55] can forget that picture we had up here
for a long time of the groundbreaking in
[35:00] Selen Tent Township where you had the
American version of what oligarchy looks
[35:05] like. You had some of the 10 richest
billionaires. If you're a millionaire,
[35:11] you're not rich anymore in in that
specific club. That you got to be a
[35:15] billionaire to be in that club. And they
were there in Seline all smiling and
[35:19] waving, breaking ground because they
were taking away billions of dollars in
[35:25] tax benefits with them. These are the
richest people in the world. What has
[35:30] happened to this state? Now, I am going
to put out a challenge here also.
[35:36] Now later on, keep in mind Selene
Township's data center is under
[35:41] construction. Okay, it's being built as
we sit here. And so right now, I did see
[35:49] where uh US Senate candidate Abdullah El
Sayad showed up, they're protesting the
[35:58] construction of the data center. Okay.
But
[36:03] my challenge is this.
It's one thing to protest against a data
[36:10] center.
It's under construction.
[36:14] And it's another thing to let us know
right here, right now, where do you
[36:21] stand on Los Alamos and U of M coming to
Taxile Bridge Road?
[36:27] » There has not been one shovel in the
ground yet. Okay. They've not had a
[36:31] groundbreaking ceremony. So, I would
call upon Democratic candidate Jocelyn
[36:36] Benson. Where do you stand?
>> Where do you stand? We have a right to
[36:42] know as a township. People have right to
know in this state. Where do you stand
[36:46] on coming under bridge textile road in
this issue of U of M and Los Alamos
[36:53] putting this township in harm's way?
We also need to have
[36:59] Abdullah Salad come over here. You stood
with some people in Selen Township.
[37:04] Stand with us. Let us know where you
stand. Do you support what's going on by
[37:10] U of M in Los Alamos? Same for
candidate John James for governor and
[37:18] Mike Rogers.
>> This we need to know before it's too
[37:22] late.
protesting after the fact,
[37:26] the toothpaste is out of the tube. We we
need to know right here, right now,
[37:31] where do you stand? And the same can be
said for all the candidates for a border
[37:36] regions. We have Paul Brown, Amir Mlad,
Lena Epstein, Michael Schust, Andrew
[37:43] Shedron, Kyle Moss, all running for U of
M regions. We need to know exactly. We
[37:48] do know where Paul Brown stands as he's
told us it's environmental racism. We
[37:53] need to know where it stands. So, at
this point in time, you know, I guess
[37:56] you ask yourself, you know, where do you
go from here? Well, contrary to what
[38:03] some people in local government would
have us do, we're not going to bend the
[38:07] knee. We're not going to get down and
gravel.
[38:15] I'm not going to listen to state senator
Jeff Irwin who says, "Well, I'm sure you
[38:20] could get them to build you a boardwalk
around uh around the perimeter of these
[38:25] data centers, and we're not going to
follow the recommendation of Justin
[38:29] Hajj, who says, you know, it's better
for you to negotiate
[38:33] uh before you make U of M really mad at
you." And then what are you going to do?
[38:39] Buy more property? I mean, so that's
kind of a, you know, it's kind of a a
[38:43] foolish argument for us. But interesting
about Justin Hajj is that when it came
[38:49] time to vote on this resolution to stand
with us, he and two other county
[38:54] commissioners said, "Well, we can't vote
on this issue. We have a conflict."
[38:58] What's your conflict? Because unless you
have a financial benefit or financial
[39:02] loss, you can't choose to not vote. He
said, "Well, I'm a professor at U of M."
[39:09] Well, that's not a basis for recusal,
but he did. And then after the
[39:13] announcement was made, some of you may
have seen him on TV or in Facebook
[39:18] saying how opposed he was to what U of M
was doing. I think what changed was the
[39:22] constituents from this audience that
weighed in and let him know that right
[39:27] now where you stood and it may have
affected his position. So what I would
[39:33] say to uh the border regents right now,
you know, you've not you've not gone so
[39:40] far that you cannot stop.
You can still turn this around. And as I
[39:46] said before, right now, this is still
somewhat of a moment in time that's uh
[39:54] reminds you of the novel by Charles
Dickens,
[39:58] A Tale of Two Cities. And Dickens opens
that novel with a sentence,
[40:04] "It was the best of times. It was the
worst of times. It was the age of
[40:09] wisdom. It was the age of foolishness.
It was the epic of belief. It was epic
[40:16] of incredul. It was a season of light.
It was a season of darkness. It was a
[40:23] spring of hope. It was the winter of
despair. So I would say to the border
[40:28] regents, those who are running and those
who are sitting on the board right now,
[40:33] you still have an opportunity to do the
right thing. You're at a crossroads.
[40:38] Township is not going to back down. We
will leave no stone unturned in making
[40:44] sure that you do not destroy our home
values, our people's way of life, what
[40:51] they've worked to worked for, their
personal safety by locating
[40:58] a nuclear research laboratory right in
the midst of Ipsane Township. You can
[41:04] still do the right thing. You can still
do do the right thing and not destroy
[41:09] the woodlands, destroy the Heron River,
destroy the environment, the way of life
[41:17] for over hundreds of years. At the same
time, we also believe that uh I said
[41:24] back in January that I think we're right
on this. I think it's going to show
[41:28] right now there's also uh native
indigenous burial ground on that
[41:34] property. that's the case, you can't
build on that property.
[41:37] » That's right.
>> You can't build on that property.
[41:40] » And we we'll do what we have to do to
make sure that you don't if there's any
[41:46] what we believe to be the evidence that
we've seen so far. Now, if you're going
[41:53] to do the right thing,
border regions,
[41:59] take a ride down the Heron River. Come
out here and walk walk walk walk walk
[42:03] walk walk walk walk walk walk walk walk
walk walk walk walk walk walk walk walk
[42:03] walk walk walk walk walk walk walk walk
[42:03] walk walk walk walk walk walk walk walk
walk walk walk walk around around that
[42:04] where the fishing docks are. Visit Ford
Lake. See all the parks that are the
[42:11] benefit from the Hiron River. We know
that we are the
[42:16] socioeconomically
outliers in Washington County and we
[42:21] recognize that we have limited
resources,
[42:24] lower incomes,
almost no generational wealth, and that
[42:29] we are home to the largest populations
of brown and black people and families
[42:32] within our county.
and your societal class ratings. We are
[42:38] probably middle class, working class,
lower class in some of your minds.
[42:44] But we have historically and we continue
to face the impact of classism and
[42:50] racism. And because of personal
prejudices, systemic policies, societal
[42:56] norms, and discrimination in this
county, our residents have always had to
[43:02] stand up to be seen and be heard.
We are struggling right now with making
[43:09] sure that people do not sell their
homes. We get phone calls. So, I don't
[43:15] uh the supervisor and people on this
board, they get phone calls all the time
[43:20] as to whether or not should we sell our
property? Are our home values going to
[43:25] go down?
And what do you tell people when they do
[43:30] their research as well and know
how this is going to impact their lives?
[43:36] Is there anybody on the border regents?
Is there anybody running for the border
[43:40] regents that wants to have their family
live next to these data centers? Wants
[43:48] wants to raise their children in the
shadows of the data centers. I think
[43:52] that answer would be a resounding no.
So, we don't have all the the lobbyists
[43:58] that you do in uh in Lancing. We don't
have the financial wherewithal to spend
[44:05] uh $1,000 an hour for all the most
expensive exclusive law firms located
[44:10] from Chicago to California to to New
York. But we will stand up and fight. We
[44:15] will protect the People's River. We will
protect our environment. We will fight
[44:20] to protect our businesses and homes. We
will fight to protect the 144 acres from
[44:26] being developed by U ofM Los Alamos
along with 110 megawatt electrical power
[44:32] substation which produces enough
electricity to power 80,000 homes and by
[44:37] itself
equals more electricity than what is
[44:42] currently being used by the rest of the
township combined. We will continue to
[44:47] do everything possible to stop the
building of these data centers at
[44:51] textile ridge roads. And just for one
time, just for one time, please do the
[44:58] right thing. Thank you.
[45:24] Thank you, Mr. Wyinners. At this time,
the board members will comment
[45:29] afterwards or do you want to make a
quick comment afterwards? Okay, great
[45:35] summary of where we are at right now.
If the people would like to speak, we
[45:40] have microphones.
You have three minutes.
[45:44] and address your comments to the board.
Julianne, are you up first?
[45:52] » May I address the
>> just raise Yeah, we'll bring you Well, I
[45:56] guess we can hear them from here.
[46:04] » Okay, that's great.
[46:10] » Thank you.
>> Thank you.
[46:13] Um, for those that don't know me, my
name is Amir Ml. I'm an attorney. I'm
[46:18] from Dearborn, Michigan. I'm also a
candidate for the University of Michigan
[46:21] Board of Regents. And so, I was invited
here today by members of the the
[46:25] township uh board and I'm I'm really
encouraged by the the report that our
[46:31] that your township attorney has given
because I stand in solidarity with this
[46:35] township. I'm here to support it.
And so what I heard from our very
[46:43] able-bodied township attorney, and I've
worked across the table from council
[46:47] winners before, we've we've actually
litigated a a case before together,
[46:52] is that sometimes we got to take the
fight out of the boardroom from a
[46:57] township and into the courtroom. And so
I would support this township's effort
[47:03] to block this data center. As a member
of the board of regions, I think that
[47:08] it's important that communities
recognize that they should know what the
[47:12] impact of these developments are going
to be. Not when the bulldozers arrive,
[47:16] » but much in advance. We need to know
what the community impact is going to
[47:20] be, whether it comes from environmental
impact, economic impact, and every type
[47:24] of impact that it's going to have on the
communities where these developments are
[47:27] happening. And so it's shame on a public
university that's giving corporate
[47:32] welfare to a large military-industrial
complex to the tune of nearly $1 billion
[47:38] that's going to go to a private entity.
That's not what our University of
[47:43] Michigan represents and that's not what
the people of the state of Michigan are
[47:45] looking for. And so when I come to
communities like this and I listen to
[47:49] what the pulse of this community is
saying, we need to have our voices
[47:52] raised so loud that it reverberates in
Lancing. That where people in our state
[47:56] government recognize that this community
shouldn't be left behind because of what
[48:00] our economic status or our racial makeup
is. And that's exactly what we bring up
[48:04] when we talk about environmental racism.
This is a problem and we must stand
[48:09] together and push back and make sure
that our institutions, our public
[48:13] institutions listens to the community
that it's there and designed to serve.
[48:17] And so I stand in solidarity with the
township. I stand in solidarity with
[48:20] your township attorney and and the and
the board of trustees and the township
[48:23] supervisor. And my name is Amir Mlin.
I'm running for the University Board of
[48:27] Michigan to help fight back because
that's what I've done my whole career as
[48:31] a civil rights attorney. We're here to
push back against large institutions and
[48:35] I'm here and to show and to say that I
do oppose this this development and I
[48:40] would support this cause to end this
data center. Thank you.
[48:42] » Thank you. Thank you.
[48:49] Lori, are you going first?
[48:54] Hi, I'm Nancy. Um, a member of this
community too, just like most of us
[48:58] here. I was passing out these the phone
number of Paul Brown. He's on the um uh
[49:06] U of M uh regent board
>> and if anybody doesn't have his number,
[49:10] he's looking forward to receiving
people's thoughts, concerns,
[49:15] and whatever questions if you have
questions and uh he's on our side. He's
[49:21] the only one on the board that is on our
side so far, but he's working on other
[49:25] board members. There's going to be a new
president there too soon. uh by the way
[49:29] and uh November 30th there'll be a new
president at U of M. So that's in our
[49:34] favor a little bit too. I think if we
fight hard enough, loud enough, we can
[49:38] win. We have to win. We have no choice.
This is our families are here. You know,
[49:45] we can't give up on that. And if anybody
doesn't have one of these, please um
[49:51] I'll just meet people at the door when
they leave.
[49:53] » We can hand them out as people are
exiting if you want. Thank you, Nancy.
[49:58] Did you just give the number for the
record?
[50:01] » Could you read the number into the
record?
[50:04] » Sorry.
>> The phone number.
[50:06] » Oh, number two.
>> Two.
[50:09] » Oh, yes, of course I will. The phone
number to Paul Brown is
[50:15] 734
73077.
[50:24] » Shouldn't we call them all? you want
your text.
[50:28] » And we met with Regent Brown twice and
he really wants people to call him or
[50:37] text him with his concerns. He means it.
I'm not sure if he realizes what's going
[50:43] to happen, but but the thought that he
really does mean it. He wants people to
[50:51] t he wants to talk to the people and he
wants you to know he wants you to share
[50:56] your opinions with him, your questions
with him and he will take it to the
[51:00] board of regents. So, please do that.
Thank you, Nancy. Next, Julianne.
[51:05] » Yep, that's a
>> hi there. Andrea Pierce, um over in Gul
[51:09] Village, Ipsy Township resident. Um I
just want to say that we got to do
[51:14] everything we can to stop this thing.
We've I've been here several times. Um
[51:18] the moratorum is sounds wonderful. Thank
you again. I want to remind people
[51:22] though that while we're talking about a
nuclear data center over there, there's
[51:26] also the Nexus pipeline right by it like
a stones throw, you know, right there.
[51:34] We are already on the at the um blast
zone from that.
[51:38] Now, what happens when the nuclear or
either one of them blow up, right? Are
[51:44] we going to like how far is this going
to go? There's going to be a big old
[51:48] plutonium pit here. I mean, seriously,
we are in danger,
[51:52] right? We are in danger for our lives,
for our famil family's lives, for those
[51:56] animals out there. I'm all the time
talking about those animals, those
[51:59] sacred beings that are out there. You
know, we have to think about them. What
[52:03] are we doing to them? What are we doing
to us? What are we allowing this school
[52:07] to do to us? Okay. Um, I'm in the hail
no boo category.
[52:14] I think this is terrible that this
university is doing this to a township
[52:19] of people who care, who look out for
each other. We made it through co now we
[52:24] got to fight this university. I think
it's sick and disgusting. And while
[52:28] we're talking about um regents, thank
you Amir. I'm glad that you're here.
[52:32] I've I've seen you speak plenty of
times. Um and you're on my side. You got
[52:35] my vote. But we have to also think about
the other regents. Sarah Hubbert is
[52:40] actively a lobbyist who point pushed and
pushed and pushed in Lancing to get this
[52:45] data centers. She pushed legislation.
She's one she's one of them and she's a
[52:50] regent.
And that's probably why we only have one
[52:54] up there that's against this, right?
Because she's been sitting there all
[52:57] this time putting her, oh, we can get
money. Yeah. Uh-huh. We need to stop
[53:03] them. Okay. We need to I think her
turn's up in 29. But if we can find out,
[53:09] you know, do what we got to do, you
know, talk to her, you know, reach out
[53:13] to these people. They're supposed to be
human. Let's get them, you know, cuz if
[53:19] we sit back and don't, we're going to
lose. We are We're going to lose. They
[53:23] got all this money that they're trying
to to push on out there. That $100
[53:27] million that they were giving, that's
our money. We can't get health care, but
[53:31] they can get free land. I can't get free
land. I've been sitting on them tax
[53:36] sites all day long trying to get those
lands and I can't get none of them. But
[53:40] you of them can. And they got billions
and billions and billions.
[53:45] Yeah. It's not fair and it's not right.
So I'm in the when we fight we win. So
[53:51] what are we going to do?
>> Fight.
[53:54] » Thank you.
