You should look like a diagonal line. Reach with the middle finger, press through that heel. Big stretch, big stretch, big stretch. And good, push back off. We're coming back to that straddle and we're going to the other side. So, now it'll be your right foot out in front, 12 o'clock. Your back foot, 10 o'clock. Try to get those hips turning. Right into warrior one. Arms over hips, shoulders, fingertips, everything's in line. Open up towards the TV. Your chest and shoulders, hips, sink down, you gaze north and south. Warrior two. Left arm's going to drop behind, right arm sweeps up, reverse, warrior or peaceful warrior. Big stretch back. And good, cartwheel over, diagonal. Fingertips, right, or the upper arm, right by the ear, fingertips reach. Press through that heel. And perfect, come back out. Let's go back to straddle. Let's fold to the floor. So, come back to the fold. Let's get one more straddle fold. Reaching back, down, down, down, pulsing through, pulsing through. Now, to come down, lower the knees, lower the knees. And then maybe visit child's pose again. So, sweep those hips around, check in, grab your water. We're gonna slide our hips to one side and extend your legs to the top of your mat. All right, so you went at this 90 degrees in your body. Before we go into the point really, really hard, get these feet, give these feet some love, ankle circles, point, point, flex, flex. And then do what you want there, point or flex. Reaching up, you're in a 90 degrees, see the 90 degrees. So, that means you've got to lift up and tuck in. All we're gonna do is keep our arms by our ears, hinge at the hips and reach till you can't reach anymore. And try to keep the spine super straight. Try not to round. We're looking a totally different stretch here. You should be feeling it right in that waistline. Breathe deep. Good, good. And now just kind of walk yourself back up. I'm gonna go ahead and turn center. You can stay wherever you want to on your mat. Butterfly pose, soles of the feet come together, reach for the top of your toes, drive those heels in the best you can. So, you want either a diamond shape or a closed diamond. Once again, we sit up super duper tall. We take a big inhale, just kind of open the knees to start. And now let's gently walk our way back up. Work the pose. Reach for your ankles. Take a breath, inhale. And then gently open up the knees. Maybe your spine is falling forward. Maybe you're still sitting up tall. Close your eyes and press with that exhale. Inhale, release. Exhale, work the pose, gentle stretch, whatever it takes. And good, we're just gonna do that once more. Inhale, lift the knees. Exhale, gentle press. And now bringing those knees together, this is called windshield wiper. Just kind of roll on your hips. It usually feels pretty good. I'm gonna turn my mat just forward, just a little bit. Turn my mat just forward just a second. Taking our spinal twist. Everyone's great at the spinal twist here. Let's go ahead and extend your left leg out, giving your right knee a good hug. See if you can cross that right leg over. You wanna line your knee up with the center of your body by giving it a good hug. And then we're gonna take our right arm to the sky. Good. No seat in chambers, we have seating in the overflow area in the mezzanine. I am calling this special Committee of the Whole to order for Tuesday, October 6, 2026. We will be addressing the issue of data centers tonight and giving the public another opportunity to give their input on this very important issue. I wanna thank everybody who has come out tonight to speak and everyone who has written, called, or talked to us about this issue over the past year. We're gonna be probably in for a long night, so I will be announcing short breaks every 90 minutes or so, so folks can stretch, use the restroom, or take care of any other business. A few ground rules about public comment. We will conduct this the way we normally do for our meetings. All speakers will have up to three minutes to speak unless you have been yielded time. A speaker may be yielded three minutes per person up to a total of nine minutes. That means two people could yield their time to you for a maximum of nine. We also allow sign-ups 30 minutes after the meeting has started, so we're looking at about 6.01 is the deadline for signing up to speak. When I call your name, please come up to the podium and give your name and council district for the record. There will be no clapping, booing, or other disruptions allowed. I know this is an issue that everybody is very passionate about, but I do trust that we will conduct ourselves with civility and mutual respect. We do have folks in overflow, so when I call names, I will probably call two to three names at a time so that folks outside have a chance to come in and line up. There is a five or seven second delay between what's happening live in here and what gets broadcast out there. When we conclude public comment, we will have council discussion on this issue. So without further ado, let me get to my list here. Our first three commenters are Patrick Mason, followed by Erin Petrie, followed by Maria E. So Patrick, you're up first. Please give your name and council district, and you'll have three minutes. Good evening, council. Patrick Mason, District One. While many of you may know me through my work chairing the Environmental Commission's Policy Development Committee, I'm speaking tonight as an individual resident, though one whose perspective is heavily informed by technical research our committee has done over the past year. I'm here to ask you to preserve the specific standards that the Planning Commission has added to the data center ordinance we're discussing this evening. As a starting point for regulation. When council received this draft, some questioned whether the Planning Commission's numbers might be arbitrary or too strict. I want to assure you that they aren't arbitrary. They are evidence-based standards informed directly from the Environmental Commission's white paper, starting with size. Regulating data centers by square footage alone completely misses the point. Their real impact is their massive electrical demand. Capping minor, quote unquote minor facilities at 25 megawatts is exactly how we prevent severe strain on our local grid. This is rapidly becoming the national standard from Pennsylvania to Ohio, using it to restrict hyperscale facilities. Locally, a 25 megawatt data center draws the continuous power of roughly 20,000 homes. Moving on to land use. Capping the physical size at 40,000 square feet rather than planning staff's 50,000 square feet protects our finite industrial footprint. Local research shows we have about 1,300 acres of developable land in the urban services area. We must reserve that precious space for job-dense industries that benefit Lexington, not sprawling server warehouses. And on to noise measures. These facilities produce a continuous low-frequency noise. The 30 decibel limit is the World Health Organization's recommendation for preserving neighbors' well-being and health. While there is certainly more work to be done to make this ordinance comprehensive, and others will speak to that tonight, these specific metrics that I've listed help protect the community while giving developers clear rules. Please hold the line on the Planning Commission's amendments as the starting point for Lexington's data center regulations. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Aaron Petrie, followed by Maria E, and then Stephen Harris. Thank you. This is a representative body, and sessions like this are vital. Oh, I'm so sorry. My name is Aaron Petrie. I live in District 5. I'm sorry, and I also used to work at Amazon Web Services and Sustainability, so this used to be my profession. So, but, okay, starting back again. This is a representative body, and sessions like this are vital to building trust in a time where many deeply distrust their elected officials. This council has already been swift to respond with a moratorium once DART points was announced, and now it's time to revisit that response to right-size it for our current purposes. I am impressed with the work that the Planning Commission proposed, as they took in a significant amount of science-based and best practice-informed feedback put forth by the Environmental Commission and Mr. Mason. Please preserve that. However, there's still room for improvement. Number one, current zoning does not take into account aggregate demand or expansion into definition. In short, this leaves it open for a single company to build and operate multiple minor data centers across a single development or campus. This loophole must be closed. Number two, in the same vein, we do not have a clear, feasible, sustainable cap for data centers. This can be solved by putting a cap on the number of data center licenses issued, informed by a maximum megawatt load that the utility company can guarantee will not impact customers, whether commercial or residential, availability or rates. Number three, though generators are discussed, there is no mention of fuel type. At a minimum, I would like to see an incentive, I understand that that isn't the planning part, but part of the larger picture, to use lower carbon or lower emission fuels like renewable diesel, natural gas, and a requirement for battery energy storage systems, or BES. Number four, please update the PUE definition to correct as power use effectiveness. It's currently incorrectly called power utilization efficiency, and I know lawyers love it when there is a misnomer in a term in a particular zoning ordinance. And finally, please consider hardening some of this language from should to shall and so on. Finally, much of my concerns come after this or an amended ZOTA is adopted, enforcement. We need clear, real, and disincentivizing penalties for violations. I would like to also see this body create an independent board of experts to evaluate with and counsel the board of adjustment on which much of this enforcement is put on to ensure the first few years of this ZOTA are properly evaluated. Finally, timing. The purpose of government isn't to move fast, but to protect its people and resources. I'd ask for two things. One, add in an annual review of this ZOTA due to the fast-moving nature of the data center industry, and number two, extend the moratorium until the end of May to put the full moratorium at a year to not rush to meet a self-imposed deadline, but to fully consider community and expert feedback. The ZOTA is part of the picture, but we will need to see the full plan to see how it's handled holistically. I'm all for progress and development, but only when it's done responsibly and sustainably. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Maria E. followed by Stephen Harris, and I want to check to see if Olivia Tlecky is here. We'll give her a moment potentially to come in from the other side, and Natalie Warren. These are two folks giving their time to Stephen Harris, so if you all can come into chambers. Maria, go ahead, please. Before we start the clock, does everybody have this handout that was in the tray? Has that been given to our council staff over here? You can, if it gets into their hands, it'll get into our hands, so I'm not sure where you're referring to. Are you, Olivia? Okay, well, can I start, and you can pass while I'm talking? Yeah, do you know where those documents are, miss? I do, actually. Okay. Do you want to wait then after this next speaker to get your documents? Okay, that'd be fine. Okay, let's do that. Olivia Tlecky, you're giving your time to Stephen Harris. Is that right? Thank you. And Natalie Warren, you're giving your time to Stephen as well. Okay, so, Stephen, you're actually up next. You'll have nine minutes, followed by Maria E., and then Kathy Clement. I apologize, respectfully, Vice Mayor, I believe I should have 12 minutes. I think there was another individual who was yielding. Yeah, may I ask if that's the case? Council rules caps comment at nine minutes. Nine minutes, apologies. Myself and the group I'm with thought it was 12 minutes, so I apologize in advance if I don't make it all the way through the presentation that I had intended. Stephen Harris, I'm with District One. All right, let's begin. Planning Commissioners, Urban County Council Members, and Mayor Gordon, potentially. Know AI and KY is a grassroots coalition of over 3,500 members, collectively united under the shared belief that the only way to make sure that we are protected from the negative impacts of data centers is to completely ban them from the county and state. Absent of a total ban, the coalition wants to ensure that any ordinance that is passed to regulate data centers is as restrictive and protective of the land and people as possible. It is our collective view that the currently proposed Lexington-Fayette-Urban County government's draft zoning ordinance text amendment that emerged on the July 30th public hearing continues to be ill-equipped to protect the residents from real harm that is posed by allowing data centers into our community. As you will hear from those you represent at the public hearing tonight, the people of Lexington are not as sold on AI and its usefulness as some would have you believe. Instead of passing the current ZOTA, we call on our council to do the following. Number one, immediately ban all new data center construction in Fayette County above 25 megawatts. To ensure that any data center that is built will have a limited impact on our community. Number two, to determine the regulations for all data centers under 25 megawatts, enact a two-year moratorium to give us time we need to make the right decisions and study the developing landscape around data centers and artificial intelligence. This also is important because the definitions of AI hyperscale data centers are continually changing. So we need time to ensure that the community will still be protected through those shifts. Number three, initiate a new ZOTA that creates a new data center zone for data centers with a maximum energy demand of 25 megawatts. This new zone must value the community over corporate interest. So I'll enumerate on a number of reasons for these demands. We highlight the total ban on data centers, particularly data centers above 