[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.

2026-08-18 Township Board Regular Meeting Video

Transcript