>> And win. When we fight, we win. Oh, you
[53:56] got a mic. Thank you,
>> Lori.
[54:00] I'm sorry. Next.
>> My name is Lindsay Pastor. Um, I'm a
[54:04] resident of the town. I live in the
club.
[54:12] » I think it's on now.
[54:18] » Oh, here. This one's working.
>> This one's working. Okay. My name is
[54:23] Lindsay Passmore. I'm a resident of the
township. I live in the Club View
[54:29] Fairills neighborhood. Never been to a
township meeting before.
[54:34] Um, I want to thank all of you for
standing against this project. Um, I I
[54:44] have been so proud to be a U OFM
graduate and I am livid about the way
[54:52] the U of M has behaved. I I'm I can
hardly believe it. And you're right,
[54:59] they've lost the the university has lost
its moral compass. And I am um I they I
[55:07] feel like they betrayed their legacy.
They betrayed all of us who went there
[55:12] believing in what the U of M stands for.
I really appreciate um Attorney Winters,
[55:19] how your report just specifically over
and over again calls out the university.
[55:25] I love the signs about hail no, but
there's no U of M logo on there. And if
[55:31] it wasn't for the U of M, Los Alamos
would not be trying to be here in Ipsy
[55:37] Township. I think I want to know more
about what possible legal recourse we
[55:44] might have. Um, but I think one of our
strongest strategies is we need to just
[55:50] shame the hell out of the university. I
want us to be there on football
[55:56] Saturdays and I am such a sincere fan of
our football and basketball team, but
[56:02] I'm ready to be out there at games with
our signs with leaflets. I think the
[56:08] students at the law school and at the
School of Natural Resources need to know
[56:14] about this. I think we need to get some
of those brilliant young minds because
[56:18] they are idealistic and they they want
to stand for what's right. Um, whatever
[56:24] we need to do to support your resolution
about a moratorum on electrical
[56:30] infrastructure,
let's let's go. And um but I'm really
[56:35] interested in knowing what else we can
do legally um since they seem to be
[56:39] exempt from all the rules. Thank you so
much though. Thank you, Julianne.
[56:48] » Hello everyone. Denise Kirchoff. I just
want to let everyone know a couple of
[56:53] things. I don't think a lot of people I
don't even know if the board is aware of
[56:56] this. Los Alamos actually appointed a
board for the U of M data center in 2023
[57:03] on their website. their board overseeing
the U of M data center, which nobody
[57:09] knew anything about, was appointed in
2023.
[57:13] Now, I think we should all take that in.
Nobody here knew anything. The board
[57:17] didn't know anything. No, only the
people at U of M knew. And I see a lot
[57:22] of people and I hear them going, "Well,
it's not that bad. There's going to be
[57:25] jobs." No, there's really not. I think
people need to understand one thing.
[57:29] Since 2025,
our energy bills have increased by 60
[57:38] billion dollars in the United States.
The United States represents 37%
[57:45] of data centers worldwide. That was as
of January 1st, 2024.
[57:52] It is 2026.
One
[57:56] midsize data center uses 300,000
gallons of water a day. 300,000 gallons
[58:05] of water a day. Think about that. And
you wonder why they're looking at the
[58:09] Great Lakes. And a lot of people are
like, "Oh, wow. That information can't
[58:13] be right." You know what? Most of this
information doesn't even come from the
[58:16] United States anymore because we can't
really trust it. So people don't realize
[58:22] another thing. The world is watching us.
They're not just watching, you know,
[58:26] what's going on in their countries, but
they're watching us because they're
[58:30] seeing more hypers scale centers being
built here. Now, hypers scale centers in
[58:36] less than one year will use over 300
billion gallons of water. Can we think
[58:45] about that? 300 billion gallons of
water.
[58:51] Everybody just sit with that for five
seconds and think about 300 billion
[58:55] gallons of water.
So what does that leave for us? And I
[59:02] think U of M needs to realize one thing.
The one thing this community will not do
[59:07] is we will not go quietly into the
night. That will never happen. We will
[59:13] be here day after day after day. If we
have to do encampments, we will do it.
[59:20] Because when I and my brain calculate
300 billion gallons of water,
[59:29] what does that do to our Great Lakes
when we actually what do we have like
[59:35] over 27% of the world's fresh water is
right here and we are about to let U of
[59:41] M and data centers destroy it. So I
think we need to realize that that
[59:46] that's going to be very serious and
eventually if you look at the map
[59:50] everybody will live less than 150 miles
away from a data center in the state of
[59:54] Michigan. Do we really want that?
>> Thank you Denise. Next
[1:00:01] » number six.
>> Who has number six?
[1:00:10] » Hi I'm Gary.
[1:00:22] Lori, you want to find number seven
while I get ready?
[1:00:24] » Fine. I've been in this community all my
life.
[1:00:27] » There we go. That's That's what's in it.
The magic. It works now. Go for Anyway,
[1:00:32] I want to thank Doug for all your
support with this, all the things you've
[1:00:37] dug up and sounds good, but we need to
fight more. I was hoping just with the
[1:00:45] Eagles out there, we get some on the
federal level, maybe. I I don't know.
[1:00:50] That's just I'm hoping, you know, DNR or
somebody.
[1:00:55] Um, but I'm going to support whatever we
got to do to do get get it gone.
[1:01:02] I just want to thank you guys. Thank
everybody here and let's get it done.
[1:01:07] » Get them out of here.
>> Thank you.
[1:01:12] » Number seven. Number seven.
[1:01:18] » Eight.
[1:01:21] » I have eight.
>> You have eight.
[1:01:23] » All right.
>> Um, hi, my name's Emily. I'm an
[1:01:26] Ipsellante resident and um I'm not
really a public speaker, but I just
[1:01:32] wanted to say thank you to everybody who
can stand up against this and can put it
[1:01:39] into words way better than I can. And I
have so many concerns about the
[1:01:45] electricity use, the water use, possible
the pollution,
[1:01:50] um the location,
just not that it should be built
[1:01:55] somewhere else. I don't think it should
be built at all because this I thank
[1:02:02] you. I it it would be bad enough if it
was a regular data center. Um, but it's
[1:02:08] even worse that it's going to be used
for nuclear weapons research. Um, and I
[1:02:14] just think it's horrible um, what U of M
is doing just steamrolling over
[1:02:21] Ipsellante. And
yeah, we just like everyone else has
[1:02:26] said, we have to fight. I don't know how
exactly we're going to be able to beat
[1:02:31] them, but we have to try. And thank you
so much to everybody out here who has
[1:02:38] been standing up and fighting.
Um,
[1:02:43] I don't really know what else to say,
but thank you.
[1:02:46] » That's perfect. Thank you.
[1:02:50] » Number nine.
Number nine.
[1:02:56] » Okay.
>> I know, too.
[1:03:00] » Hi, my name is Regina Cuddler. live in
Ipsellani Township and I've been kind of
[1:03:05] involved in this issue for a long time.
I went to the very first U of
[1:03:10] Mformformational
session in um September of 2025
[1:03:17] and it was 8 miles northwest of the
township
[1:03:22] and it was at 5:00 in the afternoon
which was just a really lovely drive at
[1:03:28] that time of day onto Plymouth Road and
um North Campus. no bus, you know, there
[1:03:36] isn't bus service and that, you know, an
easy way to take a bus from there, from
[1:03:42] here to there. And, you know, there was
a few people there and we walked in and
[1:03:50] they had, you know, some refreshments
and they had people standing around by
[1:03:56] poster boards, you know, showing each
aspect of their of the data center. And
[1:04:04] um I asked each and every person
standing by a poster board, would you
[1:04:10] live near a data center? And they all
said no, except for one lady who said
[1:04:16] she would if the burm was high enough.
And there was a gentleman, I think he
[1:04:23] was like a he was an engineer, like an
engineer's engineer. And he said he
[1:04:28] would. And I thought he'd probably live
in one. So
[1:04:33] Anyway, so then um went to the second
one right over here at the ballroom at
[1:04:40] the hotel Marriott.
>> Exact same situation except I got a lot
[1:04:47] more information because I spent a lot
of time with the fellow from Los Alamos.
[1:04:53] And one thing that he revealed is that
what makes Michigan such an attractive
[1:05:00] scene for the data center is that a lot
of people that might want to recruit in
[1:05:07] that don't want to live out there
anymore in Mexico. The weather's bad.
[1:05:14] There's fires. There's no I mean it's
just not like a really nice place to
[1:05:20] live. I guess they'd like to live here
in Michigan because we have water, we
[1:05:26] have trees, we have, you know, look at,
we even had the right wildlife, you
[1:05:32] know, that kind of stuff. And he also
told me that they were going to focus on
[1:05:42] weapon delivery with drones.
>> Shame. So, so that
[1:05:48] » Can you put the microphone up to your
mic?
[1:05:49] » Oh, I'm sorry. Weapon delivery with
drones.
[1:05:53] And if any of you have been watching the
news, you've seen what drones can do.
[1:05:58] But what do drones need? They need the
brains, the technology
[1:06:04] » to um guide their navigation systems,
their delivery systems, and don't forget
[1:06:12] the reconnaissance systems and the
surveillance systems.
[1:06:17] So that is what that Los Alamus data
center is going to do.
[1:06:22] » Thank you, Regina.
>> Oh, can I just add one more thing along
[1:06:25] that line? They sent a bunch of material
and one one thing they said about this
[1:06:30] site is that it's very attractive
because
[1:06:35] um um
this site is very attractive because it
[1:06:42] has developmental flexibility
and long-term capacity.
[1:06:48] » Thank you.
>> And so you think about what they could
[1:06:50] be planning.
>> Thank you. Thank you for attending every
[1:06:53] meeting. Thank you.
>> Julianne
[1:06:58] number 11.
>> Julian.
[1:07:06] » There it is.
>> Bruce Williamson and I live in the
[1:07:11] township and uh I'm not used to talking
to crowds of people so bear with me. Two
[1:07:17] things to say. Uh the first is that in
high school I had a science teacher
[1:07:26] and first day of the class the very
first thing he said is we have and I
[1:07:33] didn't remember the number but it's 27%
of the fresh water in the world and
[1:07:39] somebody's going to come after it and
it's going to be up to your generation
[1:07:44] to stop it. I never thought that we'd
have to defend it against an internal
[1:07:50] foe.
>> But the other thing is, um, I've lived
[1:07:55] here since 1993.
I've seen a lot of things happen. I've
[1:08:01] seen a a lot of tough times, the GM
plants closing,
[1:08:06] the ramifications of that, and I've seen
this community bounce back. And I think
[1:08:13] one of our strongest assets is our
diversity and and the way we look at
[1:08:21] things from different angles and we can
if we work together
[1:08:27] putting looking at all these different
angles, I think we'll succeed.
[1:08:33] » That's it.
>> Thank you.
[1:08:36] » Number 12
over there.
[1:08:42] Thank you. Hi. Uh my name is Juliet
Heinley. I am a township resident since
[1:08:47] 2018. And um thank you everybody for
being here. Thank you for being in
[1:08:52] opposition to this terrible thing. And I
just want to ask the room, sorry, I get
[1:08:57] so nervous when I speak in front of you.
Um thank you. I just want to ask
[1:09:02] everybody in the room who is here
because somebody else in their family
[1:09:06] can't be here or one of their friends is
working or like some their friends are,
[1:09:10] you know, taking care of their kids,
right? Like we're all here to represent
[1:09:14] other people who aren't in this room
with us right now. And so I just want to
[1:09:17] remind us all that there are even more
of us in opposition than are in this
[1:09:21] room right now. And thank you all for
being here.
[1:09:23] » Thank you.
[1:09:27] » Number 13.
[1:09:32] I'd like to say I see mayor elect Yousef
Robbie has JOINED
[1:09:53] HIM.
>> YEAH, that's what worked for you. I'm
[1:09:55] not going to
be a problem.
[1:10:07] » Can we
Sorry.
[1:10:11] » Once you grab it, you can't touch the
button.
[1:10:15] » No. And it's it's not even that. It's
just being
[1:10:18] » That was
>> How about this time? We good?
[1:10:22] » All right.
Uh so my name is Jessica Krueger. I live
[1:10:26] in Ipsilani Township. I've been a
resident here since uh shortly in the
[1:10:31] middle of CO I think. And we had someone
earlier who gave a really amazing
[1:10:38] um speech about water and the amount of
water that will be consumed and is
[1:10:44] already being consumed by these types of
computational facilities, data centers.
[1:10:51] um however you want to term them. But I
want you to think about this from a
[1:10:58] different angle for a second because we
are entering what is going to be and in
[1:11:04] some places already is a global water
crisis.
[1:11:08] So many refugees are fleeing because of
water shortages or because of conflict
[1:11:14] over water or impure water. And I want
you to sit and think for a minute. And I
[1:11:19] hope somewhere out there the regions
will do this too. Sit and think about
[1:11:24] spending a day without water. Not being
able to drink, not being able to use
[1:11:30] your sink, wash your dishes, take a
shower,
[1:11:34] use a toilet,
nothing. And now think about not just a
[1:11:40] day of that, but a week, a month. How
would that impact your life? What would
[1:11:47] the world around you look like?
Because someday in our near future, if
[1:11:54] we as Michigan, as a country, as a world
keep going down the road that we're
[1:12:00] going, that's going to be what we're all
looking at. So, it's now more important
[1:12:06] than ever to protect that 27%
that we have in our hands
[1:12:12] and take a stand so that we can all have
a brighter future where we can drink, we
[1:12:19] can shower, we can use indoor plumbing,
and we can have access to the kind of
[1:12:23] life that we live right now without
interference. Thank you.
[1:12:28] » Thank you.
Next.
[1:12:34] » Number 14.
>> Number 14.
[1:12:37] » Pass. Number 15.
[1:12:42] » If you could say your name.
>> Sure. You're a township res.
[1:12:46] » Yep.
>> Hi. Uh, my name is Nara. I'm a township
[1:12:50] resident. In fact, I live in the condos
on the other side of the Heron River
[1:12:55] where this is going to go or proposed to
go. So, this will affect my family
[1:13:03] immensely.
[1:13:06] And um
I'm mad because I look at U of M and
[1:13:13] it's supposed to be an institution of
higher learning
[1:13:16] and instead it's become a corporation
where all they care about is money
[1:13:24] and how much money they can make for
themselves. They don't care about
[1:13:28] people. They don't care about the
residents.
[1:13:32] They don't care about us.
And it angers me because I'm a former
[1:13:38] employee.
[1:13:42] And um I'll tell you, working there,
it's obvious they don't even care about
[1:13:49] their employees.
Oh no.
[1:13:52] » And I think we need to be very loud and
very present. And I guess I want to know
[1:14:00] how we are going to organize that
because I found out about this meeting
[1:14:04] today.
And I have found out about other
[1:14:08] meetings literally the day after they've
happened. Otherwise, I would have been
[1:14:12] here. And I want to see organization and
communication
[1:14:19] to all of the residents here and beyond
because this doesn't just affect us. The
[1:14:24] Hiron River continues down into
Belleville. It continues going. This is
[1:14:29] going to affect our neighbors because we
are all one big community.
[1:14:35] And I was talking to a friend today
telling her about this and she didn't
[1:14:40] even know where this was going and how
close to her home it is.
[1:14:47] And I think that we
need to get that out
[1:14:54] um
more like this communication because I
[1:14:58] know that there could be more people
here that we could pack this room that
[1:15:03] we could pack the room. I think it's
what? September 9th is the meeting with
[1:15:08] the um the regions. Is that what that
is? Yes, the meeting with the regions.
[1:15:13] And I think we need to pack that. And
I don't know exactly how to go about
[1:15:19] that because I saw this on Facebook, but
Facebook, Tik Tok, Instagram. Um, we
[1:15:25] need to get the young people involved
because when we're gone, this is their
[1:15:31] um,
>> as many social media platforms as
[1:15:33] possible.
>> As many social media platforms as
[1:15:35] possible as my daughter says because
this affects all of us.
[1:15:39] » All right. Thank you.
>> Sign up to sign up for the meeting.
[1:15:42] » Okay. But
>> it's September.
[1:15:44] » September. I saw that. Yes, I have that
saved so I can do that this uh, evening.
[1:15:48] » You're Thank you. Um the three minutes
is up and just so you know we are we
[1:15:54] have pushed it out the September 9th
meeting
[1:15:59] » on all of the social media platforms. We
pushed them out today because today is a
[1:16:04] day we received the link from the
University of Michigan.
[1:16:07] » Yeah, I did see that
>> last Tuesday.
[1:16:11] The University of Michigan announced
>> a whole week,
[1:16:16] » a whole week ago, they announced that
they were going to locate it at Textile
[1:16:21] and Bridge. 27 minutes later,
they texted me to have a phone call and
[1:16:28] it was already out in the social media.
So, the reason we get it out as soon as
[1:16:34] we get it, the University of Michigan
controls the information and how it
[1:16:39] drips out and it's torture what they're
doing to our community.
[1:16:44] But, but but
we will continue to get it out as soon
[1:16:50] as we can get it. We're going to do a
mailer to every single resident.
[1:16:56] We they're having
another forum in October.
[1:17:03] They won't give us the date of that yet.
If we knew the date, we could put it in
[1:17:07] the mailer. They control every aspect of
information and decisions and it's with
[1:17:14] disrespect
to our community, our people, to anyone
[1:17:20] in county and the board of regents
should not allow this. If it's such a
[1:17:26] great
wonderful
[1:17:30] state-ofthe-art future,
then why don't they proudly let people
[1:17:36] know? So, we will get it out even more.
So,
[1:17:40] » I'm sorry. Who's next?
>> Is there a way that we can organize
[1:17:43] protests at U of M?
>> Yes.
[1:17:46] » Yes, you can.
>> But we have to be careful because they
[1:17:50] have new rules.
>> Let's have Who's next, please? Number
[1:17:54] speaker.
>> 16.
[1:17:58] » Lori.
>> No, let's wait. We got to get Who's
[1:18:01] next?
>> Number 16.
[1:18:03] » Okay.
>> Okay. Thank you. Number 17.
[1:18:10] » 18. 18.
>> I got 18. I'm not going to pass.
[1:18:14] » All right.
>> State your name. And if you
[1:18:18] » My name's Chris Rizzo. I live in Ipsy
Township and uh I'm I oppose this uh
[1:18:25] data center because I saw your uh the
email about the coming up at U of M. I
[1:18:33] mean at the center at the EMU center and
uh I noticed as I read carefully it said
[1:18:41] it's a a guided discussion.
So it's not like town hall or open town
[1:18:48] hall. It's a guided disc discussion and
I'm wondering if that means they're
[1:18:53] going to shove their hand up your
backside and work your jaw for you
[1:18:57] » since they're from Antarctica.
>> That's a fair question.
[1:19:00] » Yeah. Which I'm sure they would avoid.
But I think this guided discussion is
[1:19:04] just pre-programmed propaganda being
planned by M. It's just another slap in
[1:19:09] the face to Ipsy Township. Slap in your
face.
[1:19:13] And uh it's it's what I really want to
say is I think this whole data say
[1:19:18] center thing is just a ruse and a ploy
to introduce small nuclear reactors into
[1:19:24] the energy grid under the guise of
national security. That's what that's
[1:19:29] what the investors in Wall Street are
seeing. They know that for the next 10
[1:19:33] years there's going to be a
>> just a moment
[1:19:36] » there's going to be a increased demand
for electrical energy and that just you
[1:19:40] know that's what the Wall Street
investors are looking for a return on
[1:19:44] their investment for the next 10 years
there's going to be an increase in
[1:19:49] demand for electrical energy and I think
that these data centers are just a ploy
[1:19:54] to introduce these small nuclear
reactors and if you do a search on the
[1:19:59] internet under small nuclear reactor
actors, you'll see that they're they're
[1:20:04] they're
aimed at these data centers. And I think
[1:20:10] that appropriate legal prohibitions and
laws need to be created to prevent small
[1:20:15] nuclear reactors from being used in Ipsy
Township under any circumstances unless
[1:20:21] the exhausted and depleted uranium fuel
is stored in Ann Arbor.
[1:20:27] » That's all I really want to say.
>> Thank you. Thank you.
[1:20:32] » That's a
good point.
[1:20:36] » Well, well, it's less than three
minutes. I can tell you that. But, uh,
[1:20:39] I've been to Los Alamos and, uh, when I
went through there, which was maybe a
[1:20:44] year or two ago, it reminded me of a
combination of downtown Ann Arbor and
[1:20:50] Somerset Mall. That was my impression of
it.
[1:20:55] » You bet.
>> They can stay there. Number 18.
[1:20:59] Oh, 19.
[1:21:04] » Uh, I'm going to make sure I kind of
keep flipping to my phone, so please
[1:21:08] start the time clock now. Um, with that
being said, my name is Monica Ross
[1:21:13] Williams. I am a West Willow resident
and lifelong Ipsani uh area resident. I
[1:21:20] have some questions today and that's why
I'm going to address the questions. I
[1:21:23] know the board can't address them
because it would have to go to uh Jeff
[1:21:26] Irwin. State Senator Jeff Irwin is a
vice chair of the universities and
[1:21:30] community college appropriation
subcommittee and also basically the
[1:21:34] Michigan Senate Appropriation Committee.
So the questions are what project
[1:21:40] information was provided to Senator
Irwin or his office during the state
[1:21:43] funding process for the $und00 million
grant? When was that information
[1:21:48] provided? When did Senator Irwin know uh
the original 19.82 82 acres property
[1:21:55] could expand through the acquisition of
another 124.6 acres. When did Senator
[1:22:02] Irwin know the and learn the extent of
the planned electrical infrastructure?
[1:22:08] When did Senator Irwin learn about the
details of the Los Alamo's computerbased
[1:22:13] nuclear stockpile mission? The reason
why it needs to be called computerbased
[1:22:18] nuclear is because that's what Jeff
Irwing called it.
[1:22:23] So that that is the couple of the
questions that I have. Now I need to
[1:22:28] also ask some other questions. Um what
information about the lost Elmo's U of M
[1:22:36] project was available within Jeff's
office? If I have it correct, one of the
[1:22:41] county commissioners, Miss Somerville,
is his chief of staff.
[1:22:46] When was that available in his office?
What information, if any, was
[1:22:51] communicated to uh Chief of Staff
Somerville in connection with her
[1:22:56] separate role as a county commissioner?
These questions are very important
[1:23:01] because when this project was announced,
I'm not going to say names, but I asked
[1:23:08] a specific question to someone I spoke
to on Tuesday night while I was in DC.
[1:23:15] The question was,
did this authority go all the way up to
[1:23:20] the top of the chain, including the
governor's office about the pending
[1:23:25] announcement?
I got silence. What silence mean is that
[1:23:30] it is not a no. That means that it is a
yes. So before this project was
[1:23:37] announced, it was basically brung down
to be announced in my strong opinion
[1:23:42] from Governor Gretchen Whitmer to say
it's going to go here. I also got from
[1:23:48] that same conversation that this project
was about to be ready to be stopped by
[1:23:53] all of the residents and pro protesting
and also having issues with this
[1:23:59] project. To me, there is now to be need
to be not only congress uh legislative
[1:24:06] investigations inside the Michigan ha
house and the senate, but there also
[1:24:10] maybe need to be some criminal
investigations at this point because who
[1:24:13] has got paid? What did they know and
when did they know it? With that, I will
[1:24:17] give up the mic. Thank you.
Next.
[1:24:25] Number 20.
[1:24:29] Where's 21?
Who's 21? You're all right. Miss Sarah
[1:24:36] » Jay, resident. Um, I've been down
Textile Road in the last week between
[1:24:42] Bridge and Rosville. And they're
actually installing water manes on the
[1:24:48] property where the data center is going
to be going
[1:24:52] down. one that access roads just pass
plant where they own it. You can see
[1:24:57] probably 12 to 18 in water lines already
fused together going down that whole
[1:25:03] access road on that one side.
And they already put survey stakes up.
[1:25:10] And just let people know that if you
think it's funny, go pull them up. They
[1:25:15] usually put a metal stake in the ground.
So you'll need a metal detector to find
[1:25:20] it.
Um,
[1:25:25] hypothetically.
Um,
[1:25:29] and also if you're we have to look to to
our other outside communities. Van
[1:25:34] Beerren Township
um just gave full tax credit to the
[1:25:39] Google Dana Center. And I don't know if
anybody knows been down on Ecourse Road
[1:25:44] on the other side of the world around
airport just between Beck Road and
[1:25:49] Denton. There's a data center being
built right there and I can guarantee
[1:25:54] you it's probably getting water from
Yako
[1:25:57] or something around there. It's getting
water from somewhere right
[1:26:03] » but it's
still there
[1:26:07] » but
>> it's still water
[1:26:09] » but Yaka also serves parts of Canton
Township. So they do serve part of parts
[1:26:15] of Wayne County already. So anywhere
they can distribute their water because
[1:26:19] they need to get use it because they
lost big services when the industries in
[1:26:24] that area went down. So they they don't
really care to a point who they give it
[1:26:29] to or sell it to because it's money for
them and money for the infrastructure.
[1:26:35] And we just need to look to our other
communities, especially Augusta Township
[1:26:41] right now with a big um Thor lab thing
going in. And I already talked to one of
[1:26:48] the trustees there and he's he don't
mind having miniature nuclear things
[1:26:53] coming in there to power it because
you know,
[1:26:59] » so this is what I mean. you guys need to
go to these other places, talk to these
[1:27:04] officials where they can be off the
record and ask them questions. And
[1:27:08] that's how I found out that he's okay
with it. And know 375 residents will get
[1:27:14] water from this thing. But is it worth
the outcome of it? And that's what is
[1:27:20] really not worth the waste of the water.
And just let you know, the U of M
[1:27:28] student council allows public comment
for people from the public. So if you
[1:27:34] want to show up to the student council
meeting at the U of M student council,
[1:27:38] his first name is Summit. He's the U of
M president for the U of M student
[1:27:42] council. I met him at a U of M regent
meeting and I plan on attending to
[1:27:47] » Thank you.
>> that meeting. So
[1:27:50] » thank you very much. the the line
they're putting in. There is a moratorum
[1:27:57] on water and sewer lines
>> for um any data, AI, computational,
[1:28:04] whatever ounce you want to call them.
That is actually um a gas line that was
[1:28:12] approved back in 2024
25. I'm talking about the wine kind of
[1:28:19] water line,
>> but we'll double check it
[1:28:23] » next. We will.
[1:28:28] » Hi everyone. I'm Sarah Brabs. I live a
couple townships over in York Township
[1:28:33] and have been here before and used to
teach at Eastern Michigan. And I'm here
[1:28:37] for solidarity and for saying truth
along with the rest of you. Um, I just
[1:28:43] want to say I can't remember who said
this that I heard it recently, but we're
[1:28:46] the many against the money. And so, in
my opinion, we should encourage U of M
[1:28:52] students and donors to use their
influence and connections to back out of
[1:28:56] supporting the University of Michigan
with what means the most, which is their
[1:29:01] dollars. So, I really think that that's
a great call to action, especially, you
[1:29:05] know, those of us that don't do things
like give U ofM thousands of dollars all
[1:29:09] the time habitually. Maybe we could ask
them to do that. And maybe along that
[1:29:13] same lines, we could talk to the people
who were a multid-disciplinary team of
[1:29:17] researchers from the University of
Michigan who wrote the report last year
[1:29:21] called the reactor around the corner
about small modular nuclear reactors and
[1:29:25] sounded a huge alarm. It's over 100
pages long about the technology that is
[1:29:30] not tested or safe and everything about
that way more than I understood.
[1:29:35] Followed by this year our president was
so great, so nice of him. He just
[1:29:41] removed all sorts of energy requirements
for specifically small modular nuclear
[1:29:47] reactors. So there's a lack of safety in
the Department of Energy and testing and
[1:29:51] efficacy plus federal grant funding
because that's also cool for
[1:29:57] specifically these small modular nuclear
reactors which have been established by
[1:30:01] the University of Michigan. They are not
safe and none of us were born last night
[1:30:06] or yesterday. So that may not be part of
the plans that were national security
[1:30:10] not told and repeatedly lied to about.
But around the country, they are
[1:30:16] starting to happen in places. They're
happening in other countries. There's
[1:30:20] already data centers going on our public
land and bait and switches all over the
[1:30:24] place. So whatever we each need to do to
get super loud right now and talk about
[1:30:29] the truth and make it uncomfortable for
people who have their heads up their
[1:30:34] ass, that is what we need to be doing
right now. Thank you. I had a lot of
[1:30:38] other things planned to say, but thank
you, Sena. Also, you need to all of you
[1:30:43] tell everyone money out of politics. Our
legislators are getting ready to vote to
[1:30:48] maybe just pass that as law. If they do
that, it weakens it. We 800,000ish
[1:30:55] people total in Michigan signed that. It
needs to go on our ballot. We need to
[1:31:00] call our representatives and tell them,
"Vote no, do not make this law." They
[1:31:04] can weaken it later if they do. Which
DTE and all of them know that's their
[1:31:09] last big play at least. So we need to do
that. We need to tell everyone to do
[1:31:13] that right now.
>> Number 22.
[1:31:21] » Good evening board. Uh my name is Leam
Mills Chapman and I live in West Willow.
[1:31:28] Um, I just first wanted to always say
thank you all for um joining alongside
[1:31:33] the citizens here, the residents here um
in this fight against U ofM and Los
[1:31:39] Alamos. Um, I want for us to think just
for a second about the phrase power and
[1:31:45] control.
When you look at U of M, they are a form
[1:31:52] in their minds of a god.
They feel that no one can usurp them.
[1:32:00] They are in total power. It leaves us
sometimes feeling a little helpless,
[1:32:06] feeling a little hopeless, right? Not
necessarily knowing which way we're
[1:32:09] going to turn. And I appreciate all of
the work um attorney Wyinners that
[1:32:13] you've been doing to try to figure out
what avenue possible that we can take.
[1:32:19] Um I just wanted to lend one additional
one. Um I appreciate Paul Brown. I
[1:32:25] really do um for coming out and making a
statement and and for speaking with uh
[1:32:33] the township officials. But I also um
have an issue and the issue that I have
[1:32:40] is going back to this power and control.
we've already been forced into a
[1:32:47] particular situation and now we have
someone that's saying hey I agree right
[1:32:53] and and I am opposed to this but at the
same token they are also saying that I
[1:33:01] want to create the conditions in which I
speak to you
[1:33:05] » right
>> that for me and I'm just speaking for me
[1:33:10] that for me is problematic
reason being is that harm has been
[1:33:16] imposed on us. And for him to create the
conditions of I will only speak to 10
[1:33:22] people at a time lets me know that it's
still about right him feeling
[1:33:29] comfortable. Somebody said make them
feel uncomfortable.
[1:33:33] He needs to be put in a position where
he has to sit in space with us and feel
[1:33:39] the same amount of discomfort that we
feel
[1:33:43] every single day as we get the news
right. Every single day as we drive past
[1:33:49] bridge and textile, every day we have to
think about how there is an impending
[1:33:54] threat on our lives and our famil
family's lives for generations to come.
[1:33:58] He too needs to feel right a bit of
discomfort. And so when I say no blue, I
[1:34:07] mean no. No to everything that they are
coming to us with because they've had
[1:34:14] enough leverage. We got to take our
POWER BACK. AND THAT means even on
[1:34:18] SEPTEMBER 9TH, THEY'RE SETTING THE
conditions of when they will speak to us
[1:34:24] and when we have their attention and
when we're able to come before them.
[1:34:28] Absolutely not. We need to be saying
when we want you here.
[1:34:33] » We need to be saying show up on this
particular day, not waiting for October
[1:34:38] to f, you know, figure out when they're
going to come and speak to us. How dare
[1:34:42] THEY AFTER IMPOSING SUCH A threat
>> come to me and say I want you to come
[1:34:50] when uh uh uh the power and control
dynamic has to be broken and we have to
[1:34:56] figure out how do we gain leverage and
usurp them and this is one way that I
[1:35:01] believe we can stand in solidarity and
say no all of the neighborhood
[1:35:06] associations that may have said to him
already yeah I'll meet with you don't
[1:35:11] Don't make him feel uncomfortable. And
then the board, you figure out a time
[1:35:16] where you bring him here and he has to
face everyone because guess what? He
[1:35:20] went down to Detroit to the Michigan
Democratic Convention and spoke before
[1:35:26] thousands of people so he can do the
same here. Thank you.
[1:35:30] » Thank you, Leah.
[1:35:36] » Hi, my name is Jen. Um, I moved I bought
a house here in 2022. I lived here years
[1:35:44] before and graduated from Eastern. Um,
so there's a few things. I went on a
[1:35:51] little dive of my own. Um, on their
website, U ofM says that they are going
[1:35:56] to preserve the Hiron River portion of
textile. I want to know exactly how
[1:36:02] how how are you going to preserve the
river from your center from all of the
[1:36:09] rubble and debris that happens when you
start a construction project? How are
[1:36:16] you going to make sure every single
piece of debris and
[1:36:23] what nails and everything that goes into
that? How are you going to make sure all
[1:36:28] of that is cleaned up and does not not a
single thing ends up in that river? I
[1:36:35] don't know how they're going to do it,
but I want to know how.
[1:36:38] Um, let's see. They also said that DTE
says that there will not be direct
[1:36:47] financial or tech burden on the
residents here. Is U of M paying for the
[1:36:55] energy bills
>> because I don't see them doing that.
[1:37:01] Also,
no direct financial burden. What is the
[1:37:06] indirect financial burden?
[1:37:12] Um,
sorry, Attorney Winters, you answered a
[1:37:17] lot of things. Thank you for your foyer
request, by the way. Excuse me as I flip
[1:37:22] this piece of paper. Um,
they also say that the
[1:37:31] um the decibel level will be no louder
than a household air conditioning unit.
[1:37:37] I don't know about you, but I don't run
my air conditioning unit all day every
[1:37:42] day. I know that I know when it turns on
and I can hear that. And I know that if
[1:37:47] I were to have to listen to that all
day, it would drive me batshit insane.
[1:37:55] So yeah, their decel level might be, you
know, under the 70 dB. So people don't
[1:38:03] have hearing loss because at 80 dB you
start having hearing loss people. It's
[1:38:09] great. Um, but if you have to listen to
a slow hum all day and all night,
[1:38:17] that's it's just absolutely nuts. We
talked a lot about water here today. Um,
[1:38:24] I'm going to go back to water. Let's
talk about we've already dealt with so
[1:38:29] many water issues here. The Flint water
crisis, which is still going on.
[1:38:37] So, why are we going to do that to Ipsy?
Um, also back in 2021,
[1:38:43] the state decided to sell our Great
Lakes to Nestle.
[1:38:48] There is no official count of how many
Nestle plants are on our great on the
[1:38:56] side of our Great Lakes. If you go to
Lake Erie, it is practically dead. I
[1:39:00] went there to go to Cedar Point. It was
nasty.
[1:39:04] » Thank you very much. You made some great
points. Indirect, I like that. 24.
[1:39:13] » Thank you. I'm I'm an Ipsy resident. I
want to thank the board for defending
[1:39:19] this township every single meeting. I I
mean, we all stand impressed with
[1:39:24] Attorney Winters, but every single one
of you up there to the very impressive
[1:39:28] young lady that just spoke. We need
young people like you. You've got all
[1:39:31] your notes. You did your homework. I
think we're all really proud of you. Um,
[1:39:37] so I want to echo something Attorney
Winter said earlier. He said there is
[1:39:40] still time to do the right thing. Just
remember that there is still time. Now I
[1:39:46] think it's important to remember that
sometimes people, organizations,
[1:39:50] universities, whatever the case may be,
make decisions. Maybe they don't have
[1:39:55] all the information. Maybe maybe they
do, but maybe they realize, hey, oh, I
[1:39:59] didn't think about the security threat.
Oh, maybe I didn't think about the
[1:40:03] Native American implications. Oh,
there's an eagle nest there and now it's
[1:40:07] too late to save face. Well, let's let's
just put it down. Maybe we need to have
[1:40:13] a little bit of grace and let them come
to us and say, you know, you got a point
[1:40:18] there. And and I would love to see a
pivot on this. I would love to There are
[1:40:22] other options. Okay. Um we talked about
New Mexico. we talked about um I don't
[1:40:29] know like exactly at the Concordia site
if I mean they don't want to build there
[1:40:33] but there is time to make it right so I
just wanted to echo that um secondly I
[1:40:38] have a lot of questions it seems like
the more we learn the more questions I
[1:40:42] have so the the resident behind me said
where is this going or something like
[1:40:48] that and what what road are we on okay
so today we know whenever you have a
[1:40:54] project you should you should disclose
knows from beginning to end where you
[1:40:58] are with that. But I don't know that
they even know that. So now we're going
[1:41:02] to have a computational data center for
how many years? For for one year, 2
[1:41:07] year, 5 year, 10 year, 50 year. What if
that need goes away and it's sold to a
[1:41:13] corporation like Open AI?
There are individuals in this room that
[1:41:19] know a lot about that issue and and
honestly, we don't know this. So, I'm
[1:41:24] wondering also now pulling back with
what we do know, when we have a like a
[1:41:30] let's say a storm come through and and
the power is down, are they on the
[1:41:34] prioritized substation and the residents
are not? I mean, we know the hospitals
[1:41:37] and the the school I think it's the
hospitals and the schools are. Are they
[1:41:41] going to be on that prioritized
substation? So, our power comes up
[1:41:44] later. Has DT addressed that? I I'm not
aware. And then finally, um, this is a
[1:41:51] scary phrase, but I I'm going to lay it
down there for everybody to think about.
[1:41:55] What if this is an expansion project and
it leads to eminent domain? Why aren't
[1:42:02] we talking about this? And if it
doesn't, great. But if it doesn't,
[1:42:06] great. Do we have that in writing? What
I like to see in writing is this is what
[1:42:10] we're not gonna do. But I don't see
that. I just see like a subset of here's
[1:42:14] what we're gonna do, but I don't have
the full plan. So that makes me nervous
[1:42:19] and that may be why that's another
reason why no one wants to live next to
[1:42:21] these things and why we're concerned
about our property values.
[1:42:24] » Thank you.
>> Thank you.
[1:42:29] » 25.
[1:42:36] Where's 26?
Hello. My name is Natalie. I am an AU
[1:42:42] graduate and I am a community organizer.
So, I'm here to kind of say that there
[1:42:47] are people fighting out against this. I
look around and I see a room full of
[1:42:51] people who really care and that really
want to do something. And there are
[1:42:55] places where you can go and you can do
something about this. Like everybody
[1:42:59] here decided to come. What day is it? On
a Tuesday at 6:00.
[1:43:04] That's a weird time. And there's a lot
of other times and su and places where
[1:43:09] we can go and like collaborate together
and do something about this together.
[1:43:13] So, I'm going to kind of let you guys
know some opportunities. Um, there is a
[1:43:17] stop the data meeting in North Hydro
Park on 8:29. So, the 29 29th of this
[1:43:23] month, we are going to be holding a
meeting to kind of discuss what we can
[1:43:27] do as a community to fight against the
data center and kind of organize
[1:43:31] together. So, each one of us can have an
active role in fighting against this. As
[1:43:35] well as me being a community organizer,
I'm organizing event this September 12th
[1:43:41] where we're going to do an
informational. We're going to teach in
[1:43:43] about everything data center related.
We're going to give any information that
[1:43:47] we've been able to find and scour and
answer all of your questions. That way
[1:43:50] we are no longer in the dark about this
because that is how U of M and Los
[1:43:55] Alamos have been able to get as far as
they have is by not answering anything.
[1:44:00] And so we're here to kind of bring all
that information to light.
[1:44:04] » Thank you.
>> Um
[1:44:09] » yes. So for the meetings it's stop the
data on Instagram and then I work
[1:44:13] through we have some flyers in the back
over here for the meeting and then for
[1:44:18] the organization where I work through
which is Michigan student action um you
[1:44:21] can follow us on Instagram as well it's
washnah Michigan student action
[1:44:25] MSA_washna
um and that is where information about
[1:44:29] the teaching will be posted and also
come up to me afterwards if you guys
[1:44:32] have questions or want to get into
contact with me
[1:44:35] » thank you very
[1:44:41] 26.
>> Okay.
[1:44:47] » As I was saying, I want to thank you
guys for being so committed to um the
[1:44:51] things that are dear to us cuz this is
really so dear to me cuz I'm watching.
[1:44:56] I'm a young grandmother and I have
grandchildren that are in the
[1:45:00] neighborhood at school. So it's very
close to home in all matters concerning
[1:45:05] me. I would take um leadership stand for
food cuz I service the community here
[1:45:10] through my business both my business are
food related. So my question to U of M
[1:45:15] would be what are the things that you're
going to do in the area for food
[1:45:18] sovereignty because if we're struggling
with water we definitely we struggling
[1:45:22] with food. So, um, a lot of my concerns
have been voiced today, but as a
[1:45:27] community, I'm asking you guys that we
all kind of band together since it's
[1:45:32] more of us. We need to really hit their
pockets. We know that they're about the
[1:45:36] money now. And since they're getting the
money, we need to start diverting money
[1:45:40] to smaller businesses or people that
think like we do and not feed the people
[1:45:45] that are causing us harm. And since they
don't care about us, they should not be
[1:45:49] caring about our dollars. So in any way
that you're able to redivert your
[1:45:53] spending daily habits, make sure that
currently U of M is not on that agenda
[1:45:58] to receive any funding from you because
we don't want to support those that are
[1:46:02] causing us harm. So I'm going to follow
up with the community organizer on there
[1:46:08] and see what I can do and hopefully you
guys will be able to figure out ways
[1:46:12] that we can all divert our fundings that
we're paying to U of them.
[1:46:15] » That includes that.
>> Thank you.
[1:46:25] Hi, thank you so much for being here
tonight board and for staying so late
[1:46:29] listening to all of our concerns. My
name is Dr. Juliana Richie. I have a PhD
[1:46:33] from the University of Michigan in
biomed engineering um and I live in the
[1:46:38] township. One thing that I've heard a
lot from the community is the concern
[1:46:42] for nuclear power and nuclear uh
weaponry. However, one thing that I
[1:46:48] think is very insidious and that needs
to be addressed is the fact that U ofM
[1:46:52] has re has come back being like, "Oh,
we're going to do healthcare research
[1:46:56] with the data center."
Specifically, they have called out
[1:47:00] cancer research, which fun fact, data
centers have been linked to causing rare
[1:47:06] cancers. So, you know, I'm a little bit
tied into that as a biomedical
[1:47:13] uh scientist and I work at the cancer
center currently. Um,
[1:47:18] additionally, AI does not have any
regulation on what it can do with our
[1:47:23] healthcare information. I have people
who work at the call center who daily
[1:47:27] are getting yelled at and cussed out
because they think U of M is already
[1:47:31] using AI callers and they do not want
their information given to an AI that is
[1:47:36] unregulated with what they can and
cannot do with our data like sell it to
[1:47:39] insurance companies or any other thing
that you can think of. Um but we also
[1:47:46] have to think about the health concerns
that come with data centers. Many towns
[1:47:50] have reported this have reports of hey
the data center moved in and suddenly
[1:47:56] still births went up in the count in the
cattle around in farms. Suddenly we
[1:48:01] weren't getting uh colony collapse for
the bees and as Ipsellani is bee city.
[1:48:08] I'm very pro bee. I'm worried about that
because if the bees go, so does our food
[1:48:14] and the bees are not going to be moving
to New Mexico
[1:48:18] and the people who are going to be
staying behind are going to have further
[1:48:22] food shortages and further water
inequalities.
[1:48:27] And this is more than just
this is more than just nuclear weapons.
[1:48:32] This is more than just warfare. This is
also becoming a healthc care issue.
[1:48:38] further disservicing the minorities and
the disenfranchised that live in this
[1:48:43] community.
The things that U of M and Ann Arbor and
[1:48:48] the people who are on the board of
regions do not have to think about
[1:48:50] because they are in a different tax
bracket than pretty probably everyone in
[1:48:54] this room. Um, thank you.
Thank you, Dr.
[1:49:02] 28.
[1:49:09] Hi, I'm Lisa and I'm a township
president. Um, thanks Natalie.
[1:49:15] Uh, so yeah, thank you so much um to the
board. Thank you for everybody being
[1:49:19] here. I know it's been I know it's a
lot. We all have a lot going on um in
[1:49:24] our lives and so uh it's so meaningful
for people to take time to be here um in
[1:49:29] opposition to this project and you know
so much uh of my concerns have been
[1:49:34] voiced um and you know I have sat next
to Jeff Irwin and expressed some
[1:49:40] concerns to these concerns to him um and
been told that you know the concerns are
[1:49:47] overblown and it's not really that big
of a deal like I know everybody um has
[1:49:52] been told uh and I think we will
continue to be told. Um but again, like
[1:49:57] many of you have said, I think these
people don't even really know where
[1:50:00] they're going or how big of a deal a lot
of this is. The Selen Data Center, they
[1:50:05] originally estimated that cost to be
$4.8 billion. That project is now $43
[1:50:10] billion. These people are really bad at
predicting that impact of their projects
[1:50:16] and they're not slowing down or even
giving us the information when we ask
[1:50:20] them. Um to your point about yeah, how
are you going to protect the river? I've
[1:50:25] driven to Seline and driven behind a
truck that literally just had gravel
[1:50:29] just falling out of it. Um hit my
window. Uh, and I don't even really want
[1:50:35] to go to Seline right now because I'm
like that is very likely going to
[1:50:40] happen. Um, construction is extremely uh
extremely damaging and um again, yeah,
[1:50:47] with the water um they're like, "Oh,
it's it's a closed loop system. It's no
[1:50:51] big deal." Uh well, as again we're we
understand from Seline, the closed loop
[1:50:56] is that they take the water out of the
river, they run it through the data
[1:51:00] center and put chemicals in it, and then
they put it back in the river, and
[1:51:05] that's the closed loop. Um so again, a
lot of these things that they tell us,
[1:51:08] oh, it's it's green, it's a closed loop,
it's no big deal. Um once we find out
[1:51:13] more information that U of M is
currently withholding from us, we find
[1:51:17] out that it is actually a big deal. Um,
so yeah, thank you also for being here
[1:51:22] and for all of your comments and again
to the board and attorney Winters.
[1:51:25] » Thank you.
[1:51:29] » 29.
[1:51:40] » Okay. My name is Valyriia Banks. I am a
resident of Ipsellani Township. Thank
[1:51:46] you very much to the board for having
this meeting. It is one of many, many
[1:51:51] meetings that they had and we'll go
forward. I love the blue and yellow
[1:51:57] t-shirts,
but what we need to do
[1:52:03] is to go to
epsilon I mean Ann Arbor
[1:52:10] council meetings with these t-shirts
with our children. It's a lot of women
[1:52:17] that is here that are childbearing age
>> that we don't know what the impact is
[1:52:24] going to have on you nor our babies. We
talk about nature and their environment,
[1:52:32] but what about the children? What's
going to happen to them as a result of
[1:52:37] this?
Yes, we need to start attending
[1:52:42] city of Ann Arbor council meeting to let
them see our faces, to let them know our
[1:52:49] concerns because if you don't want them
in your backyard, why should we want
[1:52:55] them in our backyard? M
>> second of all, yes, there is only two
[1:53:03] regent off um officers, Paul and Yousef,
that is running.
[1:53:12] » Amir, I'm sorry. Amir, that is running.
But we need to be calling each and every
[1:53:18] one that is on the board. I believe that
if the squeaky wheel, it's the one
[1:53:24] that's going to get oil. They're the
ones who control the money. They're the
[1:53:29] ones who give their approval. So, yes,
we need to be calling them. We need to
[1:53:34] be emailing them on a daily basis, a
weekly basis to let them know this this
[1:53:40] is not going to happen to us.
This is not going to happen to us.
[1:53:46] everybody that is on
ev every board, every council,
[1:53:51] Washington um commissioners, we need to
be reaching out to each and everyone
[1:53:57] because what I thought about today was
do anyone remember that movie movie
[1:54:03] called television
under the dome?
[1:54:09] If something happens to that data
center,
[1:54:14] will the fallout just occur in Ipsellani
Township or will that fall out happen in
[1:54:23] Ann Arbor
and Wayne County? And this is what we
[1:54:27] need to know and this is what we need to
tell them. We don't live under a dome.
[1:54:33] So if something happens to that data
center as far as security
[1:54:39] or anything else, we're not going to
stand for it. So yes, we need to push
[1:54:44] back. We need to let Ann Arbor know we
are not going to stand for this. If you
[1:54:49] don't want it in your backyard,
why do we want it in ours?
[1:54:55] So yes, tomorrow, tonight, start
emailing the folks that's on the region.
[1:55:02] start voting um emailing people that are
our commissioners and our public
[1:55:09] officers. Let them know, no, we're not
going to stand for this and let our
[1:55:16] governor know
um your exit interview
[1:55:21] » is a F.
>> Thank you.
[1:55:31] Yes. Yes.
>> All right. I got number 30 and I don't
[1:55:35] think I can top that.
>> I love you.
[1:55:39] » I love you, too. I love you, too. First
of all, I want to say uh Oh, great.
[1:55:42] Thank you so much. First of all, I want
to say thank you so much to this board
[1:55:46] uh for hosting this community forum. I
I've been to a lot of these types of
[1:55:52] meetings across the county. uh and what
I have noticed and observed in other
[1:55:56] cases is hostility between the folks on
that side of the dis and the folks on
[1:56:00] this side of the DAS. What I'm seeing
here today is a lot of love and a lot of
[1:56:03] solidarity and that is very noticeable
not just in how you are reacting but in
[1:56:07] how the staff in the room are reacting.
You can yeah give that a round of
[1:56:10] applause. I think that I've also been
very impressed with how the township
[1:56:15] board and the staff have stood up
against this data center against the
[1:56:18] University of Michigan and and stood
strong. So my name is Yousef. I am a
[1:56:23] county commissioner. I represent
downtown Ann Arbor and most of the
[1:56:26] University of Michigan's campus. I am
also the next mayor of Ann Arbor.
[1:56:33] I
I thank you. I am proud to be here today
[1:56:38] to stand in solidarity with the people
of Ipsani and Epsilani Township to say
[1:56:43] no Los Alamos data center. I'm here
because I know that the air you breathe
[1:56:48] is the same air that I breathe. I'm here
because I know that the water you drink
[1:56:53] is the same water that I drink. I'm here
because I know that when you pay your
[1:56:57] utility rates, which are already too
high, you're paying it to the same
[1:57:00] company that I'm paying my utility rates
to. I don't want your rates to go up. I
[1:57:04] don't want my rates to go up. I'm here
because I know that the military
[1:57:08] industrial complex, every dollar that we
spend on that is a dollar less that we
[1:57:13] can spend on education. I'm here because
every dollar that we spend on
[1:57:16] researching new ways to kill children is
a dollar less that we can spend helping
[1:57:22] families who are currently right now
grieving lost loved ones to a health
[1:57:26] care system that is inhumane that favors
profit over humanity. I am here because
[1:57:31] I know that the power of the people and
the power of this board and the power of
[1:57:36] people all over this county can come
together and win. I've seen Supervisor
[1:57:41] Stumbbo with me in Selen Township
standing up against that data center.
[1:57:45] This is a fight that we are fighting on
many fronts. Data centers are coming to
[1:57:48] our county and I don't want them in Ann
Arbor. I don't want them in township. I
[1:57:53] don't want them in Selen Township. I
don't want them anywhere in our state
[1:57:56] and I'm ready to stand up with the
people all over Michigan to say no. And
[1:58:00] as the sign says, what does it say? Hell
no.
[1:58:03] » By the way, I JUST BOUGHT MY SIGN. I
JUST BOUGHT my sign and and I'm going to
[1:58:08] put it up in my yard in Ann Arbor. I'm
very proud of that and I'm proud of the
[1:58:11] fact that as somebody who represents the
University of Michigan campus and who is
[1:58:15] going to uh very soon be the mayor of
Ann Arbor that I'm here with you today
[1:58:19] to stand in solidarity. This is a fight
that when we are unified, we can win.
[1:58:25] Thank you for having me and keep up the
fight.
[1:58:28] » Thank you.
[1:58:36] Thank you. Tough act to follow. Thank
you, Ysef, for coming. Hi, my name is
[1:58:40] Courtney. Um, I see Township resident.
I've been here for about 6 years. My
[1:58:44] family's been here for an eternity. Um,
I wasn't going to speak tonight, but I
[1:58:48] would be remissed if I didn't echo
everything in the room and also bring up
[1:58:52] some things that I brought up at the
last meeting that most of you were not
[1:58:55] at. Um, Yseph just brought up our water
rates going up. Those water rates are
[1:58:59] going up. Um, we discussed at the last
meeting. uh our Yucka director could not
[1:59:04] deny that Great Lakes Water Authority is
raising our rates because of the data
[1:59:07] centers. So our rates are now going up
uh about 5% due to uh about 6% actually
[1:59:13] due to Great Lakes Water Authority and a
little bit more due to what we need for
[1:59:17] our own infrastructure. Um so I wanted
to bring up that issue and also an issue
[1:59:20] I brought up last time that the board is
aware of. Um what uh we also are working
[1:59:26] with uh an association and a firm and
MEEDC if you look at our master plan
[1:59:31] that was made in 2020 the language of
the master plan um and the association
[1:59:35] that is telling Seline Township uh
Dundee Allen Park and multiple other
[1:59:41] areas um that this firm works with that
we can't exclusively zone them out and
[1:59:45] that we uh can't ban them. But if you
look at the language of the plan they
[1:59:48] are inviting them in. Uh this uh the
site here was reszoned in 2022 to
[1:59:54] industrial. Inviting them right in. Um
the master plan for the bomber plant
[1:59:58] says they want to be a technology
magnet. Inviting them right in. Doug, I
[2:00:02] thank you so much. Brenda, you as well.
All of you guys are working very hard.
[2:00:06] Uh they encouraged me to get involved in
reworking the master plan. I encourage
[2:00:09] all of you to do that as well. Um to
change that language so that it's not
[2:00:13] inviting. um they they're going to tell
us we can't ban them, but we're, you
[2:00:18] know, we we're not inviting them in
either. We don't want them here. I also
[2:00:21] uh really quick want to mention I'm also
planning and I want to work with our
[2:00:24] Stop the Data Center friends. We are
planning a um a protest on September
[2:00:29] 5th, which will be uh Michigan's first
home game. So, we will be protesting at
[2:00:34] the bridge um with Van Beern uh right,
you know, Van Beern's right on
[2:00:38] Rosenville Road, and so are we. We're
going to um in solidarity protest with
[2:00:43] them. We are also working with um uh
Ipsy uh Peace House. We are going to be
[2:00:48] accepting clothing donations so you can
get rid of your U OFM clothing and
[2:00:52] purchase one of Leah's great shirts
instead. So if you want to support Ipsy,
[2:00:57] get rid of your U of M clothing and any
uh lightly used or new clothing that you
[2:01:02] no longer wish to um use and donate that
to a good cause to support Ipsy unlike U
[2:01:07] of M is doing. We're going to do that on
September 5th on their game day to show
[2:01:11] show them out and show them up. We want
everybody on that bridge on Rossonville,
[2:01:14] on Bridge Road, and at the park. We're
going to show up, show out. Um, right
[2:01:19] now I'm I'm going to say noon to two.
Uh, still in the works, but we are
[2:01:23] talking with Ipsy Peace House to take
those donations. So, let's uh get
[2:01:27] together and do that.
>> Thank you, Courtney.
[2:01:31] » Are there any other That's all the
numbers we had.
[2:01:35] » 32. Sorry, I didn't know we had 32.
>> I got special permission from people to
[2:01:40] speak again. This is some of what I
meant to say the first time. So, Related
[2:01:45] Digital, you know, which Steven Ross
owns, Ross Business School, related
[2:01:49] companies that's involved in Los Alamos,
as well as the Selen Township Data
[2:01:53] Center. Um, they filed a permit to Eagle
for a domestic wastewater discharge
[2:01:59] plant for their 450 mostly imaginary
employees all flushing toilets. And it's
[2:02:06] totally just going to be toilet water,
you know. So, um, I know from data like
[2:02:12] Virginia and Wyoming and other places
that closed loop is for obvious
[2:02:17] reasons that don't even take a scientist
to understand. Um, and also with 150
[2:02:22] buildings, most of which have server
racks running hot, um, the drains that
[2:02:28] will go be part of the drain system
through that just themselves, that is
[2:02:33] going to have sludge and contaminants.
So, it's sort of like watching the
[2:02:36] dioxane plume ahead of time and just
watching and watching how it's a
[2:02:41] domestic wastewater discharge permanent.
So, Eagle has public comment open until
[2:02:46] August 24th. The Protect Seline data
center Facebook page, which I finally
[2:02:51] was given permission to be an admin on.
It's a long story. Anyways, um there's
[2:02:56] information there about that. If you
could yell about that loudly, that would
[2:02:59] be really helpful in public comment.
There's a lot of work we've been doing
[2:03:02] behind the scenes to learn how to do
that better. So, we'll be putting stuff
[2:03:06] up there soon related to that. Um, and
the other thing I wanted to say is Milin
[2:03:12] Township, I don't think there are any
organizers there really. And everyone
[2:03:16] that I know, the hundreds of people, no
one has stepped up to organize this.
[2:03:20] They are facing a power plant now from
consumers. Yes. That's right down the
[2:03:25] road. Right. So, the Lima Township DTE
power plant had crazy like connected
[2:03:30] organizers and got them to apologize and
it was a weird unicorn situation. So,
[2:03:35] but now they're doing that. Um, and they
had a meeting and kind of misled people
[2:03:40] about how the room should look and what
was on the agenda and then at the last
[2:03:43] minute people found out that wasn't
really the case. So, there was just a
[2:03:47] Zoom and a whole meeting about it. I
wasn't able to go. But you should be
[2:03:50] aware of that. And if anyone has
organizing capabilities and actually has
[2:03:54] time, that community needs some
attention. That air travels as we all
[2:03:57] know. And it's all part of the complete
hypocrisy and crap around we need to
[2:04:02] build out the grid for these hypers
scale AI harmful data centers of
[2:04:05] surveillance and war. All of which we
know is So I just wanted to
[2:04:09] highlight those two things as calls to
action.
[2:04:12] » Thank you, Sierra.
>> Yep.
[2:04:13] » Thank you very much.
Is that
[2:04:19] conclude our board members? Would you
like to say something before we move on?
[2:04:22] I do want people to know that this is a
regular board meeting,
[2:04:28] » but but
>> but we welcome and have received people
[2:04:33] coming to our meeting for months and
months and months. We've also had
[2:04:38] special meetings that are public hearing
meetings, not a hearing, just public
[2:04:43] meetings and input three times for four
three times. So, but this is just a
[2:04:49] regular board meeting and because it was
announced
[2:04:54] Tuesday a week ago, that's why people
are coming here because they and we are
[2:04:59] very upset. Are there any board members
that have any comments that they would
[2:05:04] like to make? If
If not, I do want to just say um that
[2:05:11] the University of Michigan, they might
have a constitutional right to not pay
[2:05:17] taxes.
They have a constitutional right to not
[2:05:21] go through planning processes, fire
department reviews, building reviews.
[2:05:28] They do not have a constitutional right
to harm our people, to harm our land,
[2:05:36] and to harm our community.
AND
[2:05:43] I think if we were playing baseball, and
we've just begun, folks, like we've been
[2:05:49] dealing this with this for a long time,
and we have been strategizing for a long
[2:05:55] time.
We can't always say
[2:05:59] the legal strategy that we're taking,
but please know that our attorney,
[2:06:05] other staff members, other board
members, other professionals have been
[2:06:10] working on this night and day since
they've tried and did since they did the
[2:06:17] bait and switch for the 20 acres, 200
jobs, two office buildings at $200,000 a
[2:06:25] year. That was the bait. That's right.
>> And yes, I supported it because it
[2:06:33] sounded
they didn't say it was a data center.
[2:06:38] That's not the words they used. And then
they're simultaneously buying
[2:06:44] 124 acres behind our backs, behind the
people's backs. But there are a lot of
[2:06:49] people who knew about this project way
way before it ca became public. And the
[2:06:57] Doug, I'm like you. I'm getting hot
here. Getting hot up in here.
[2:07:03] Strike one.
This must be the most environmentally
[2:07:08] sensitive area that we have in in
Ipsellandi Township, possibly county.
[2:07:14] Why would you choose this for two data
centers? You know, it will heat up the
[2:07:21] earth. You know, the noise, the constant
cumulative noise will damage people,
[2:07:30] children, pe anyone that has auto um
sensitivity.
[2:07:35] Damaging. And someone said it tonight.
They said it'll drive you crazy. And it
[2:07:40] does.
the air, the earth. I don't It's 165
[2:07:47] feet from the corner of textile and
bridge
[2:07:51] to a more affordable
housing.
[2:07:57] That's where you choose to locate
165
[2:08:02] feet
from people.
[2:08:07] Strike two.
[2:08:11] It's in the lowest opportunity index.
Everyone knows it because University of
[2:08:17] Michigan did the report on this.
>> It was their report that we used
[2:08:24] to determine how we deal with the future
in Ipsellani Township. They talked about
[2:08:28] the health and how we have to increase
the health indicators of our residents
[2:08:36] in 48197
and 48198.
[2:08:40] And that's where you choose to locate.
This is beyond shocking. And what they
[2:08:48] will say, well, we didn't know that that
department was doing that. We've met
[2:08:54] with the University of Michigan. When
you talk to people, I mean, it's very u
[2:08:59] military.
There's six vice presidents.
[2:09:04] They report to their president, the
board of regents, and Regent Brown. I
[2:09:09] and I know
there's some questions on better ways to
[2:09:15] have larger meetings and not let them
control, but he has been the only regent
[2:09:22] that has come out against this, against
the environmental racism,
[2:09:28] against the health racism, against
poverty. He is the only one. He is pro-
[2:09:36] environment and he's feeling it. He's
feeling it from
[2:09:41] the opposition, which is now the
University of Michigan. So, I know it's
[2:09:48] tough, but at least he stood up when no
one We need more people to stand up, and
[2:09:54] they won't. We need our county board of
commissioners to stand up because if you
[2:09:59] do not stand up against it, then you are
for it.
[2:10:06] » There's
there's just no choice on that. Strike
[2:10:10] three. And we just started
tribal lands,
[2:10:17] Native American burials
identified
[2:10:23] immediately west of Bridge Road.
[2:10:29] There are many more strikes that can go
against the University of Michigan.
[2:10:35] Shame on you. These three things alone
is enough to say, you know what, we made
[2:10:42] the wrong decision.
And yes, we'll file lawsuit if we have
[2:10:48] to.
Don't make the decision. That is the
[2:10:53] best offensive move that we can use is
have the University of Michigan border
[2:10:58] regents reverse their decision. They
have a new president that's coming. The
[2:11:05] woman from Chicago read a little about
about it. I'm a little concerned, but
[2:11:11] she has to do better than what we have
now. And the board of regents cannot be
[2:11:17] silent on this. Email them. And um Mila
is in the back. She has the form and
[2:11:24] it's just a piece of paper. Has all
their email and all their phone numbers.
[2:11:30] Tell them we need to reverse this
decision.
[2:11:33] Strike three, you are out. U of them and
get out of our community. We don't want
[2:11:39] you and we don't need this kind of
economic development and harm that you
[2:11:45] are doing to our people and our
community. Thank you.
[2:11:57] Okay, we're going to go on with the
regular meeting. We will still and
[2:12:02] hopefully September 9th, we've done all
the social the social media platforms.
[2:12:07] Register to get there. There's only 300
people allowed.
[2:12:13] They will be on a waiting list according
to what they say. Now, Leah, like you
[2:12:18] said, they're controlling it. and then
the meeting in October, you will be on
[2:12:23] that list to go there. So, please go and
register for the meeting and get on the
[2:12:30] waiting list if you have to. We went to
a meeting for the post office that
[2:12:34] Congresswoman Dingle held. There was
over 7 800 people there.
[2:12:40] » Why there's only 300 people allowed
>> in the whole ballroom?
[2:12:44] » In the largest ballroom in county. Yeah,
we need to make we need to ask them
[2:12:50] » to get the whole ballroom. That's
ridiculous.
[2:12:53] » Again, like like Leah said, it's all
about control. And I did send an email
[2:12:58] to ask.
All right, we're going to go on to the
[2:13:01] agenda. Mr. Wyinners, thank you for an
outstanding job
[2:13:07] and we will fight this. Under old
business, we have the second reading of
[2:13:12] ordinance 2026515,
which is an ordinance to amend chapter
[2:13:17] 62, article 4, section 62- 76A of the
code of ordinances, charter township of
[2:13:25] Ipsellani to adjust to water service
rates. Clerk Swanson
[2:13:31] » be it ordered by the charter township of
Ipsilani that chapter 62 article 4
[2:13:35] section 62-76A
of the court of ordinances is amended as
[2:13:40] follows except as otherwise provided in
this section water to be furnished by
[2:13:45] the system shall be measured by a meter
controlled by the epsilani community
[2:13:50] utilities authority for all billings
rendered prior to September 1st 2026
[2:13:56] existing water service rate shall
prevail for all Billings rendered on or
[2:14:00] after September 1st, 2026. Charges for
water service rates shall be as follows
[2:14:05] for each bimonthly two-month period.
Readiness to serve rates based on size
[2:14:10] of meter. Meter size 5/8 to 3/4 in
$20.66
[2:14:16] 1 in $51.65 65 1 and a2 one to one and a
1 1/2 in $103.31
[2:14:26] 2 in $165.30
in $51655
[2:14:33] 4 in,
$3310
[2:14:38] 6 in $2,66.91
19 8 in $3,615.84
[2:14:47] 84 10 in 5,682.3
[2:14:52] 12 in $6,715.13
[2:14:56] commodity rate $447
per 100 cubic feet. So moved
[2:15:02] » support
>> motion Swanson support row to approve
[2:15:06] the second reading of the resolution and
it effectively will be a 5.75 increase
[2:15:13] in the township um division by monthly
bill according to the memo and it was
[2:15:18] presented at the last meeting as well.
We have to do a roll call vote.
[2:15:24] » Row
>> yes.
[2:15:25] » Newman
>> yes.
[2:15:26] » Peterson
>> yes.
[2:15:28] » Swanson
>> yes.
[2:15:29] » Stumbo votes yes. Eldridge.
>> Yes.
[2:15:31] » And Thornton.
>> Yes.
[2:15:33] » The second reading is approved
under old business number two. And then
[2:15:38] we'll take a break for
>> if that's okay real quick. Um number two
[2:15:42] is second reading of ordinance 20 26516
and ordinance to amend chapter 62
[2:15:49] article 4 section 62-7
of the code of ordinance charter
[2:15:55] township of Ipsellani to adjust sewer
service rates. Be it ordered by the
[2:16:00] charter township of Ipsilani that
chapter 62 article 4 section 62-77
[2:16:05] of the code of ordinances is amended as
follows. For all billings rendered prior
[2:16:09] to September 1st 2026 existing sewage
disposal service rate shall prevail for
[2:16:15] all billings rendered on or after
September 1st 2026. Charges for sewage
[2:16:20] disposal services shall be as follows
for each bimonthly two-month period.
[2:16:24] Readiness to serve rates based on size
of meter. 58 to three/4 inches, $20. One
[2:16:30] inch, $49.99.
[2:16:34] One in or 1 and a2 $99.96.
[2:16:40] 2 in $159.95.
3 in $499.84.
[2:16:46] 4 in 900 999.67.
[2:16:52] 6 in, $1,999.33.
[2:16:56] 8 in, $3,498.83.
[2:17:01] 10 in, $5,498.16.
[2:17:05] 12 in, $6,497.83.
[2:17:09] Commodity rate $3.29 per 100 cubic feet.
So moved. Motion Swanson.
[2:17:18] » Port Peterson.
>> Port Peterson. Discussion.
[2:17:22] Hearing none. Roll call vote. Row
>> yes.
[2:17:25] » Newman
>> yes.
[2:17:26] » Peterson
>> yes.
[2:17:28] » Swanson
>> yes. Stumbo vote yes. Eldridge
[2:17:31] » yes.
>> And Thornton
[2:17:32] » yes.
>> The um second reading is approved.
[2:17:35] Before we break I know I the judge
Washington and um the magistrate here.
[2:17:40] So, if we could do new business number
one, which is approve new participation
[2:17:46] agreement with 14B court and
13 verticals LLC and pay the onetime
[2:17:54] licensing fee of $15, which is budgeted.
>> Move.
[2:17:59] » Motion will
>> support.
[2:18:03] » We have a motion and support.
Magistrate.
[2:18:12] » I wasn't sure if you needed me to say
anything. Do you have any questions?
[2:18:16] » Good.
[2:18:22] » We told her we're good.
>> Yep.
[2:18:25] » Okay.
>> Nice presentation in your writing.
[2:18:29] » All those in favor?
>> Thank you.
[2:18:33] » Do you have any questions or would you
like
[2:18:35] » I do not. And if you have any questions
for me, just let me know.
[2:18:38] » No.
>> All right, we have a motion and support
[2:18:41] then. All in favor?
>> I opposed. Motion carried. Number two is
[2:18:46] alo also um
>> part of the 14B court. um approved
[2:18:54] Michigan Indigent Defense Council
contracts with the County Public
[2:18:58] Defenders Office for 2025 26 and 26 27
fiscal years in the amount of 42,67.90
[2:19:10] which is budgeted in general fund
township 10128781007
[2:19:17] move
>> motion row
[2:19:19] » support Thornon
>> support Thornon is Is there discussion
[2:19:22] on this? We do this every year and I see
it's a two-year agreement. That's great.
[2:19:29] » All in favor?
>> I
[2:19:31] » opposed. Motion carried. Number three is
to approve the new participation
[2:19:36] agreement with the courts and law
enforcement management system which is
[2:19:40] Clemus authority and accept the quote
for the 202627
[2:19:45] fiscal year in the amount of 9,527
which is budgeted in the court
[2:19:51] 236286819006
[2:19:56] Peterson
>> motion Peterson
[2:19:58] » support
>> support Eldridge
[2:20:01] is there discussion on this. We do this
every year as well.
[2:20:06] » Yes.
>> Hearing none. All in favor?
[2:20:09] » I
>> oppose. Motion carries.
[2:20:13] » All right. Thank you very much.
>> You are very welcome and thank you and
[2:20:16] we apologize for the delay.
>> No. Thank you. I should township too.
[2:20:23] Number four
>> is approved the charter township of
[2:20:26] Vipsy road closures parades event
celebrations festivals policy
[2:20:32] so moved
>> motion Eldridge support row is there
[2:20:36] discussion on this
[2:20:41] » hearing none all in favor
>> opposed motion carries number five is to
[2:20:47] approve entering into negotiations to
sell township owned property
[2:20:52] at 1710 Outer Lane Drive.
>> So move
[2:20:57] » motion row support Swanson. This will be
brought back to the board.
[2:21:04] » All in favor?
>> I
[2:21:06] » opposed. Motion carried.
Number six is the first reading
[2:21:11] resolution 202617
which is in reference to ordinance 2026
[2:21:17] 517. It's an ordinance to amend zoning
ordinance tech land use table formbbased
[2:21:24] code regulations changes and amendments.
Clerk Swanson.
[2:21:32] » Whereas
whereas the township passed a new zoning
[2:21:36] ordinance in 2022 that was a document
aligned with the charter township 2040
[2:21:42] master plan.
And whereas the township from time to
[2:21:46] time wants to update and clean up the
zoning ordinance for for easier to
[2:21:50] understand and implement process and
regulations that continue to align with
[2:21:54] the master plan. And whereas this
ordinance proposes zoning text amendment
[2:21:58] updates to three sections of the code
which include the land use table, the
[2:22:03] formbbased code regulations and the
changes to the amendments for reszoning
[2:22:07] and conditional resoning. And whereas at
its regularly scheduled meeting held
[2:22:12] July 14th, 2026, the Charter Township of
Ipsy Planning Commission held a public
[2:22:17] hearing, discussed the proposed text
amendments, and recommended that the
[2:22:21] township board approve the ordinance
amendment as presented. Now, therefore,
[2:22:24] be it resolved that the Charter Township
of Ipsani board hereby adopts and
[2:22:29] incorporates by reference ordinance
number 2026-517
[2:22:34] attached here 2 by reference in its
entirety. So moved.
[2:22:40] » Motion Swanson.
>> Support Peterson.
[2:22:44] » Support Peterson. Would you like a
presentation board members? This is
[2:22:48] first reading.
>> We'll have the second one.
[2:22:51] » Want to brought back?
>> Yep.
[2:22:53] » Second one.
>> Yeah.
[2:22:55] » With me.
>> And have a presentation then?
[2:22:57] » Yep.
>> Okay.
[2:22:58] » Sounds good.
>> Very good. Um, we have to do a roll call
[2:23:01] vote on a ordinance which is Row.
>> Yes.
[2:23:05] » Newman.
>> Yes.
[2:23:06] » Peterson. Yes.
>> Swanson,
[2:23:08] » yes.
>> Stumbo, vote, yes. Eldridge,
[2:23:11] » yes.
>> Thornton,
[2:23:12] » yes.
>> The first reading is approved. Mark,
[2:23:15] thank you for your patience and we'll do
a complete presentation before adopting
[2:23:20] the final reading. Number seven is
resolution 2026, MDNR trust fund project
[2:23:27] development agreement for North Bay Park
Pavilion improvements. Move Peterson
[2:23:34] » support roll. Is that a resolution?
>> We have a motion.
[2:23:41] Uh Peterson is that
>> yes
[2:23:43] » and support row.
Questions or comments?
[2:23:50] » So it was motion row. No motion Peterson
support row.
[2:23:55] » Sorry. Sorry.
[2:24:00] » Okay.
>> Okay.
[2:24:04] This um this is just for um we were
awarded the grant
[2:24:09] » and we um this is a formal acceptance of
the grant.
[2:24:16] » Good evening. John Hines, mal service
director.
[2:24:20] Uh this and the following agenda item
are the official um as supervisor Stumbo
[2:24:26] said um the official awards of the 2025
Indian trust fund grant. This was
[2:24:30] applied for last year. So again, budget
year 2025 for their um MD&R's um uh
[2:24:38] budget cycle, project cycle, excuse me.
So this would be to renovate the North
[2:24:43] Bay Park pavilion, which would be a
complete demolition and reconstruction
[2:24:47] of the bathroom and pavilion number one
in North Bay Park. So um this is a
[2:24:53] requirement to accept the grant as well
as the next agenda item.
[2:24:57] The amount for the project is a 50/50
match of
[2:25:02] uh I think it's $38,600.
[2:25:08] » Thank you.
>> Mhm.
[2:25:10] » Questions or comments? This is good
news.
[2:25:12] » Yes.
>> Yes. We got a grant. Woohoo. Um we have
[2:25:16] a motion and support. All in favor?
>> I opposed. Motion carried. Number eight
[2:25:22] is to approve 2025 MDNR trust fund
development project agreement for North
[2:25:27] Bay Park the pavilion project.
>> So moved
[2:25:32] » motion Thornton
>> support Aldridge
[2:25:39] for engineering right?
>> Yes.
[2:25:41] » This is the official project. The next
one's for engineering. This is you have
[2:25:45] to do a resolution and a project
agreement to submit to the MDNR. So we
[2:25:50] actually applied for this grant
initially with Ernack Consulting and
[2:25:52] then Spicer Group helped us finish it.
So these two items along with an updated
[2:25:57] legal description and project boundary
map are the four things we need to do to
[2:26:01] officially accept the grant and then we
can get started after that.
[2:26:07] » Thank you.
>> We have a motion support. All in favor?
[2:26:11] » I opposed. Motion carried. Number nine
is to award Manic and Smith Group as a
[2:26:17] prime professional engineer for the
North Bay Park pavilion and restroom
[2:26:20] project in the amount of $66,49766
[2:26:27] which is budgeted and will be reimbursed
50% by the Michigan Natural Resources
[2:26:32] MDNR trust fund grant.
>> So move motion Thornton
[2:26:37] » support
>> support row. Any questions or comments?
[2:26:42] get this project moving. Thank you,
John.
[2:26:44] » Yes.
>> All in favor?
[2:26:46] » I
>> opposed. Motion carried. Number 10 is um
[2:26:51] request to approve OM advisors for
design, engineering, and bidding
[2:26:55] services for the Lon Feather Point Park
Dock replacement project with a not to
[2:27:02] exceed amount of 24,000, which is
budgeted in two 21391-975587.
[2:27:12] So move
>> motion Eldridge
[2:27:15] » support
>> support. Tharton
[2:27:19] discussion on this item
hearing. None. All in favor?
[2:27:23] » I
>> opposed. Motion carries. Great park
[2:27:27] improvements here. Number 11. Approve
fishback for construction administration
[2:27:32] services for the Club View Park Pavilion
project in the amount of $4,400
[2:27:38] which is budgeted. So move Peterson
>> support
[2:27:42] » motion Peterson support Newman
discussion
[2:27:47] and this will be done this year.
>> Correct. That is the goal. Um later on
[2:27:52] the agenda we are bringing a contractor
that was um the bid on the project. So
[2:27:56] with Fishbach we're going to meet on
Monday if approved tonight and hopefully
[2:28:00] get everything ordered and done before
the winter this year.
[2:28:03] » Thank you.
>> All in favor?
[2:28:06] » I
>> opposed.
[2:28:08] Motion carries. Number 12 is resolution
202619
[2:28:13] which is a second amendment to the
articles of incorporation the regional
[2:28:18] resource management authority and the
only change is the number of times in
[2:28:23] which they meet or how often they meet.
>> That is the only change.
[2:28:28] » Yeah, the only change is uh the
requirement was monthly and now they're
[2:28:31] moving to quarterly.
>> That is the only change. So we need a
[2:28:34] motion and did I get one? So moved
>> support
[2:28:39] » motion Eldridge support Thornton.
All in favor?
[2:28:46] » Opposed? Motion carried. Number 13 is
resolution 202620 which is participation
[2:28:53] in purchase of development rights
program.
[2:28:59] » So moved.
>> Motion Eldridge
[2:29:01] » support.
>> Support row.
[2:29:03] » They've never wanted to use our land.
So, it changed.
[2:29:06] » I'm just thankful, Karen.
>> I am too.
[2:29:09] » Yeah. And first time for everything.
>> First time in what, 30 years we've been
[2:29:13] paying the millage or 40, whatever it
is. So,
[2:29:16] » but we're glad.
>> Glad.
[2:29:19] So, this will allow us to participate in
purchasing agricultural land for um
[2:29:27] preservation.
We have a motion support. All in favor?
[2:29:33] » Opposed? Motion carried. Number 14 is to
accept the resignation of Erica Vier
[2:29:39] from the zoning board of appeals
effective September 5th, 2026.
[2:29:44] » Peterson support.
>> Motion Peterson support row. This will
[2:29:48] be advertised for vacancy. All in favor?
>> I
[2:29:52] » opposed. Motion carried.
Number 15 is resolution 202621
[2:30:01] which is a resolution establishing a
temporary moratorum on establishment,
[2:30:07] construction,
expansion or approval of major electric
[2:30:13] utility infrastructure within the
charter township of Ipsilante.
[2:30:19] » So moved.
>> Support motion Eldridge support. Um,
[2:30:25] Thornton,
I think this one should be read into the
[2:30:28] record.
>> Yes,
[2:30:30] » Mr. Wyinners.
>> That correct?
[2:30:33] » Swanson said I could read it if I wanted
to.
[2:30:38] » So, I will do the pleasure. Resolution
2026-21,
[2:30:42] a resolution establishing a temporary
moratorium on establishment,
[2:30:45] construction, expansion, or approval of
major electric utility infrastructure
[2:30:48] within the chart of Epsilani. The
Charter Touch of Epsilani hereby finds
[2:30:52] and determines as follows. Number one,
purpose and findings. Whereas the
[2:30:55] charter townships has a responsibility
to protect the public health, safety,
[2:30:59] and welfare and to provide the orderly
use and development of land within the
[2:31:03] township consistent with applicable
state and federal law. And whereas the
[2:31:07] township's master plan and zoning
ordinance seek to promote orderly
[2:31:10] development, protect residential
neighborhoods and environmentally
[2:31:13] sensitive lands, minimize unreasonable
burdens upon public facilities and
[2:31:17] services, protect natural resources, and
ensure compatibility among land uses.
[2:31:22] And whereas the township zoning
ordinance presently defines and
[2:31:26] regulates certain essential services
provided by public utilities, including
[2:31:30] electrical transmission and distribution
systems. However, the township's
[2:31:34] existing regulations do not
comprehensively address the land use
[2:31:38] impacts associated with the construction
of substantial expansion of modern
[2:31:43] highcapacity electrical substations,
switching stations, transformer yards,
[2:31:48] transmission facilities, and related
major electrical infrastructure. And
[2:31:52] where are the nature and scale of
electrical infrastructure necessary to
[2:31:55] serve new high energy demand land uses
are changing rapidly including
[2:31:59] infrastructure associated but not
limited to hypers scale data centers,
[2:32:03] midsize data simmers, artificial
intelligent computing facilities and
[2:32:07] high performance computational centers,
industrial facilities and other
[2:32:10] intensive electrical users. And whereas
the township has previously recognized
[2:32:15] through its planning zoning actions at
major electrical utility facilities may
[2:32:19] require substantial electrical
infrastructure including but not limit
[2:32:22] to substations, generators, batteries,
transmission improvements, and other
[2:32:26] electrical support facilities. And
whereas the major electric utility
[2:32:30] facilities may have significant land use
impacts that differ substantially from
[2:32:34] routine electrical distribution
facilities, survey homes and businesses
[2:32:39] in including impacts related to
location, land consumption, setback,
[2:32:42] screening, noise, lighting, visual
character, storm water, natural
[2:32:47] resources, in emergency access,
proximity to residential neighborhoods
[2:32:52] and public open spaces, construction
activity, resource consumption, utility
[2:32:56] rates and compatibility existing and
planned development. And whereas the
[2:33:00] establishment of substantial expansion
of such facilities before the township
[2:33:04] has had a reasonable opportunity to
study these issues could result in
[2:33:07] develop development patterns
or impacts that are difficult or
[2:33:11] impossible to remedy after construction.
And whereas the township board therefore
[2:33:16] determines that a temporary narrowly
tailored moratorum is necessary to allow
[2:33:20] the township planning commission,
township staff, consultants, engineers,
[2:33:24] and legal council sufficient time to
study major electric utility facilities
[2:33:30] and determine whether amendments to the
township's master plan, zoning
[2:33:33] ordinances, engine ordinance,
engineering standards, or other
[2:33:37] applicable regulations are necessary to
protect the public health, safety, and
[2:33:40] welfare. And whereas the resolution is
intended solely as a temporary land use
[2:33:45] measure, it is not intended to regulate
electrical utility rates, service
[2:33:50] territories, electric reliability
standards is the generation of sale of
[2:33:54] electricity or any other matter with the
exclusive jurisdiction of the Michigan
[2:33:58] Public Service Commission, federal
energy regulatory commission or other
[2:34:02] state or federal agency. And whereas
nothing in this reg resolution is
[2:34:07] intended to prohibit routine
maintenance, replacements, repair,
[2:34:10] emergency restoration, ordinary customer
connections, or improvements reasonably
[2:34:15] necessary to maintain safe and reliable
electrical service to existing
[2:34:18] residences, businesses.
Section two, definitions for the purpose
[2:34:23] of this resolution. Electric utility
means any person, corporation, municipal
[2:34:27] utility, cooperative, public utility,
electric utility, transmission company,
[2:34:32] affiliated transmission company,
independent transmission company or
[2:34:36] other entity engaged in the generation,
transmission or distribution of electric
[2:34:41] energy including but not limited to
entities such as DT electric company,
[2:34:45] ITC transmission, Michigan Electric
Transmission Company, LLC and their
[2:34:50] successors or affiliates, major electric
utility facility means any of the
[2:34:56] following. A a new electrical
substation, switching station, switch
[2:34:59] yard, transformer station, transformer
yard, or comparable facility designed to
[2:35:04] transform, switch, regulate, control or
transmit electrical power, including
[2:35:08] both as a principal use or as an
accessory. B. The physical expansion of
[2:35:13] an existing electrical substation,
switching station, switch yard,
[2:35:16] transformer station, or transformer
yard, including an increase in the fence
[2:35:20] or developed area of the facility.
installation of additional major power
[2:35:25] transformers or installation of
additional transmission level switching
[2:35:29] or bus equipment including both as a
principal use or an accessory use. C. A
[2:35:35] new overhead electrical transmission
line or transmission corridor. D. a
[2:35:40] substantial expansion of an existing
transmission corridor involving
[2:35:43] additional transmission circuits, new
transmission towers or structures or
[2:35:47] acquisition or establishment of
materially expanded rights of way or e
[2:35:51] buildings, access, roads, control
facilities, storm water improvements or
[2:35:55] other structures principally accessory
to a facility described above. Routine
[2:36:00] utility work means maintenance, repair,
placement, reconstruction, consumer
[2:36:05] connections or customer connections,
distribution system improvements,
[2:36:09] vegetation management, and emergency
restoration or similar work that does
[2:36:13] not constitute the establishment of
substantial expansion of a major
[2:36:16] electric utility facility. Section
three, temporary moratorum. During the
[2:36:22] effective period of this resolution, no
major electric facilities shall be
[2:36:26] established, constructed or
substantially expanded within the
[2:36:29] charter township of Ipsilani when such
activity requires zoning, land use, site
[2:36:34] plan, special land use, variance,
grading, engineering, rightway, or other
[2:36:37] approval from the township
during this moratorum. A. No township
[2:36:42] department, officer, employee,
commission, board, or other body shall
[2:36:46] grant final zoning or land use approval
for the establishment or substantial
[2:36:49] expansion of a major electric utility
facility. B. Applications for a major
[2:36:55] electric utility facility may be
received for administrative purposes if
[2:36:59] required by law, but no final township
land use approval shall be granted
[2:37:04] during the moratorum. C. The mortorium
shall apply to applications pending on
[2:37:08] the effective date of this resolution
that have not received all required
[2:37:13] final township approval except to the
extent an applicant has acquired vested
[2:37:18] rights recognized under Michigan law. D.
No applicant shall obtain vested rights
[2:37:23] solely by filling the application during
the effective period of the moratorum.
[2:37:27] D. Exemptions. This moratorum shall not
apply to a emergency repairs or work
[2:37:31] reasonably or necessary to restore
electrical service following storms,
[2:37:34] accidents, equipment failures, natural
disasters or other emergencies. B
[2:37:38] routine maintenance and order repair of
existing utility features.
[2:37:43] C. Replacement of existing poles, wires,
transformers, conductors, structures or
[2:37:48] equipment with substantially similar
facilities within an existing utility
[2:37:51] corridor or developed utility site. D.
Ordinary electric distribution
[2:37:55] improvements incur customer service
connections that do not involve
[2:38:00] construction or substantial expansion of
a major electric utility facility. E.
[2:38:06] Work demonstrated to the township to be
immediately necessary to correct an
[2:38:08] unsafe condition or prevent a
substantial and imminent threat to
[2:38:11] electrical liability or public safety.
F. projects that received an all
[2:38:15] required final township land use
approvals before the effective date of
[2:38:19] this resolution and for those approvals
for which those approvals remain valid.
[2:38:25] G. Activities for which legally vested
rights existed before the effective date
[2:38:29] of the res of this resolution. Or H any
facility project approval activities
[2:38:33] extent the application of this
resolution is expressly preempted by
[2:38:37] state or federal law or by a valor order
certificate or authorization of an
[2:38:41] agency having controlling jurisdiction.
Section five state and federal
[2:38:46] jurisdiction. This resolution shall be
interpreted in ministry consistent with
[2:38:50] the Michigan zoning enabling act, the
electrical transmission line
[2:38:53] certification act, applicable provisions
of the Michigan Public Service
[2:38:57] Commission enabling statutes, the
Michigan Constitution, and applicable
[2:39:02] federal law. Nothing contained herein
shall be interpreted as attempting to
[2:39:07] supersede or interfere with the
certificate of public convenience and
[2:39:11] necessity over other state or federal
authorization having preemptive effect.
[2:39:15] The township expressly reserves all
authority not presented by state or
[2:39:18] federal law, including its authority
over land use, zoning, township
[2:39:22] property, township rights of way, and
other matters of local concern to the
[2:39:25] fullest extent permitted by law. Section
six, planning and regulatory study.
[2:39:30] During the moratorum, the township
planning commission and township staff
[2:39:33] in consultation with the township
attorney, township engineer, planning
[2:39:37] consultant, and other qualified
professionals as appropriate shall study
[2:39:40] the appropriate regulation of major
electric utility facilities. The study
[2:39:45] should consider as applicable one,
appropriate zoning districts and
[2:39:49] locations for major electric utility
facilities. Two, minimum setbacks from
[2:39:53] residential uses, property lines, parks,
schools, environmentally sensitive
[2:39:57] areas, and other potentially
incompatible uses. Three, screening,
[2:40:02] landscaping, fencing, and buffering.
Four, noise and vibration. Five,
[2:40:05] exterior lighting. Six, heightened
visual impacts of transmission studies
[2:40:09] and utility equipment. Seven, storm
water management and pvious surface
[2:40:13] impacts. Eight, wetlands, woodlands,
flood planes, water courses, and other
[2:40:16] natural resources. Nine, emergency
access, fire protection, and public
[2:40:20] safety considerations. 10, construction,
traffic and impacts upon public roads.
[2:40:25] 11, coordination between major electric
infrastructure and the development
[2:40:31] generating electrical demand. 12,
expansion of existing utility sites. 13.
[2:40:36] Site plan, special land use review
procedures. 14. standards distinguishing
[2:40:40] routine utility work from major
infrastructure development.
[2:40:47] 15 coordination with the Michigan Public
Service Commission and other
[2:40:50] governmental agencies have in
jurisdiction and 16. Such other matters
[2:40:53] as the planning commission township
board determine relevant to protecting
[2:40:56] the public health, safety, and welfare.
The planning commissioners shall take
[2:41:00] make recommendations to the township
board concerning any appropriate
[2:41:04] amendments to the township zoning
ordinance, master plan, engineering
[2:41:07] standards, or other township
regulations. Section seven, limited
[2:41:11] administrative exception. Upon written
documentation from an electric utility
[2:41:15] establishing that specific work
otherwise subject to this moratorum is
[2:41:19] immediately necessary to remedy and
remedy an existing condition presenting
[2:41:24] a substantial threat to public safety or
the continuity
[2:41:28] of electrical service to existing
township customers. The township board
[2:41:33] may authorize the minimum work
reasonably necessary to address that
[2:41:37] condition. An exception under this
section shall not authorize additional
[2:41:40] infrastructure
principally intended to provide new
[2:41:44] capacity for proposed development of a
new high demand customer unless the
[2:41:48] township is legally required to permit
such work. Section 8 duration. The
[2:41:53] resolution established in the moratorum
herein shall remain in effect for 180
[2:41:57] days following its effective date unless
terminated earlier by action of the
[2:42:01] township board. The township board may
terminate the moratorum before its
[2:42:05] expiration upon determining the
appropriate permanent regulations have
[2:42:08] been adopted or the moratorum is no
longer necessary. Any extension of this
[2:42:13] moratorum shall require separate action
of the township board supported by
[2:42:16] findings demonstrating continued need
for a temporary moratorum and shall be
[2:42:21] limited to the shortest period
reasonably necessary to complete the
[2:42:24] township's review and adoption process.
Section nine, sever severability. In any
[2:42:30] section, subsection, sentence, clause,
phase, definition, or portion of this
[2:42:34] resolution is determined by a court of
competent jurisdiction to be invalid or
[2:42:38] uninforceable. That determination shall
not affect the validity or enforcability
[2:42:43] of the remaining portions of this
resolution. Section 10, conflicting
[2:42:47] provisions for the limited duration of
this moratorum. Any provision of the
[2:42:51] township code or zoning ordinance that
would otherwise require the township to
[2:42:56] approve a major electric utility
facility inconsistent with this
[2:42:59] resolution shall be temporarily
supersede superseded to the maximum
[2:43:03] extent permitted by law. Nothing in this
section shall supersede state or federal
[2:43:07] law. Now though therefore be it resolved
the charter township if resolution
[2:43:12] 2026-21
is hereby adopted.
[2:43:16] There was already a motion wasn't there?
No. Was there? No. Yeah.
[2:43:22] » Yeah. Yeah. They already made. Yeah.
>> All right.
[2:43:26] Mr. Wyers, did you have any I mean the
resolution is very in-depth and very
[2:43:32] helpful and very on point and something
that we need. Would you like to do a
[2:43:38] summary of it? I think what you uh
showed this evening in regards to this
[2:43:43] 110 megawatt DTE substation
pretty much says it all as to why we
[2:43:50] want we need to make sure that our land
use and zoning uh is in alignment with
[2:43:55] these major utilities that are coming
our way to support data centers. So
[2:44:00] again, I believe as Trusty Ro read on
pages uh 8 and N of the resolution, it's
[2:44:08] going to set for the criteria. It's
going to ensure that u we identify the
[2:44:13] appropriate zoning districts and
locations for these facilities, setback
[2:44:18] requirements, screening, noise,
vibration, on and on. And so I think
[2:44:22] it's something that's probably long
overdue.
[2:44:25] uh none of us probably could have
foreseen
[2:44:28] was coming our way with these uh data
center hypers scale AI centers and this
[2:44:34] I think will at least set uh before the
board uh some parameters and guardrails
[2:44:42] as to how to make sure that these major
electric utility facilities are going to
[2:44:47] be properly located uh to serve whatever
comes our way in regards to these uh
[2:44:52] future data centers.
[2:44:57] And this is the second
behind us is a picture of a 110 megawatt
[2:45:07] substation as well as the um switchyard
which we didn't even know what these
[2:45:14] terms were until this data center issue
comes up. We know there's one by the um
[2:45:22] Willow Run plant, but this is going to
um could be
[2:45:28] the location on the corner textile and
bridge. And just like every other
[2:45:33] utility infrastructure with our water
and sewer, our electric infrastructure,
[2:45:38] we need to know how much of this um
supply they're going to use because it
[2:45:45] determines how our community can grow or
not grow. Be it can use all of your um
[2:45:54] electric, all of your water, and all of
your sewer. If you just have two of
[2:45:59] these, it's it goes hand in hand and um
Mr. Wyers's
[2:46:04] this was your um
idea to do this and it was a great idea
[2:46:10] and people don't think about these
things and we never thought about them
[2:46:15] until these data centers came forward.
So, thank you um for bringing this
[2:46:19] forward. It is a very prudent way to
help plan our community. And as you see,
[2:46:26] DTE just goes up everywhere. And you
really don't know for gas as well as
[2:46:32] electric. They pull a permit from the
county road commission. And even though
[2:46:39] they send an email, you can really get
confused on where all the lines are and
[2:46:43] where they from. They have different
names. And I hope that a process will
[2:46:48] require us to be and our community be
more informed on what they're doing with
[2:46:54] this infrastructure. ITC is the um high
tension wires
[2:47:00] and the hightension wires has to go to a
um the yard
[2:47:07] in order to distribute the electricity
to the substation which then goes to the
[2:47:14] customers. So it's a very elaborate
system as you can tell by Selen
[2:47:20] Township. The reason they went there,
one of the reasons is because of all the
[2:47:25] electrical hightension wires. So, um,
residents are aware of that, not and but
[2:47:31] of course we are now. And to do this and
to pause and to get a plan in place to
[2:47:37] make sure we plan our community the way
um our residents have asked for it, the
[2:47:42] way the master plan calls for it, which
by the way, we are doing an amendment to
[2:47:46] the master plan. It's a 5-year um look
back and see what we want to change. So,
[2:47:53] um, one of our residents, Courtney,
spoke about it about addressing the data
[2:47:57] centers and how we need to get tighter
regulations on that as well. So, thank
[2:48:01] you, Mr. Winters, for bringing this
forward. And
[2:48:06] we just said that there is no
application filed as of this day by DTE
[2:48:10] for that location. But just looking at
that photograph, uh I don't think
[2:48:15] there's any amount of fencing or
buffering or screening that you could
[2:48:18] come up with that would uh uh mitigate
against what you're looking at on that
[2:48:24] screen. And uh well, I'll leave it at
that.
[2:48:27] » Mr. Irwin did. Yeah.
>> So, so this this picture is really
[2:48:32] important, I think, to think about
because um U of M is so crystal clear
[2:48:36] that they've been communicating to us
abundantly, which is not true. Um, the
[2:48:42] first time, I think the first of three
meetings that I was in with them, maybe
[2:48:46] there were four, I'm not sure, was when
they came to tell us a little bit about
[2:48:52] what was going on and they announced
that the 20 acres that they purchased
[2:48:59] was now going to be the switchyard. So,
that was probably the we sat down with
[2:49:04] them. They said, "Yeah, you know, we
talked to DTE DT's original plans, but
[2:49:08] we should buy this other piece of
property. We're going to put this at
[2:49:12] this time. We have no picture of what
that means in our heads, but this is
[2:49:17] what they thought would be appropriate
to come and communicate to us. Yeah, we
[2:49:22] just changed our mind. We're going to
put the switchyard. I don't they call it
[2:49:26] a switchyard. Put the substation there
on the 20 acres
[2:49:29] » that in the north. And this is the right
at the corner gas station that and we
[2:49:35] said there's a major investment that was
done by this business right across the
[2:49:40] street. If you're sitting there pumping
your gas, you're going to be looking out
[2:49:43] on this. And we were like stunned,
shocked that they would just kind of
[2:49:48] throw it out there. So we so we asked to
your point. Um actually we didn't ask.
[2:49:52] Um Senator M was like, "Well, maybe you
guys could you could do some Burming or
[2:49:56] you could do something. Hey, there's a
couple other switchyards other places
[2:49:58] where you could go take a look." And
we're like, like to your point, how are
[2:50:02] you going to cover that up?
I mean, it's just crazy that they would
[2:50:07] think you just come and just
nonchalantly say, "Yeah, we changed our
[2:50:11] mind. This is what we're going to do."
And then you look at it and you see it.
[2:50:14] There was no picture. Like, they didn't
show us what it would look like. We had
[2:50:18] to hunt all this down. But that just
speaks to the lack of respect. And so
[2:50:24] when we get frustrated that they're
saying all of this communication they've
[2:50:28] had with us, that's how they communicate
with us. So we had a Thanksgiving Zoom
[2:50:32] call, get used to it. And uh first
little meeting that said, "Yeah, we
[2:50:37] changed our mind. We're going to put
this substation
[2:50:40] » and a couple texts." It's just it's
appalling to think that they would treat
[2:50:45] us in a way that doesn't warrant
real communication with with us about
[2:50:51] stuff like that. That's unacceptable.
Agreed.
[2:50:55] » unacceptable.
>> Supervisor Stumble, can I just ask one
[2:50:58] quick question,
>> which Debbie just stated? So, you're
[2:51:01] telling me all of that is going across
from Run House? Roundhouse,
[2:51:06] no barrier around it, no wall.
>> We don't know. We have not seen any
[2:51:10] plans.
>> We don't know that yet. But what they
[2:51:13] said is the original 20 acres that were
two office buildings with 200 um people
[2:51:19] on site working at $200,000 a year is
now this
[2:51:24] » that's going to be the but you don't
know if they're going to build anything
[2:51:27] around as of yet.
>> No, we because and they don't have to
[2:51:32] file
>> we won't know until they they don't have
[2:51:34] to file plans with it DTE
because this is part of ITC and DTE too.
[2:51:42] So um
>> we don't know.
[2:51:45] » Trust Peterson.
>> Thank you.
[2:51:48] » Just keep in mind too that it is what I
was saying earlier this substation is is
[2:51:53] equal or is going to produce
uh the equivalent of what the township
[2:52:00] as a whole is currently
using in terms of electricity. Just this
[2:52:05] one substation for these two data
centers is equal to the rest of the
[2:52:10] township combined. It's It's hard to
really wrap your brain around that for
[2:52:14] me when you say that because that
substation can pour out 80,000 homes. I
[2:52:20] think we have like maybe 15 16,000
single family homes right now.
[2:52:25] » Correct.
>> We got apartments obviously in light
[2:52:27] industry, but I think that could somehow
uh power almost uh four times or three
[2:52:34] half times what we currently have in
terms of single family homes. And uh
[2:52:38] it's just staggering at the amount of uh
electricity, the amount of heat that's
[2:52:43] going to be generated. Uh I didn't
mention earlier, but uh the amount of
[2:52:47] heat that's going to be generated from
this facility if it ever came comes to
[2:52:51] fruition. Uh it would take over 5,000
plus uh air conditioning units to
[2:52:58] basically take the heat and move it out.
That's how that's how mammoth that
[2:53:04] project is. So uh they deliberately uh
undersold
[2:53:10] uh their vision as to what this was all
about. DTE is is equally responsible in
[2:53:16] my mind if not worse in some ways of
trying to push these projects forward
[2:53:20] because uh they truly do see this as
being a gold rush opportunity
[2:53:25] » and so does Consumers Energy but they're
doing it at the expense of u the
[2:53:30] remaining uh development. the the grid
cannot support this and uh it's like
[2:53:36] hurry up and uh it's just you know it's
just a disgrace that the state of
[2:53:41] Michigan has basically uh given a quick
claim deed to these data centers and
[2:53:47] energy companies to pretty much uh do as
they see fit
[2:53:51] » and it's also across the street 165 ft
is we measured it I don't know if it's
[2:53:57] correct from actual people live in in
the apartment complex across the street.
[2:54:05] There is no way they would ever do this
in Ann Arbor or any other community to
[2:54:11] locate it that close. It's wrong. But
this will give us time to look at our
[2:54:18] planning and our ordinances in order to
address the electrical um re
[2:54:24] improvements
and additions by DTE and ITC.
[2:54:29] Keep in mind we're all we're supposed to
be addressing in this uh ordinance the
[2:54:33] appropriate zoning districts as well as
the setbacks from residential uses parks
[2:54:38] and everything else. So I'll leave uh
this task to some of the planners but uh
[2:54:44] it's pretty comprehensive as to what the
look supposed to what it's supposed to
[2:54:49] look like when it comes back in terms of
making sure that these major utility
[2:54:53] electric facilities are going to be in
alignment with those uh 20 or so
[2:54:58] criteria there. And so I look forward to
especially with the wetlands there's
[2:55:03] wetlands on that property over there
too.
[2:55:04] » Yeah. And uh so there's a lot of things
in play here regards to this type of
[2:55:09] mortar
>> and how does it affect the bald eagle? I
[2:55:12] mean how does it affect the birds and
the habitat? I just this is this is a
[2:55:17] heavy industrial use.
>> That's what it is.
[2:55:20] » I just encourage the board one last
comment. I guess I know it's been a long
[2:55:23] day, but uh this is going to be more of
a marathon than a sprint. And it's going
[2:55:28] to be very much a long game here.
>> And uh I know that we'd like to have a a
[2:55:33] quick answer, quick resolution, but I'd
rather see it actually uh get it right
[2:55:38] as opposed to trying to do something
quick. And this is another step like we
[2:55:43] did with the yucka moratorum on the
water and sewer. It's going to require a
[2:55:47] lot more time, a lot more energy, a lot
more uh uh of our resources. But this is
[2:55:52] it's the future of the childhood in my
opinion does hang in the balance in
[2:55:56] regards to what happens here.
>> I question.
[2:56:00] » Yeah.
>> Yeah. I I don't know and I'm not
[2:56:02] expecting an answer, but I just it made
me think about um you know how you have
[2:56:06] to own the property before you can like
file to reszone. So maybe they need to
[2:56:10] own the property before you even file a
permit to have
[2:56:15] » a substation built because they should
DTE or whoever. I'm not saying it's
[2:56:21] going to be built, but if it is, it
should be on DTE's property, not U of
[2:56:24] them. Well point.
>> Yeah,
[2:56:27] » good point.
>> All right, we have a motion is in
[2:56:31] support. Is everyone in favor of this
resolution?
[2:56:35] » I
>> I
[2:56:36] » opposed. Motion carried. Number 16 is
budget amendment number 12. Clerk
[2:56:42] Swanson
>> move to increase the fire fund budget by
[2:56:46] $11,355.93
[2:56:52] to 7,485,662
[2:56:56] and approve the department line item
changes as outlined. Move to increase
[2:56:59] the bike, sidewalk, wreck, roads,
general BSR2 fund budget by $36,56.17
[2:57:08] to $3,274,860
[2:57:12] and improve the department line item
changes as outlined. So moved.
[2:57:16] » Motion Swanson.
>> Support.
[2:57:18] » Support Eldridge. Is there discussion?
Hearing none. All in favor? I
[2:57:24] » opposed. Motion carried. Authorization
and bids.
[2:57:29] A motion to award Clo Club View Park
Pavilion Replacement Project bid to KAB
[2:57:35] Enterprises in the amount of $12,856.17
[2:57:41] which is budgeted.
>> So move
[2:57:43] » motion row
>> support
[2:57:45] » support Thornton
discussion
[2:57:49] hearing. None. All in favor?
>> I
[2:57:52] » opposed. Motion carries. Number two is
to seek seal bids for one new 2026
[2:57:59] Polaris Ranger XP 1000 Northstar Edition
premium to support the fire department
[2:58:06] operations and emergency response needs
which is budget and line item 2069197900
[2:58:15] with the bids coming back to the board.
So move
[2:58:18] » support motion Aldridge support row. All
in favor?
[2:58:22] » I opposed. Motion carried.
What we added under other business?
[2:58:28] Thank you. Um board members is to add a
light at textile I mean um textile road
[2:58:36] near the park because people were
crossing there and it's very um dark and
[2:58:41] they have asked for a crossing light to
go there. So, it'll be a street light
[2:58:46] and then with um markings in. I'm not
sure if it'll have a flashing beacon yet
[2:58:52] or not, but for $4,134.88
[2:58:57] in the amount in line item 101446982000.
[2:59:04] We're asking for a motion to approve the
installation of this one street light.
[2:59:09] So move
>> motion row support Peterson.
[2:59:15] Questions or comments? All in favor?
>> I
[2:59:19] » opposed. Motion carries.
Um also under other business just to
[2:59:25] update the board. Um the new accounting
director will begin Monday uh Monday,
[2:59:30] August 24th. So um it's good news and
we keep working hard and thanks for
[2:59:38] everyone. And I really want to thank our
community engagement team and which is
[2:59:44] and the township staff Lori, Julianne,
Elizabeth and Mila. I mean they have
[2:59:52] been just great public servants to the
people um through the data center issues
[2:59:58] as well as other issues. and um I really
appreciate
[3:00:03] very much how you serve the residents of
our community and treat them with so
[3:00:08] much respect and and helpfulness. So I
just want to just say thank you for
[3:00:13] that. A motion to adjurnn is in order
>> motion Peterson
[3:00:18] » support
>> support Eldridge. All in favor I
[3:00:22] » meeting all opposed meeting adjourn at
9:03.
[3:00:27] Thank you.