25 megawatt capacity is most aligned with the city's comprehensive plan compared to simply regulating data centers. The 25 megawatts is an equivalent of powering 10,000 to 25,000 homes. We would like to lift up theme E, goal number 1C of the comprehensive plan about providing and safeguarding communities and theme A, goal number 2B about ensuring that development that occurs is context sensitive. The currently drafted ZOTA does not safeguard communities and it is not context sensitive. We think the best way to do that is to ban these new data centers above 25 megawatts immediately and enact the two-year moratorium for any other regulations. We believe the data centers do not meaningfully support job creation, theme C, goal number 2F, nor do they utilize land that would otherwise be utilized for other office business or industrial uses. This is livability policy number nine. They also detract from the community's environmental and social sustainability efforts, which is stewardship, excuse me, the stewardship policy, policy number nine. The people first development goals and that is theme D, goal number two. We believe that the new zone category will allow for more community input and accountability than the conditional use permit process outlined in the current ZOTA. The requirements lack specificity, such as the various plans submitted to the Board of Adjustments in the current draft ZOTA. They appear to be more of a rubber stamp process rather than a meaningful step to ensure key protections are in place to safeguard communities against the full range of anticipated impacts that come from data centers. For example, one of the plans requirements are that applicants shall demonstrate that the water usage will not significantly strain Lexington-Fayette County's water supply and require a finding by the Board of Adjustments that the proposed use will not overburden public infrastructure utilities. The terms significantly strain and overburden are not defined. Without these definitions, the Board of Adjustments will not be able to make clear objective determination that there will be no adverse effect on the cost, availability, reliability, quality, and safety of service to other customers. These vague standards and requirements are found throughout the draft ZOTA, such that if the draft moves forward, the anticipated noise, water, energy, financial, and air quality impacts will put our communities at risk. We are concerned that the Board of Adjustments may not have the expertise nor access to community input to sufficiently review and technically assess data center conditional use permit applications alone, as is written in the current ZOTA. Similarly, the Board of Adjustments does not possess the appropriate level of transparency and accountability in its review process to allow Lexingtonians to meaningfully engage. Another reason we support the new ZOTA category to be carefully, the reason we support the new ZOTA categories being carefully crafted over the next two years is because we find that the draft ZOTA perpetuates systemic environmental injustice by allowing countless minor data centers in the B4 and I1 zones, which are primarily near black and brown communities. This is in direct contradiction to Lexington Comprehensive Plan Theme A, Goal Number 5A of adopting anti-racist approach to land use policy. Looking throughout the country, we can see the data centers lend to, excuse me, data centers tend to cluster in certain areas to take advantage of the economies of scale and specific benefits provided in certain municipalities and utility service territories. The current draft essentially creates sacrifice zones where the city would be allowing unrestrained harm in certain areas, but not in others. A new zone category would mitigate this harm. What we need is a two-year moratorium to allow for the thoughtful planning around compliance, accountability, and transparency the data center regulation via new zoning category would require. Some of the specific requirements that we need to see in a new zoning category include the following. Only allow the new zoning category to apply to data centers that have a maximum energy demand in excess of 25 megawatts. We strongly believe that limiting data center development based on the overall energy demand is more aligned with the sustainability and carbon footprint goals of Lexington's Comprehensive Plan and would more effectively minimize electrical grid impact. Allow only five data centers with a maximum of 25 megawatts each throughout all of Fayette County. There are additional points that others will go over, but I'm getting close to the end of my time, so I appreciate everyone else's. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Maria E. followed by Kathy Clement and then Brandon Gross. And if you have your documents, you can give them to the clerks over here and they'll pass them out to us. You can start it if you want. It's gonna be a long night. Pretty straightforward. First of all, my name's Maria E. I live in District One. And, you know, IBM family, we have a legacy center. I have absolutely no argument and problem with everybody's stats. You guys have heard them before. They just keep rolling around. What we're not talking about is adaptive reuse of legacy centers. What does that mean? It means there's only nine of these legacy centers in all of the United States. As it turns out, Kentucky holds three of them. Western Kentucky is blowing theirs up right now and it's tying into the nuclear fission or fusion, whatever it is. That's outside of my scope. We have a tremendous opportunity here, but until we can get to the correct verbiage of what Dark Points is in terms of this legacy center, you know, Lexmark was using it before Dark Points bought it. And then now suddenly it's a problem. I don't know. My only question to council would be, do you guys have the ability to effectively separate adaptive reuse data centers over greenfield development? And I think that's what a lot of the statistics that we're hearing come from the greenfield. And everybody get the picture, the before and after? All the way around? So that's it. I'm done. Please take, I think, that main point into consideration of separating the two so Dark Points can get to the business of doing business and generating revenue and interfacing with our schools and the colleges and bringing us into the next century. This is our generation's industrial revolution. Where do you wanna be? Where do you want Lexington to be? I'm in under three. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Kathy Clement, followed by Brandon Gross, and then Deborah Gerth. My name is Kathy Clement. I live in District Five. I'm here to support a ban, a moratorium, and improvements to the draft ordinance. I hope council will vote today on an outright ban of major danger centers defined as anything over 25 megawatts. The land and resource demands of these are too great for Fayette County to accommodate. I support a moratorium on all data center construction except perhaps server rooms until AI regulations are in place at all levels of government. Data centers are the key infrastructure for AI and our society needs time to decide what we want to use AI for and what harms we want to prevent. Whether or not the apocalyptic stories about AI are true, they are, AI is already harming us in ways ranging from consumer fraud to violations of civil liberties and cybersecurity to negative impacts on mental health and education. Before we build more AI infrastructure, we need systems for independent AI regulation, oversight, and forward guidance. Other safety critical industries, such as transportation, energy, medicine, and weapons are regulated and monitored, AI needs to be treated the same way. She's exactly right, this is our revolution and it's currently totally unregulated. Data centers themselves also need to be regulated beyond the city level, including regulation on impacts on the grid, energy use, and energy bills. Also, we need time to design data centers that have a smaller negative impact on the environment and our communities. Finally, when an eventual ordinance is developed, I encourage improvements to the planning commission draft. It currently includes recommendations from the Kentucky Resources Council and the Lexington Environmental Commission, which are great, however, more of their recommendations should be included. For example, data centers should be required to use and generate renewable energy for their primary energy source. Currently, KU is building and planning more large gas power plants for the sake of the extreme energy demand of data centers. These have severe health, climate, and economic consequences. We should require that any data center in Fayette County rely on renewables and also in battery backup. We should require third party expert review paid for by the applicant of conditional use permit applications. We need to consider the number as well as the size of data centers. The cumulative impact of multiple minor data centers could equal or exceed that of a major data center. Finally, we should require community benefits agreements from developers that support energy affordability and climate resilience needs of low income citizens, such as energy efficiency upgrades, rooftop solar, and climate disaster recovery funds. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Brandon Gross, followed by Debra Gerth, and then Andy Johnson. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Brandon Gross here. I'm in the 10th district. Tonight, I am here as the chair of Commerce Lexington's Public Policy Council, speaking on behalf of the city's business community. First, we want to note our support for responsible safeguards regarding data center development. Our primary concern is that the current draft zoning ordinance text amendment could unintentionally impact businesses and infrastructure that were never the target of this amendment in relation to hyperscale data centers. To clarify, we are not advocating for the development of major hyperscale data centers in Lexington, and so what we want to talk about is, over the past weeks, the council has been meeting with various community banks, hospitals, manufacturers, telecommunication companies, universities, utilities, and others in our community. These employers are in essentially every single industry, and they have dedicated data infrastructure to securely store our process and transmit our information for them to operate. As an example, your medical records are almost all going to be stored at this point online. These facilities have quietly existed in Lexington for decades, supporting our small businesses, our hospitals, our research facilities, community banks, and thousands of jobs without any of the impacts we associate with the major hyperscale data centers that are really being debated across this country right now. And so we want to offer a few targeted recommendations just for your consideration as we move through this process of public engagement. First, on the definitions, we think that facilities operated by our telecommunication companies, broadband and cable providers, such as central offices, network transmission sites, and IXPs should be excluded from the data center definition. Those are essentially part of our e-commerce economy that we all use with our phone to pay for our goods and services. They've all been in existence in our community for a long time. We think those should stay. We also believe that computer and data processing centers should be defined and retained and changed to enterprise centers, which are the essential infrastructure for research, our banks, and professional services. As an example, many of our banks will have a dedicated building or space that may not be hooked to a branch that they keep all of our financial information secure from cyber terrorists and other individuals. We also think that we should remove the square footage definition and move towards the utility usage. And then lastly, we request that you pass an extension of your moratorium to at least till the end of the year to December 31 of 2026 to allow continued deliberations between you, the community, and the business community. The Public Policy Council, we want to be a constructive partner. We believe we can both protect the community and allow our existing infrastructure and businesses to continue to operate as they have for decades. And that's all I have, thank you. Thank you. Next up is Debra Gerth, followed by Andy Johnson, and then John Woodall. My name is Debra Gerth, and I live in the First District. I will be agreeing with many of the things that are said tonight about strengthening the ZOTA, but I want to focus my comments on a different issue, which is extending the moratorium. I believe the most fiscally responsible action the city can take now is to extend the moratorium on data center permitting. There are two factors that make this smart. First, an extended moratorium will protect the city from the financial turmoil of this rushed build-out of data centers for frontier AI. Financial journalists who have studied the money movement among large tech companies and developers have noted the signs of a financial bubble. The technology race that is creating this demand for more compute will have winners and losers. Many unknowns about future AI emergencies, future AI regulation, future AI bankruptcies could trickle down into Lexington in the form of an abandoned half-built project. Kentucky has other examples of such projects in industries that are far more stable than tech. An extended moratorium will buy time so the city can make decisions in a more stable market. Second, an extended moratorium will allow time for our state legislature to correct tax breaks that extended to data center developers and operators. A large data center is not something Lexington cities are crying out for, so why should we pay them to come here? If Lexington ever does allow this expansion, it should be accompanied by solid tax revenues, not tax breaks. The legislature needs to rewrite these laws, and until they do, Lexington's moratorium should continue. Personally, I don't want to see any expansion of the current data center footprint in Lexington. We have other more urgent land use needs like affordable housing, but I understand the council's need to approach this with balance. I also know from experience that there is financial safety in being a late adopter. This is an opportunity for Lexington to benefit by waiting, allowing the market risks to reveal themselves fully before committing. Please protect our city's financial health and vote to extend the moratorium for at least another full year. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Andy Johnson, followed by John Woodall, and then Tyler Campbell. Thank you. I'm Andy Johnson, and I'm here representing Commerce Lexington. Brandon spoke on behalf of the policy aspect of what we do at the chamber, but I also wanted to make comments on behalf of our economic development team. As you all know, we are charged with recruiting and attracting business to Lexington. So from that perspective, we have spent time, as Brandon mentioned, meeting with businesses across the spectrum. We've talked with big and small businesses, our manufacturers, our hospitals, our telecommunication providers, our education leaders, and other stakeholders, including most of you individually as council members. And we're still learning about this issue. This technology is evolving. But what we have learned is that nearly every business that operates here, nearly every industry, the key sectors that we're looking to attract, data infrastructure is critically important. Data technology, having that infrastructure here, is as essential to economic development today as sites and buildings, as water and sewer, and broadband capacity. So we need to remember that as we're setting these regulations so that we send a positive signal to the business community that Lexington is a place where we want to have innovation and growth. Our businesses are using server rooms, computer and data processing facilities, on and off site. Even small, minor data centers are used to secure, transmit, and process data. These facilities support critical services that we're using every day. And many of these facilities are already here in Lexington, and they have been operating. And so our goal today is really just to promote responsible safeguards for data center development that not only protect the community, but also our existing business needs now and in the future. We are not advocating for large, hyperscale operations that don't fit here. We've discussed many of our issues and concerns. There's still a lot of questions to work through. Brandon talked through some of those things related to server rooms, allowing computer and data processing centers to be here, and the business and industrial zones. That was already in the ordinance. We'd like to retain that intent. We also recommend considering minor data centers in the places where we do business activity as conditional uses. The downtown, industrial, the economic development zones, even our professional office zones, particularly the P2, where the Coldstream Campus is located. That's our innovation corridor. It makes sense to have the ability to have those operations on site. As you're thinking about how to regulate the minor data centers, just reconsidering that 1,500 square foot distance requirement with infill as a community priority, that will make it virtually impossible to achieve any type of development. Instead, we just recommend regulating the actual impacts that we're concerned about, particularly sound on the property line, stronger buffering. Those would be more consistent with how our other industrial uses are for the existing business parks. Again, we just encourage you just to continue to take the time. You've been thoughtful in this debate, and Lexington does need responsible safeguards, but we also want reasonable regulations that allow us to innovate, retain existing business, and compete for future investment in jobs. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is John Woodall, followed by Tyler Campbell, and then Mary Alicia Weldon. Hello. John Woodall tonight, District 5, but I'm here tonight on behalf of DartPoints. It is a pleasure to be here with you, and I appreciate the time. I know this has been a long two months since the Planning Commission meeting, and you all have worked very hard to get up to speed the best you can on what is, I agree, the seminal issue of our time, and as I was going through this process myself over the last two months, I had to hearken back to my ninth grade civics class and Mrs. Evans at Tate's Creek Junior and kind of the history of IBM, and literally, we had the advent of the interstate highway system, and it came to Kentucky in the 1960s, which put the north end of Lexington squarely at the confluence of I-64 and I-75, two of the major, would come to the major distribution networks in this country, east and west and north and south, and on that, against that backdrop, Governor Happy Chandler in his second term goes to New York and solicits IBM to come to Lexington, and the rest is kind of history, so at that time, we were a community of about 100,000, and now we're over 500,000, and I thought back, the enormity, well, it must have been the enormity of that decision because it would have required the participation of the fiscal court at that time to decide how we were gonna plan for that kind of growth. Well, it happened, and IBM happened, and in fact, it then led to the development of the neighborhoods of Deep Springs, Rockwood, Dixie, Winburn, Marlboro, Oakwood, Castlewood, and Loudon Avenue, and these were all areas at that time of mix of blue-collar folks and white-collar folks. They're living together, and all this grew out of IBM. It also resulted in the first urban growth boundary in the United States in 1958, and this directed high-density suburban industrial growth through this northern corridor, solidified North Lexington as the city's primary residential and economic engine at that time. Well, here we are back again at the crossroads, but this time, it's a different animal. It's what do we do with our data? This has all come upon us all very fast. Dark Points is not a hyperscale data center, does not wanna be, will not be. We're a known animal as far as that IBM site. We've been there and operating. It operated for 30 years at its current location, didn't displace anybody, and won't displace anyone now. We intend to be a part of Lexington. We've participated in this process in good faith and will continue to do so, and intend to be a valuable corporate partner here. We're not a threat on the noise factor. The water system we use will be a closed-loop system, and the power, we already have it, 50 megawatts to our site. That was a quick three minutes, but thank you. Next up is Tyler Campbell, followed by Mary Alicia Weldon, and then Kathy Turk. Yes, my name is Tyler Campbell. I am the Director of State Government Affairs for Charter Communications here in Kentucky, also known as Spectrum. Our office is, we have an office, a mixed-use facility located here in Lexington in District Six. I just wanna thank you for the opportunity to be here, and just speak on behalf of our company tonight, and just respectfully make a couple of asks for on behalf of our company, of the Urban County Council. And honestly, I'm gonna echo a lot of the comments that Brendan from Commerce Lexington stated earlier. We believe that our existing facilities here, obviously, we operate a 20,000 square foot or nearly 20,000 square foot mixed-use facility here in Lexington. It is not a hyperscale data center. We are not advocating for a hyperscale data center, but what that facility does is support our video, cable services, mobile services, broadband and internet infrastructure throughout Lexington and Central Kentucky. We have 240 employees that are employed at that facility, and that can consist of our maintenance, service technicians, and repair crews, as well as engineering and network design. All of that is located at that facility. And again, this is not a hyperscale data center that operates here in Lexington. And so, our concern, basically, is that the proposed ordinance could unintentionally capture existing telecommunications infrastructure, and we believe that is fundamentally different than a hyperscale data center and even some traditional data centers. And so, with that, we would like for you to carefully consider, as this process moves forward, a narrowly tailored exemption, basically, for those existing facilities that are operated by cable, broadband, and telecommunications providers here in Lexington. And then, also, as part of that, I think Brendan said it, in order to be a productive partner and a stakeholder in this process, we would just respectfully ask that you extend the moratorium to a reasonable timeframe to where we can continue to meet and talk so that we can get the language right as a matter of policy that represents the business community's needs, as well as the residents and the citizens of Lexington. And so, with that, again, I would just like to say that here at Spectrum, we want to be a partner. We've been a partner in this community for a long time, and we want to continue to serve the residents and businesses of Lexington. So, with that, I'll be seated, and thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Mary Alicia Weldon, followed by Kathy Turk, and then Deborah Winslow. Good evening. I'm Mary Alicia Weldon. I'm currently not a resident of Fayette County, but I'm here representing Fifth Third Bank, where we have operated in Lexington and probably have locations in every district since the early 90s. In my 31 years in banking, I've seen technology dramatically impact all industries, but probably none more than the banking industry. So, my position here today is just to share with the council kind of the reliance on banking with regards to a strong data infrastructure in which the data centers do play a role. Banks rely on data centers every day to support core banking systems that process deposits, loans, payments, and account transactions in real time. Digital banking platforms, including online and mobile banking, which require continuous availability and secure data processing. Fraud detection and cybersecurity monitoring that analyze large volumes of transactions and customer activity. Regulatory compliance, record retention, disaster recovery, and business continuity requirements. AI, analytics, and data management capabilities that support risk management, customer insights, and operational efficiencies. Everyone in this room today is utilizing technology and how they conduct banking today. Modern banking depends on secure, reliable data infrastructure. Data centers enable banks to process transactions, protect customer information, support digital banking services, meet regulatory requirements, and maintain business continuity. As customers' expectations increasingly center on real-time access, digital services, and cybersecurity, resilient data infrastructure has become as essential in banking operations as our physical branches and payment networks. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Kathy Turk, followed by Deborah Winslow, and then Tucker Ballinger. Thank you. Hi, Kathy Turk, District 1. Thank you, council members, for allowing me to speak. I live a mile from the Lexmark campus. While these regulations aren't specifically aimed at dark points, they are the first ones up at bat and the ones keeping me and my neighbors awake at night. I wanna talk about Imagine Lexington 2045, the beautiful, comprehensive plan that this body approved in 2023 to be the city's guiding star, a plan for the city's future and from which all decisions are to be decided. The plan has four specific objectives that conflict with the proposed regulations and AI data centers as a whole. First, equitable planning. At the Planning Commission ZOTA meeting, it was said that we're not talking about 1,200 acres. Thankfully, if it were 1,200 acres, every one of your neighborhoods would be negatively affected but 40,000 square feet will affect mine. In the plan, you recognize the need to right past discriminations in city planning. AI data centers aren't going into Ashland Park, Kenwick, or Chevy Chase. Everyone deserves bees and birds and butterflies, restful nights, and quiet Sundays. We must not permit billionaires to take these from us. If AI data centers are a must, keep them at least a mile away from sensitive areas, don't allow more than one in a given area, and limit their size to 25,000 square feet. Those were ands, not and-ors. There is a goal to reduce greenhouse emission. Diesel generators won't cut it. You must require natural gas or battery backup. Only, period, full stop. You want us to be the horse capital of the world. There are farms and training facilities throughout this county, including the Thoroughbred Center, just a few miles from Lexmark. Tradesmen are not permitted on premise at certain times for the well-being of the horses. Their owners aren't going to risk their investments on a data center. They'll just move their horses elsewhere. If you won't ban AI data centers, cut sound to a maximum of 25 decibels 24-7, and require monitoring that feeds city staff for both high and low frequencies at all perimeters. The greatest theme throughout Imagine Lexington 2045 is the requirement for public input. Your residents are speaking and showing up. We don't want them here. Nothing bad will happen if Lexington doesn't have AI data centers. And contrary to what some people may say, it won't make us backwards or poor. A government's most, thank you. A government's most basic obligation is to protect its citizens. I'm imploring you to muster the courage to ban AI data centers. Thank you very much. Walk your talk. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Deborah Winslow, followed by Tucker Ballinger, and then Pete Lynch. My name is Deborah Winslow. I live in the 3rd Council District. For those listening, I am a short white woman with gray hair, and I'm wearing a black top and a white 3M Aura N95 respirator mask. I am here to support a ban on all data centers larger than 25 megawatts, extending the moratorium for a full two years, and creating a new zoning designation for data centers that includes all of the ZOTA recommendations from no AI in KY. We need council to protect our community over corporate interests. My vision for Lexington includes clean air, being a city where you can still see the stars at night, and available clean water. These will be compromised because data centers threaten to bring more air pollution, light pollution, and they plunder water resources. DartPoints published their vision in a press release on May 27th. Copies have been distributed to council. You probably don't have them yet, but here they are. And I quote, DartPoints is developing the site to support a broad mix of next generation workloads, including hyperscale, neocloud, inference AI, enterprise AI, and other compute intensive deployments. There is a quote from Scott Willis, president and CEO of DartPoints. He said, quote, Lexington gives us a rare combination of existing infrastructure, a supportive power environment, and the ability to scale in a meaningful way. And, I quote, he said, as AI, neocloud, and hyperscale demand continue to reshape the market, customers need sites that can support larger power footprints, denser deployments, and long-term growth. Lexington gives us that platform, unquote. Back on July 30th, John Woodall, their attorney, said at the planning commission meeting that DartPoints was purchased to, quote, essentially run server-based computing. And, I quote, what we are concerned about in this community is hyperscale data centers. That is not what this is going to be, folks, unquote. There is a clear shift between DartPoints' initial announcements that explicitly cite plans to support hyperscale projects, and later, local PR messaging that downplays it to us. And, there's been more here tonight, I can tell you that. As we expected, are we expected to just trust that they have abandoned their original plan? Let's slow down and get this right. Thank you. Next up is Tucker Ballinger, followed by Pete Lynch, and then Leon Slatter. Thank you. I live in District 11, and our corporate headquarters for Fork Bank is in District Six. I am the president and CEO of Fork Bank. So, thank you for your service, and for the time and your effort that you have investigated studying this issue. I want to say that I believe everyone's heart is in the right place. The concerns being raised about large-scale data centers are legitimate. Questions around power consumption, water usage, land usage, noise, and long-term impact to our communities deserve thoughtful consideration. My request tonight is simple. Let's slow down and make sure we get this right. I am concerned that we may be making decisions that could have significant implications for Lexington's economic future. Before our business community has had sufficient time to fully evaluate and weigh in on those impacts. As a local banker, I have watched technology transform virtually every industry. Our bank today is far more dependent on technology than it was five years ago. And I can assure you that it will be even more dependent on technology five years from now. The same is true for healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, education, and nearly every business sector represented in our community. None of us can predict exactly what the technology landscape will look like in the future. What we do know is that technology infrastructure will become increasingly more important, not less important. That does not mean Lexington should open the doors to unlimited development. In fact, I support thoughtful restrictions that protect our community and ensure growth occurs responsibly. But I would caution against adopting restrictions so quickly that we unintentionally remove opportunities that we may wish we had preserved in the future. I would respectfully ask the council to consider extending the timeline, allowing additional input from the business community, economic development leaders, universities, healthcare organizations, and other stakeholders before adopting permanent restrictions. I'm not asking Lexington to say yes to every data center. I'm simply asking Lexington not to say no to its future before we fully understand what that future may require. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Pete Lynch followed by Leon Slatter and then Gail Swanson. Hello, my name is Pete Lynch. I live in District 11. I teach politics at UK and I'm the Kentucky Party candidate for the US House of Representatives here in the 6th District of Kentucky. Last time I was here, I discussed how under the current ordinance, Dart points could hypothetically subdivide the property into 128 smaller properties, build a small data center on each and drain 3.2 gigawatts from the grid, which is enough to power 2.5 million homes. This time, I was thinking about discussing recent research showing that data centers hurt local communities. I also, economically hurt local communities, by the way. I also considered talking about how closed loop systems, which your plan calls for, risk exposing the community to forever chemicals in our water and soil. Instead, I'm going to talk about something I've learned in the course of my campaign. There isn't a single community in central Kentucky that actually wants data centers. If you are serious about representing our community, it's clear what you need to do. Start by extending the moratorium by at least two years and then, during the moratorium, pass laws that will effectively ban all AI data center construction and expansion in Lexington. If you don't extend the moratorium by at least two years before early voting begins, you do not deserve to be reelected. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Leon Slatter followed by Gail Swanson and then Russell Allen. My name is Leon Slatter. I reside in the First District. In particular, I reside at Oakwood Neighborhood Association. I'm also the Neighborhood Association President. Let me say this. I must start off by pleading my ignorance about this, a lot of this, the data centers. I don't have a bunch of figures and whatnot to give to you. What I do want you to know is, as a resident of Fayette County, I expect for you to take in consideration us as citizens. That's what I want you to do. That's what I want you to do. Secondly, I want you to understand this. It's amazing to me how the North end of Lexington just get dumps on. Why is that? We get dumped on all the time. And I tell you what I did and I'm gonna be through. I'm gonna be through. I was concerned about an adjective that expressed my concern about how the citizenry of this city and especially the North end of Lexington feels about how a major industry and so forth and how we are not taken in consideration. And I'm not all that grammatically inclined. And so what I was thinking about it, I said, what, is that an adjective? And I Googled it and guess what? It's an adjective and this is what I want you to know. I am sick and tired of not being taken in consideration serious about a citizen here in Fayette County. I expect for my council, my representatives to represent me, not big industry. That's all I asked of you. And listen, you represent me. I got 21 minutes, 20, 20, 19. I want you to know, please represent me. And if you do that, I know you represented all of the other residents of this city. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is, I'm gonna ask one more time that we keep the quorum in the council chambers, please. Thank you. Next up is Gail Swanson followed by Russell Allen and then Jay Bowman. Good afternoon. My name is Gail Swanson and I live in Council District 7. And I've stood at this podium many times advocating for a variety of community initiatives through my community organizing efforts. We've often been told that in order to move forward, we needed usually a feasibility study or other impact information. So my question to you is, has the city done a comprehensive environmental impact study in terms of what data centers would do to our community? If not, it would seem that that's an important first step to take. Data centers are too controversial, too consequential to make commitments or decisions without that kind of information. We also need firsthand information and experiences about how citizens and communities are affected by data centers in their midst. Cities in Virginia have had data centers for some years and that would be a good place to go find out how loud a data center is, what kind of impact it would have on the people living close by who listen to that noise 24-7, 52 weeks a year. We also need to experience, for someone to experience that personally to make a decision. So I wanna end up with this comment, which is I don't want a data center in my neighborhood. And I expect you don't either. Thank you. Next up is Russell Allen, followed by Jay Bowman and then Noah Cornett. Data center button, gotta click that. My data center button's crooking, all right. Hi, my name is Russell Allen, 8th District. I've organized in this city for a very long time, typically do more contentious issues, if anybody knows. But I've been organizing with the comrades in Bluegrass DSA, NOAA and KY. This is a really hopeful issue for me. I just wanna start out with the public's in alignment. Nobody in this city that I've talked to wants an AI data center in any way. So many things in this community and so many things in this world that we're dealing with right now are things that the people don't want that are being overridden by business interest. And that's something that we're doing, kind of dealing with today. Like my most vivid childhood memories are going up Harris Pike, seeing those lush rolling lands, coming up to Cardinal Valley or Roots and Heritage Festival, kicking it with the family. And all of that is at risk right now because data centers are targeting our B4 and our I1 districts, which are black and brown districts. And of course, as we see all across the nation, when they get a chance to choose where they would like an AI data center, they choose those lush rolling lands. So we're a city that actually has a lot to lose in this data center fight. So like I said, if this is not taken seriously right now, as of October 31st, our communities are gonna be open for business for AI data center boom, it's not researched and it's not wise. Lexington, this is a quote, and Deb did a good job of bringing this up. Lexington gives us a rare combination of existing infrastructure, a supportive power environment and the ability to scale in a meaningful way as AI, Neo cloud and hyperscale demand continues to reshape the market. Customers need sites that can support larger footprints. That Dark Points just came up here and said that they didn't want to do that. And I'm glad, but we don't need to give any of these companies a backdoor into our community. And that is why I am calling on this council to enact a two year moratorium to allow information to flow about data center uses. The little knowledge that we do have now shows that these large buildings don't bring jobs, they pollute land, air and water and become obsolete. I also call for the creation of a new data center zone that removes the possibility that our black and brown neighborhoods shoulder any more of the load of a new gold rush or today's industrial revolution. I also demand a cap on power at 25 megawatts, which is well under the 50 megawatts that Dark Points just bragged about having at the Lexmark building. Business interests seek to muddy the waters. They say data centers have always been here, but the computing needs of banks and hospitals are vastly different than the needs of AI data centers. Maybe they know that, maybe they don't. Data centers are not water, they're not air, and they're not land. And we don't need them to live. Lexington doesn't need AI data centers. And if we must continue, we need to make sure that the community is at the forefront. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Jay Bowman, followed by Noah Cornett, and then Maddie Fawcett. My name is Jay Bowman, and I have offices in the third district here. I am running for Congress as an independent candidate, which proves I'm not the smartest man in the room today. But I was at the Planning Commission. It was very obvious to me that what you received from them was rushed through. They were not prepared to give you the information you wanted. I am certain you're not prepared to make a decision at the end of this month. You really need to take the time to figure it out, but not too much time. I am 100% in favor of data centers. I use them, I know what they can do, but they have to be controlled. I'm wearing this button I got tonight. Data centers are disasters. They are right now. I mean, you have Elon Musk and people like that, you know, controlling what's going on. I want to take it to the federal level and make some federal guidelines there, but you need to be the field blockers right now. Don't let things happen that you can't take back. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Next up is Noah Cornett, followed by Mattie Fawcett, and then Daisy Smith. And I'm also going to ask, is Logan Dickinson-Bell here? They might be outside. They're giving their time to Mattie Fawcett, so I'll wait. Noah Cornett, you're up. Hello, folks. My name is Noah Cornett, District Two. As you know, we've got a lot of speakers here tonight, so I'm going to be brief. I'm the current co-chair of the Bluegrass Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. And over the last year, I and many members of my organization have knocked nearly 20,000 doors in almost every single district in this city. And when we ask what issues the people of this city care about, we hear one thing time and time again, the encroachment of AI data centers into Fayette County. People do not want our city to be yet another experiment for billion-dollar tech companies poisoning our water and air, providing next-to-no high-paying jobs, and powering AI models that consistently harm workers. That is why I am here in support today of the No AI and KY Coalition. We need a two-year moratorium, a complete ban on any- the power consumption, noise level, and environmental impacts of minor data centers. So as you consider how to vote on the upcoming motions, I urge you to consider three things. Your constituents do not want these data centers, 20,000 is a whole lot of doors and there will be electoral consequences for people that vote against the interests of the working class. I'll make sure of it. Thank you. Thank you. Is Logan Dickinson-Bell here? Yes. And you're giving your time to Maddie Fawcett, is that right? Okay. Maddie Fawcett, you're up next. You have six minutes, followed by Daisy Smith and then Roberta Burns. Hello. My name is Maddie Fawcett and I live in District 6. I'm here today as a parent, a concerned citizen, a member of the Blue Grass DSA, an activist with no AI in KY, and an environmental scientist to speak on how I feel and what I have learned about AI data centers and their power usage. But first, let me share a quick story with you while I've got your time and attention. We have had some record setting heat waves this summer and during the peak of one of them, a feeder line for my neighborhood went out just from the load of AC units. During this blackout, in the middle of an unprecedented heat wave, my 5-year-old son's daycare lost power and I had to leave work early to pick him up. I then went home with him to find out that the entire neighborhood was without power. KU showed an estimated 5,000 Lexington community members without power with a heat index sitting at a cool 105 degrees Fahrenheit. My son was red from the heat and sweating profusely. I got us some water, gave him a cooling towel, and we went to PetSmart to look at cats in the air conditioning, all to help him stay cool and not overheat. I know this blackout wouldn't affect the data centers the way it affects the people of Lexington because of backup emergency production using inefficient, polluting, and noisy diesel generators. Now, I'm sure you're wondering, what does this have to do with AI data centers? Well, if our power grid is already struggling to keep up with power draw during these extreme weather events that keep happening more frequently for some reason, how is it going to handle the added load of a power-hungry AI data center? On top of that, especially when history has shown that developments like these are typically placed in historically black neighborhoods or underserved areas. So what's an AI data center, and what are the differences between an AI data center and a traditional one? AI data centers are not necessarily hyperscale data centers. I want to make that point clear. The International Energy Agency has classified data centers into three categories, hyperscale, which require 100 megawatts or more, regional, which is between 25 to 100 megawatts, and enterprise, which use around 25 megawatts or less. All that to say, AI data centers don't necessarily just mean hyperscale data centers. AI data centers use an entirely different infrastructure from traditional server-based data centers. AI data centers use clusters of GPUs on racks that can draw as much as 100 kilowatts per rack, as compared to a traditional data center, which normally pulls about 10 kilowatts per rack. And they also run at different rates. AI data centers work under constant load, meaning they are pulling full power the entire time, as opposed to our legacy traditional data centers, which operate under varied loads. So how does that reflect on the proposed DART points site here in Lexington? In the press release that you heard from Deb earlier that was given by DART points in May, they wanted to develop up to 200 kilowatts per rack. Now, a data center is just a bunch of these racks, and that sounds like hyperscale infrastructure to me. All this information got me curious about the power usage of these data centers. What I found concerned me. The International Energy Agency released the Energy and AI Report in April of 2025. The report predicts that at the current rate of AI construction, that by the year 2030, data centers will consume up to 9% of the entire U.S. energy output. And of this output, 46% of that comes from fossil fuels. I find it slightly humorous that this bleeding edge technology is reliant on fossil fuels. So what's the cost to communities of extra power usage? The International Energy Agency looked at the PJM electricity market, which spreads from Illinois to North Carolina, one of the largest on the East Coast. And saw a $9.8 billion increase in the 2025 to 2026 capacity market. They saw as much as a $38 increase in Northern Virginia, where there is high demand from data centers. That may not sound like a lot to you, but to me, that's the difference between overdrafting and making it to my next paycheck. All this to say, AI data centers use a lot of power and electricity, and are more expensive and make power less reliable when we need it the most. I ask you, what do these AI data centers do for our community? Do any of you know? Do any of us know? I don't think so. For the reasons I've discussed here, and many, many more, I have not, I am urging the council to place a two-year moratorium on data center construction. I support the stipulations that NOAAI and KY have put out for a new ZOTA, specifically creating a new zone specifically for data centers, limiting to 25 megawatts per property, and only five permits per company and its subsidiaries. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Before we continue, I'm going to need to make sure that we're abiding by fire marshal rules in this room. Unless you are one of the two speakers waiting to speak, we can't have anybody standing in the chambers, particularly in any of our walkways. So I'm going to request everybody behind and everybody in the doorway to either find a seat in this room or find a seat in our overflow in the mezzanine, please. Thank you. Next up is Daisy Smith, followed by Roberta Burns, and then Nick Comer. Hi. I'm Daisy Smith, ZZM pronouns for District 12. I think I can echo what a lot of people up here have said, is that nobody, not a single person in the working class, wants an AI data center. Not a big one, not a small one. I think they're going to be a big power waste. They're going to be a big waste of water. It's going to cause a lot of noise pollution. And there's already plenty. I don't need more of that. I do also think that I can answer what the previous speaker said about what do these even do for our community. They make us stupider. Because the only uses I've seen for AI is like, oh, you can generate a picture instead of actually drawing it. Oh, you can summarize an email or a text message from your loved one instead of actually reading it. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of money. And I don't think we need a single one. We don't need to entertain it. It's another snake oil ploy for some nonsense like crypto was and like NFTs were. We don't need it at all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Roberta Burns, followed by Nick Comer. I'm also going to ask if Eric Landis is here. Are you in the room? Eric? Oh, thank you. You're giving your time to Nick Comer, is that right? Thank you. All right. So we're going to have Roberta Burns, followed by Nick Comer, who will have six minutes, and then Kara Cooper. Thank you. Roberta Burns, District 11. I have been a Lexington resident for 35 years, and I do have strong concerns about the rush to build hyperscale AI data centers across the U.S., but especially here in Fayette County. In addition to air pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, these energy-hungry facilities release large amounts of waste heat, and that really adds to the urban heat island effect for miles around them. In addition, as we know, the Trump administration has announced plans to scale back permitting requirements, and that will make it easier for hyperscale data centers to be fast-tracked when applying for air permits, and the administration continues its attempts to roll back health-based standards for fine particle pollution. Lexington has seen more than its fair share of storm-related power outages in recent years, as a previous speaker noted, and when a data center loses power, it will switch to backup diesel generators, and these generators release even higher levels of nitrous oxide and particulates into surrounding neighborhoods. I can tell you that these things will not be stopped by public comment at the state level. Again, it will be too late. If their permit applications are accurate and abide by federal and state law, regulators must issue the required permits. So the time for consideration is here and now, and I appreciate this forum and your deliberation at the local level. Please extend the moratorium on data centers for a full two years to allow for thoughtful and deliberate consideration of their impacts on our community, and I urge a complete ban on all data centers larger than 25 megawatts. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Nick Comer, who will have six minutes, followed by Kara Cooper, and then Jay Blanton. Thank you, council members, for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. My name is Nick Comer. I am not a resident of Fayette County, but I am external affairs manager for East Kentucky Power Cooperative. East Kentucky Power is a wholesale power generator, and we provide wholesale power to 16 electric cooperatives that serve 1.2 million residents of Kentucky in 89 counties, so about three quarters of Kentucky's counties. Two of the cooperatives that we serve, Blue Grass Energy and Clark Energy, serve portions of Fayette County, about 6,000 meters in total that they serve, mainly in southern and eastern Fayette County. EKPC generates electricity at power plants, then delivers power to our owner members over a network of about 3,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines. We deliver that power to about 400 substations located throughout our service territory, and at that point, the local co-op takes the electricity, delivers it to homes and businesses, and provides retail service for those homes and businesses. EKPC's high-voltage transmission system is part of the nation's bulk electric system, which is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, as it's often referred to, with mandatory reliability standards that are established by the North American Reliability Corporation, or NERC. We have a lot of acronyms in our industry. Typically, the need for additional transmission infrastructure, such as a new substation or upgraded or additional transmission lines, is identified through a series of studies that's conducted by EKPC's Regional Transmission Reliability Coordinator. In our case, that is PJM Interconnection. When a new load or a new generator is proposed to interconnect to a portion of the electric grid that's owned by EKPC, then a series of studies is performed by PJM. Those studies model power flows over the power grid. What they're looking to do is identify any potential constraints or overloads of equipment. The goal is to proactively identify and prevent overloads or outages far in advance of the large load coming online. When planning, siting, or routing electric transmission infrastructure, our primary consideration is maintaining safe, reliable service while meeting the energy needs of the homes and businesses we serve. For high-voltage transmission lines, EKPC typically establishes an easement, an area, a right-of-way where we control the growth of trees and building of structures, and that's for safety and reliability. Depending on a number of factors, that right-of-way can vary in width. But the idea is to maintain safety and reliability for our members. Regarding backup generation, there's growing recognition that the on-site backup generators that are located at data centers and other large loads can help to maintain reliability during periods of very high demand or grid restraints. This summer, PJM added procedures for requesting emergency permission from the U.S. Department of Energy to allow data centers and other large loads to turn on backup generation as a last resort to prevent outages, blackouts, in a widespread basis. We believe this is a resource that ought to be accommodated by the local ordinance. Under state law, EKPC and our owner-member cooperatives have an obligation to serve any home, any business, any entity that chooses to locate in the areas we serve. We work diligently to treat each cooperative member fairly, to provide reliable, competitively priced power, and to ensure that each member pays their fair share. These are the principles on which we based our data center power tariff, which was approved last year by the Kentucky Public Service Commission. This tariff provides strong protections for all cooperative members to ensure that data centers pay all the costs they cause and do not shift any costs to other homes and businesses. Again, thank you for the opportunity to talk to you tonight and provide these comments. Thank you. We're going to do two more speakers, and then we're going to take a break right about seven. So the next two up are Kara Cooper and Jay Blanton. Hey, y'all, Kara Cooper. I live in the First District. I want to start by saying that I support a full ban on all new data centers in Fayette County. We do not need to rush to be a part of a boom and bust cycle that will leave our communities worse off. If Woodford County can pass a ban, we can too. At the very least, we need a definition of minor data centers that caps its size at 25 megawatts and limits the total number of data centers that are permitted to limit the cumulative impact of these extractive industries. I also support the creation of a new data center zoning designation, especially if it's developed alongside community members to determine the right protections for us. Additionally, we need a two-year moratorium while we figure this out and get it right. I support all of the ZOTA regulations put forth by NOAAI and KY and look forward to being part of a conversation over the next two years to ensure that all of these regulations make it into an enforceable and transparent ZOTA. I want to remind Council that your constituents have made it abundantly clear where we stand on this issue. We don't want extractive data center developers as our neighbors. We don't want industries that will drive up our electricity costs, drain our water supplies, or create an ugly, noisy blight on any area of our beautiful county. Nobody asked us, but we also don't want AI. We don't want it in our homes, our schools, our government, or our jobs. We don't want our data mined and our movements and preferences surveilled. We don't want to participate in a made-up race that makes the disgustingly rich richer while we all struggle to make ends meet. All we really want is a job that pays enough that we can afford our homes and our groceries and provides enough time for us to enjoy our families and make our own art. For our children to grow up safe and to inherit a livable planet. Those are the things that we should be focusing on, and all of those are at risk from AI data centers. Any decision that is made in opposition to our clear position is a vote for putting corporate interests over your constituents, and we will be voting with data centers at the top of our minds. We are at a pivotal moment in human history, and your decisions here will shape your legacy in the literal fight between good and evil. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Jay Blanton. Good evening. I'm Jay Blanton. I live in District 5. I have the opportunity to provide some comments on this critical issue to our community. I work in university relations at the University of Kentucky, and that's the capacity with which I'm here this evening. We are engaged in a campus-wide initiative and discussion right now around artificial intelligence, and we talk often about the promise and, yes, the peril of these powerful technologies. AI can be transformative to our economy, to learning, for research, and to the extension of healing and hope to more people throughout our state through health care. But such transformation requires a clear-eyed recognition of the responsibilities and challenges with respect to the environment, to our workforce, and, yes, to national security. Many of the same potential and challenges extend to data centers, which power computing capacity to grow the economy and our mission at UK of Education, Research, Service, and Care. Concerns about hyper- or large-scale data centers are understandable, and they're reasonable. A continued moratorium on such construction is prudent. However, a number of provisions with respect to the proposed ZOTA are concerning. We believe they would have the unintended consequence of limiting responsible economic growth and, specifically, our capabilities as a health care enterprise, charged with providing the most advanced care to treat the most critical and serious of illnesses. We would submit that minor data centers should be allowed in locations such as the P2 University Research Campus Zone. For this community, that's the Coldstream Research Campus. Research campuses like Coldstream are designed for such uses. Not allowing these kinds of uses could unintentionally signal that we're not interested as a community in research and health technology growth. Consider just a few efforts underway that are AR-enabled and that require computing power on our campus. They include an alliance of over 40 multidisciplinary researchers to improve diagnostics and health care delivery. A tool our neurology department uses that instantly transmits patient CT scans to physicians' mobile devices for treatment coordination across 30 regional hospitals. Federal funding for another tool, a model, a 3D model that we're using to accelerate drug discovery for cancer and Alzheimer's disease. All of them powered by AI. All of them need increased computing capacity. UK has 5,500 servers alone deployed for our health care enterprise. Those servers support caregivers and delivery of every facet of our patient care. Even as we've increased more hospital beds, we're turning away too many patients. That's why we're planning for the construction of a new hospital. More computing power should be located on places like the Coldstream Research Campus, which means we can put education, research, and care, direct care, in the heart of our campus. That need's only going to grow as we grow to treat and heal more patients. We think that can be done responsibly, and we ask for your help in doing so. Thank you. Thank you. Before we go on break, I'm going to name the next three speakers so that when we do come back from break, please be on time. We'd like to keep this as short as we can. Amber Reeves, Patty Drouse, and Ann Donworth will be the next three speakers. It is 6.58, we'll call it 6.59. Let's come back in this room by 7.10. I'm going by that clock right there. We're on recess. Thank you. Everybody to start settling into their seats, please. We're going to come back into session in just a moment. If I can get everybody back into seats, please. We can get started back up as soon as everybody is seated. And again, please take your seats in either the chamber or the overflow area in the mezzanine. Please do not stand in the walkways or the doorway. Thank you very much. All right, we're going to come back into our session and continue with our public comment. The next three speakers in order will be Amber Reeves, followed by Patty Drouse, and then Ann Donworth. Hi, my name is Amber Reeves. I live in District 2. I'm going to speak on something a little bit different than everyone else, but who's aware of the Fayette County school budget issues? Currently there's a deficit of around 5.5 million. Who wants the data centers to be tax exempt for electronic purchases, including software, servers, and systems for electricity and cooling? I know that this council does not decide statewide tax decisions like the ones I'm mentioning, but this does not change the fact that these companies are moving into Lexington and purchasing necessary items to run tax free, while our children's schools are running in a deficit. There are already data centers in Lexington, as Dart Point already purchased an existing one from Lexmark. And I agree that data centers are necessary with today's advancing technology for banking and healthcare. But I ask that they are taxed fairly and regulated closely. I also acknowledge it is not as simple as taxing the data centers and moving the money to the school system. But I ask that we look to the situation as a whole. Who is really benefiting from the existence of the data centers? Who will actually bring jobs to Kentucky? Who will be monitoring and regulating them? That's all. My main concern is the taxes. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Patty Drouse, followed by Ann Donworth, and then Herbert Lynn. Good evening, Vice Mayor and Council Members. My name is Patty Drouse. I live in Joyland at 608 Allen Court. I'm speaking on behalf of the Joyland Neighborhood Association Board. Point one, please see the map in your handout. Pink areas on it are I-1 zone and the blue are B-4 zone. Please look at this map. I know this is tiny, I'm sorry about that. But please look at this map online to get better detail if you haven't already to look at the location of where I-1 and B-4 zones are. The current data center ZOTA proposed zoning is discriminatory racially and socioeconomically and is concentrated in one area of town. This must be addressed by eliminating the B-4 and I-1 data center designation and by creating a new data center zone. All applicants should be required to apply for a zone change for the new data center zone. Point two, each data center zone application should allow one 25 megawatt facility on a site, not multiple 25 megawatt facilities, with no upgrades to greater megawatts allowed. Point three, there should be consideration of cumulative impact on the adjacent community, particularly for noise and air quality, especially considering fumes from generators. This should also include considering other noxious emissions and noise sources within that radius, such as warehouses that have many diesel tractor trailer trips. To help protect neighborhoods, please add a distance requirement, such as requiring a two mile radius between 25 megawatt facilities. Point four, require no diesel power generators, no diesel power generators. This will eliminate the threat to local residents from 2.5 micron particulate matter emissions that is causative for heart attack, stroke, and respiratory disease. Point five, noise from data centers is 24 hours a day. Please stick with the 30 decibel limit on noise per each 25 megawatt facility. If anyone thinks 65 megawatts decibels, I'm sorry, is acceptable, they should try sleeping next to the combined 6475 interstate. Please consider extending the moratorium to allow for thoughtful completion of this data center ZOTA. And thank you all for the great deal of time and attention you are committing to this important issue. And thank you for hearing my comments. Thank you. Before we continue, I wanted to let folks know out in the mezzanine and overflow that we do have a small handful of seats and chambers, if you all want to join us here. Next up is Ann Donworth, followed by Herbert Lynn. And is Marky Funk here? Yes. And you're giving your time to Herbert, that's right? So Herbert will be up next with six minutes, and then Amber Sherrill. So take it away. All right, I'm Ann Gay Donworth. I'm a fifth district resident. For those in the audience, I'm also a state representative. I want to thank all of you for, you all have been over backwards to make our community's voice be able to be heard. Doing this after hours, you all did a lot of extra community engagement, the surveys, through the planning staff, the planning commission, environmental commission, everybody that engaged. That doesn't just happen, so I want to take a second and recognize you all for doing all of that. Like all of you, I've spent the last six months trying to figure out what a data center is. And what we need to learn in order to regulate them and put policies in place. Researching, listening, going to town halls, trying to learn everything I can. And every time I think I know something, I learn something else that changes the policy dynamics. For starters, how do we even define what a data center is? What are we using? Are we using square footage, electric load, the output? There's so many things that we have to consider. From rate payer protections, equity, transparency with the local decision makers and developers, labor contracts, and specifically whether they're using local labor to do it. Utility and infrastructure costs, environmental protections, decommissioning plan, existing technologies that we already depend on, like our telecoms and our banking and our hospitals and schools. There's so many different pieces and nuances that come to this. And it's not that we need more time to gather input. I think we've heard from so many different people with so many different concerns. The problem is that we haven't had time to gather the facts. This is an emerging technology. Everything is changing so quickly that as soon as we think we have the right policy in place, something else changes. So I came to encourage all to extend the moratorium. I was going to ask until July 2027, hearing the audience here, I think a two year one would be even better. But my reasoning for July 2027 is that I know that many of my colleagues and the General Assembly are working on data center legislation. They cannot even bring that to the floor to be considered at the state level until we reconvene in January. At that point, it's going to come, whatever the state decides or whatever comes out of the federal government, it's going to come right back here and we're going to go through this process all over again. So for all of those reasons, I really appreciate you all and I hope that you all will consider keeping this moratorium in place until we have better guidelines from state and federal. And I think that's all I had. I took notes, which I don't do, and that's scary. So I think I got everything. Thank you all for doing this. Appreciate you. Thank you. Next up is Herbert Lynn, who will have six minutes, followed by Amber Sherrill, and then Dean Pulsifer. Good evening. My name is Herbert Lynn, and although I'm running for city council at large, I am here tonight speaking as a concerned citizen and resident of the 7th district. First, I would like to thank the council for living up to the promise of your station, that is, listening to the concerns and demands of your constituents. Tonight, my comments are directed towards those council members who are still on the fence about data centers or in favor of bringing them to Lexington. Almost everyone in this room knows where I stand on data centers. I've been speaking at city council meetings and community gatherings about this issue, and I have been fighting data centers based on the principles. On the principle that Lexington residents cannot afford the doubling of their electric bills, like some communities have seen. On the principle that we cannot afford additional health impacts that pollution from data centers can bring. On the principle that construction jobs for building these facilities will be on the bleeding edge of the AI bubble. The economic bubble that when it pops will leave local businesses and union workers holding the bag. Now you all might not know this, but I became a first time homeowner a few years back. I bought a house in the Woodhill neighborhood. Now I paid too much for it, but housing affordability, that's a discussion for a different time. Now there's a stretch of land just north of Richmond Road outside the circle that's zoned I-1 and B-4, and it would allow for data center construction. My home is three streets down from that tract of land. It is less than a quarter mile from data center territory. This fight for me is not just about the principles. It is personal, and I will remember your votes. More importantly, the Woodhill neighborhood, like many neighborhoods in Lexington, has been shaped by this city's legacy of classism and segregation that has shunted certain kinds of people into certain kinds of neighborhoods. And like so many of my fellow speakers tonight, I have pointed out that if data centers come to Lexington, the people most impacted by them will largely be working class and non-white people. Now this city council did not create generational inequality, or redlining, or segregation. We are not guilty for the sins of those who came before us. But it is our job to correct them. And if you allow data centers to come to Lexington, if you allow the perpetuation of anti-poor policies and racist outcomes and the poisoning of our communities, that will be your sin. And the people of Lexington will not forgive you. Now, to the city's business partners in attendance tonight, you're not the focus of our demands. Our focus is on protecting the people of Lexington, protecting their health, their pocketbooks, and their futures. And if your facilities are data centers, then your facilities should be regulated as such. If your facilities pose a danger to the residents of Lexington, then the city has a duty to curb those risks. If your facilities, on the other hand, are not a danger to your fellow citizens, then you have nothing to worry about. You are subject to the same laws as the working people of this city. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. And I support the demands of no AI in KY, extending the moratorium on data centers until their risks can be fully understood. And during that pause, our city council should build stringent standards around minor data centers to ensure that no data centers, or no hyperscale data centers ever come to Lexington. And the facilities operating in Fayette County do not pose any danger to our community. So let me make this clear to the city council members still on the fence or on the side of rich elites. You are playing footsie with the wrong side of the most bipartisan issue in a generation. If you vote the wrong way on this issue, it will forever be an albatross around your neck. Whether in public office, the private sector, or your personal lives, you will forever be known as someone who supported data centers. Someone who supported the impoverishment of our people, the poisoning of your neighbors, and as an ignorant enabler of racism. So please think very carefully before you cast your vote on this issue. Thank you. Next up is Amber Sherrill, followed by Dean Pulsifer, and then Katie Depkes. Yeah, Amber Sherrill? Yes, I'm Amber Sherrill from the fifth district. As it stands, the chemical safety considerations are non-existent. You would need coolant chemistry disclosure, volume and schedule of any anticipated drain events, hazardous waste quantities, spill containment response plans, and decommissioning procedures. Fire safety, you're missing the basics. We don't have any information about the battery chemistry, size. There's no disclosure on this as far as I'm aware of. What's the plan for the generator fuel storage, tank sizes, and location? We need formal hazard mitigation analysis, including these details, to ensure setback from occupied dwellings. Water will cool lithium ion battery fires, but it's not going to put it out. We would need hours of continuous water supply, and the runoff will be toxic. Sound is not just about volume, y'all. It's not just decibels, it's hertz, vibrations. Low frequency sounds are below our hearing range. These sounds can disrupt the central nervous system, shake the foundation of your house. There are multiple civil suits in Texas relating to the health effects of the noise pollution from data centers. We need long term studies of these low frequency sound ranges and distance from the epicenter to understand their effects on the human body as well as our infrastructure. We need operator funded independent verification as well as ongoing requirements. Conservatively, if you proceed as is, you're risking the lives of pregnant women, unborn children, and anyone in the area with a heart problem. Lexington prides itself on public safety by spending more than 54% of our budget in that area. The lack of safety considerations in this ZOTA are nothing short of weaponized incompetence. Ban data centers. Thank you. Thank you. If you are sitting on the floor or standing in the walkway in the back of this chamber, I will ask you please to find a seat either in chambers or out in the mezzanine. Thank you, I appreciate it. Next up is Dean Pulsifer, followed by Katie Dapkes, and then Emma Anderson. Dean Pulsifer, District 10. The council's aware of my positions on data centers and AI. Tonight, I would like to focus on toning down the rhetoric and get the discussion moving forward. We should avoid falling prey to the hysteria sweeping this country, this state, and this county. As with most topics, neither extreme is correct. Saying we want zero data centers is as bad as saying we want a hyperscale data center. Not all data centers are bad, not all AI is bad. The council should not blindly accept that all statements made at this podium are correct, including mine. The council and staff should research this topic and use verified data to make their decisions. It is your responsibility to do our thorough analysis and come up with a solution that balances business needs with the concerns presented today. Thank you. Next up is Katie Dapkes and then Emma Anderson, followed by Colin Harris. Hi, my name is Katie Dapkes, and I live in District 9. You all, every single one of you, already know what the people want. You heard us at the Lyric in June. You heard us at the Planning Hearing Commission in July. You've heard us in council meetings. You've heard us in private meetings, those of you who would take them. You've gotten our calls. You've gotten our emails. You've been handed our recommendations. You've heard our outcry on social media. You've gotten our feedback through your Engage site and your survey. And you're hearing us tonight. The people could not be clearer. Dart points is not your constituent. Out of state developers are not your constituents. Tech billionaires spending millions of dollars to push the narrative that this technology is inevitable are not your constituents. We don't want data centers. We don't want unregulated AI. We don't want surveillance technology. We don't want our data being stolen and used against us. We don't want our resources exhausted, our environment polluted, our bills raised, and our privacy violated for nothing. Absolutely zero community benefit. It's really quite simple. Make a decision that doesn't harm the community, or make one that does. You have some good options on the table. Take them. Support Councilmember Morton and Curtis's plan. Ban all hyperscale data centers over 25 megawatts. Extend the moratorium for two years on all other data center development. And safeguard Lexington with the most stringent regulation possible. The people have been activated by this issue. And we have taken the appropriate action. We have made our voices heard, and we have shown up over and over again. Now, it's your turn. Remember who your constituents are. Put your community first. We're watching, and we're not going anywhere. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Emma Anderson, followed by Colin Harris, and then Sherry Mullen. Hi, my name is Emma Anderson. I'm here with KY Tenants, which represents over 600 of your tenant constituents in the city. And all I'm going to say is the rent is too damn high. Utilities are too damn high. If you're worried about the economy, focus on that. And I support a ban on all data centers larger than 25 megawatts. Extending the moratorium for a full two years, and creating a new zoning designation for data centers that includes all of the ZOTA recommendations from new AI and KY. We need counsel to protect our community over corporate interests. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Colin Harris, followed by Sherry Mullen, and then Matt Fells McDonnell. Is Colin Harris still here? Sherry Mullen here. Go ahead. Hi everyone, I'm Sherry Mullen from district nine. I support the statement and recommendations made by no AI and KY. I support a permanent ban on hyper scale data centers as defined in part by a facility that has a power load in excess of 25 megawatts. And I support a two year moratorium on any new data center construction to allow council and community time to develop thoughtful zoning regulations that focus on protecting the community over the interests of business. One issue I would like to address is transparency. We, the people, have a severe and valid lack of trust due to lack of transparency, not necessarily from this body, but from overall. Systemically, the tech industry has been far from transparent with all of us about the ways in which they would invade every aspect of our digital and physical lives. And in order to profile us, manipulate our behavior, sell to us, and surveil us. They didn't ask, they didn't disclose, they've just done it over a period of time, and we became complacent. But that is over. Our federal government has completely disregarded any discussion of the consequences of AI and data centers and is just pushing full speed ahead. They have not talked about what will happen if there's widespread job loss. I see no plan in place for how they'll help workers who are displaced or retrain them into new roles. The president even issued an executive order that forbade states from regulating AI. I thought this was the party of states' rights. Anyway, not here to argue politics, but our own state government rushed to provide tax incentives to data center developers that have since proven to be ill-advised. And on local fronts, again, not here necessarily, but there are numerous shameful examples across the country of communities that were surprised by data center development that was hidden behind non-disclosure agreements. And those communities are all living with the consequences. I would urge our council to be fully transparent about all development in Fayette County, but particularly regarding data centers. And I would like to look at the talking points issued by no AI regarding transparency. And some of the things that we need to see are full disclosure to the public of any proposed data center or other development. The purpose of the urban county council is to provide public announcements of proposed developments and offer public forums for discussion at times and locations convenient to the public. We need to prohibit Lexington-Fayette County urban government officials from entering into non-disclosure agreements with developers and require transparent terms and conditions of contracts, tax credits, or other incentives disclosed to the public in plain language. Thank you. Cost benefits to the community are to be researched and clearly explained as well. Thank you very much. Next up is Matt Fels-McDonald, followed by Nick Nicholson, and then Sarah Otis. Hi, Matt Fels-McDonald, part of Council District 12. And I just want to highlight one aspect which I have not heard spoken, at least in this language, is that there's currently no minimum distance between data centers. It's been spoken in different ways. I know Pete Lynch and Aaron Peachtree, they said this in different ways, but I would highly recommend adding a minimum distance between these 25 megawatt data centers, considering that there's currently no density law. Or the amount of permits you can hand out, but a minimum distance will give you a chance to really spread these data centers out if you decide to have them at all. Reasons such as this are why we need to have that two-year moratorium to really go through these details and figure out how to make these decisions the right way. This self-imposed urgency will allow critical nuances to go missed and unchecked. So we need to take a step back, take our time, and make sure we go through these the right way. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Nick Nicholson, followed by Sarah Otis, and then Luther Deaton. Good evening, Nick Nicholson, land use practitioner here in town in the first district. My comments today are not intended to really be pro or anti data centers in any way, shape, or form. I know it will surprise you all, I care about the weeds and how these regs are actually written. And making sure that we take the time to ensure that whatever rules we put in place do not have unintended consequences on existing businesses, banks, hospital systems, the university, etc. As proposed, data centers, and this should make a lot of people here happy, will be the highest regulated use in the history of Fayette County, in the history of our community. The only one that comes close is the stockyards. And we are proposing to put setbacks that are larger, basically 1,500 feet, which are larger than what we put in place for the stockyards. I understand why we put in a 1,000 feet kind of ban on taking a bunch of cows outdoors right next to residential areas. I'm not sure I understand why we put a 1,500 foot setback of a minor data center from the airport. It's my understanding the airport is in itself the largest data center in Fayette County. We've not heard any evidence or anything in the record that would possibly impact traffic control or means that a data center should not be kind of next to the airport. It is these little minor things that I really care about and I want to encourage you all to take the time to make sure that the definition sections are right and that they are appropriately carved. So we're not actually impacting any kind of existing business and major employers. Our society is going to continue utilizing phones, cloud-based services for hospitals, for banking. And so let's make sure that we are able to continue the way that our society functions today, while also protecting this community through the conditional use process, through landscaping, through buffering, through everything that the Board of Adjustment does today. It's in our cards. We don't need to rush on this situation. Let's make the right rules. So, that's all I have to say. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Next up is Sarah Otis, followed by Luther Deaton, and then Mary Hodgins. Hello, my name is Sarah and I'm a resident of Lexington City Council District 8. From all over the country, we have been hearing all of the negative effects that data centers have been inflicting on the communities that they're in. From massive energy and water consumption to air, water, and noise pollution. My mom, Mary Hodgins, who will also be speaking here in a minute, has lost her power multiple times in the past three months. This isn't just an inconvenience. She works from home, which means the days that she didn't have power, and when it was out, it was out for a day or longer than that. She couldn't work. She had to throw out large amounts of spoiled food. That's a big hit to someone who has to very carefully plan her budget every month. I'm certainly no expert, but to me it seems like our energy grid is struggling just to keep our existing infrastructure powered. So how could it possibly support these data centers? What I'm most concerned about is what these data centers are going to be used for. AI, especially generative AI, is an existential threat to each and every one of us. This technology is being forced upon us by big tech companies that could care less about pesky regulations or guardrails. If we allow AI to continue to worm its way into our daily lives unchecked, we will quickly find ourselves, especially our children, unable to think critically, unable to be creative, unable to even form an opinion without using this technology. Locally, we may not be able to prevent these companies from pursuing their agendas, but we can prevent them from building their data centers on the backs of our neighbors. There is simply too much at stake for us to rush to a decision. The moratorium needs to be extended for two more years so that Lexington has the time to thoroughly research the impact of data centers and determine what regulations will most thoroughly protect our communities, our health, and our resources. I'm confident that by the end of those two years, we will have come to the same, if not better, research conclusion. Lexington has no use for AI data centers now or ever. I'd like to end with this. I'm not here to change anyone's personal opinions on data centers. You are all sitting up there because we elected you to represent us and our will. Over and over tonight and for the past few months, you have been hearing the will of the people. We do not want data centers in Lexington. If you do not act and vote accordingly, then you are not representing us. You are representing yourself. And we, the people, will remember what side you are on. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Luther Deaton, followed by Mary Hodgins, and then Adam Rechtenwald. My name's Luther Deaton. I work for Central Bank here in Lexington, Kentucky. And thank you for allowing us to speak tonight. I'm not here to speak for or against data centers. I don't know that much about them. I'm here to speak on behalf of the banks that has to have some, data centers in their organization to make sure we protect our customers and do our job. But everything we do in the banking business is run by technology. And it continues to do that. So we have to have ways to make sure that we can serve our customers and serve our communities. You got hospitals here that's been here a long time, you got banks been here a long time, you got small businesses been here a long time that has to have this technology. Now, we need it and we need it bad. But I'm not talking about the big data centers. I don't know anything about them. But I appreciate the time. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Mary Hodgins, followed by Adam Rechtenwald, and then Tractor Starrett. I'm Mary Hodgins. I'm from the 10th district. I was born and raised in Lexington. I'm a member of the Bluegrass DSA, which is part of the NOAA INKY Coalition. In three months this summer, I had four power outages. Two were more than two and a half days. If the power grid is already struggling to keep up, how is it going to handle the added load of power hungry data centers? Why add this strain to Lexington? Electricity should be plentiful for humans to comfortably live, as extreme weather is more prevalent as the powers that be don't do anything about climate change, and in fact are making it worse recently. Don't you think, and water, don't you think humans deserve this increasingly scarce resource more than a machine which exists and supplements a billionaire getting richer? The CEOs of Anthropic and Ford Motor Company openly admit AI will replace half of all white collar jobs in the US. Another company's website is excited about AI replacing all human labor and nearly drools about the potential riches, given that US workers are paid about $18 trillion a year. These technologies are destined to displace human labor and disrupt our current system to the point that a new social contract and economic paradigm will become inevitable. Lexington doesn't have to be complicit. Our city council can forge its own path and make decisions based on local values. Our society is becoming authoritarian and surveillance. And it's not uncommon for the inaccuracy of this technology to wreck lives, to misidentify someone, and detain them in jail for months, causing them to lose their job and their house. Inaction by this council, in effect, enables a fascist authoritarian and surveillance state to further encroach on Lexington. It is ridiculously unfortunate that this new F word has become politicized and weaponized to paint a distorted picture of people willing with the courage to stand up against what is happening to our society. But the sobering fact is that the definition of the word fascism has existed nearly unchanged for over a century and includes authoritarian leadership, AI is being shoved down our throats. Corporate state alliance, can you honestly deny this is today's reality? Scapegoating and persecution, think flock cameras and ice. This technology is unpopular, invasive, and impossible to control. Lexington has the power through this council to slow this train down and prevent a crash into this community. I urge you to extend the current moratorium on data center construction for two years to allow time for humans to research this issue and its far reaching implications before taking any action that could harm our beloved Lexington. Our community deserves it. Next up is, please. Next up is Adam Rechtenwald, followed by Tractor Starrett, and then Joshua Hawker. Good evening, my name is Adam Rechtenwald. I'm with University of Kentucky Information Technology, long time Lexingtonian. Raised my three kids with my wife in district nine. The University of Kentucky's mission is education and research. Healthcare and service increasingly depends upon sophisticated technology infrastructure across the university. Computing has become fundamental, much like regular power, communications, water, buildings, it's fundamental to our technologies. Our physicians and healthcare teams depend upon highly available clinical systems, and advanced medicine depends on advanced computing. Modern research, which contributes to our advanced medicine mission, as well as so many other fields, often generate incredible amounts of data, and therefore require incredible computing power to process. Artificial intelligence is on everyone's mind, including ours at UK. At UK, we see potential for AI and advanced computing to improve how we conduct research, educate students, and care for patients. It can help researchers analyze complex scientific data, assist clinicians, and support new approaches to medical imaging and accelerate intensive fields ranging from genomics and drug discovery. It's a powerful technology that needs very careful reasoning and discussions, including strict policies and governance. It's disruptive in many ways, and we should be wide-eyed about its implications. UK also needs computing infrastructure for all of the other things that UK relies on. High performance computing, research data, cyber security, clinical applications, advanced imaging, etc., etc. It's a rapidly growing number of digital services that support a modern university and an academic medical system. We use capacity in various ways, including renting it from partners here in town and from commercial cloud providers. However, having some physically close environments are critical upon our success. It's particularly important to UK that we support this academic enterprise, research institution, and healthcare system simultaneously across the board. We also need, or we are outgrowing our current data and computing footprint and would seek a similar solution to the one described as a minor data center. As proposed, some of these provisions in the ZOTA are stifling to that mission and growing the economy and jobs in that region. The distance setbacks and decibel requirements are quite extreme in that way, even for a place like Coldstream. This is not only about buildings filled with servers, but about discovery. It's about healing, it's about education, innovation, and economic development. And for all of us, all of our residents, myself and yourself included. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is Tractor Starrett and then Joshua Hawker, followed by Thomas Wilder. Howdy, my name is Tractor. I'm from District 11 and I wanted to come advocate for a complete ban on any new data center construction. So I'm reminded of a time not too many years ago when we were all talking about construction of wind turbines. And one of the big arguments that completely shut down these constructions was the NIMBY argument, not in my backyard. With that one acronym, this was shut down almost nationwide. But today, we stand before you and we tell you about the risks and the usages and all of the possible things that could go wrong with new data construction. And we're told, slow down, let's see both sides of this. I don't understand how that can make sense. Your constituents have spoken pretty clearly about what they want. When it comes to extant services, I would remind you that those extant services already exist. The infrastructure necessary to maintain the way of life that we have now exists. And I think this ZOTA is a great place to start when it comes to regulations for expansion. But when it comes to new construction, we simply can't pretend that we don't know what it's for. And so we could spend the next two years talking about ways we could strengthen the language of the ZOTA. We could talk about how we can make sure that we have equitable socioeconomic input on these things. But to echo the sentiment that I gave at the city council meeting is we are spending so much effort to try to minimize a risk that we shouldn't be taking. And that's what I want to leave you with tonight. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Joshua Hocker, followed by Thomas Wilder, and then Arya Mehta. How do I start the timer? Just click it. Oh, thank you, appreciate it. Hello everybody, my name is Joshua Hocker. I am a Lexington native and a University of Kentucky alumni, and I would love to stay here in Lexington. I have read both the current paper, the proposed data center recommendations that were passed out in the lobby, and our city's current ZOTA amendment. I'd like to say great job. I see that you all already care by placing that data center ban to start considering what goes into regulating a data center. I trust you're all's decision making process, so that's why I'm here to add a few more things that I'd like to say. I believe that data centers are useful for our society within limits. They let us search the web and access information that has been worldwide. Without data centers, we would not be able to exchange information as we do now. The differentiation is power usage. The original data centers from the 80s and 90s were not taken as seriously as they should have been. So I have some new recommendations based on research from other cities that already have data centers. So in Virginia, near our nation's federal capital, there's about 600 data centers that they have. And their cities are already forcing them to comply with regulations. You all, and we as citizens, have a responsibility to force sustainable innovation of all technology for all people. So first, I would urge that you add a binding cost allocation agreement as part of your conditional use permit. This way, when developers pay for needed upgrades, none of that cost is shifted on to citizens, so that they're funding their own development of infrastructure upgrades. Second, I recommend a C-weighted decibel scale rate. So this would count for the low hum that data centers usually distribute. My recommendation is about 40 C-weighted decibels instead of the 30 decibel weighting. Apparently, they're pretty similar in weight, but the frequency from the low hum is not captured by 30 decibels. And lastly, we enforce a change for renewable energy and battery usage. Only 7% of our state's energy is renewable. Coal is the dominant source, and it has gotten us far, but we need to change. There's natural gas that falls next, but the only renewable part of it is biofuel. So I recommend a moratorium until the end of spring 2027 to give us enough time, like what she was recommending earlier, for us to get policy regulations from top. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up is Thomas Wilder, followed by Aria Mehta. And is Eric Beasley here? Yes. And you're giving your time to Aria? Great, thank you. Aria, when you're up, you'll have six minutes, and then followed by Kes Early. Hello, my name is Thomas Wilder. I live in the ninth district, and I've come today to urge you to pass a permanent moratorium on hyperscale data centers. Or at the very least, to pass a moratorium until we know exactly how they will affect our community. Specifically, I am referring to data centers with an energy use greater than or equal to 25 megawatts. Hyperscale data centers raise water and energy costs. They pollute our communities with increased noise and heat levels, and accelerate climate change due to their energy demand. They don't provide a large number of permanent jobs, with most of the jobs they claim to create being temporary construction jobs. And the permanent jobs they do create are staffed by people that they have to bring in from outside the community. Hyperscale data centers are proving to be a parasite in the communities where they are built. And I know about parasitic industries. Being from Leslie County, I have seen firsthand the consequences of companies extracting wealth from communities, without giving much, if anything, in return. One doesn't have to look far to see the devastating environmental, health, and economic impacts in Appalachia from the predatory coal and pharmaceutical industries. Based on my experience, I see eerie similarities between the coal industry, pharmaceutical companies like Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the opioid epidemic, and the AI industry, which is heavily dependent on hyperscale data centers. If we Appalachians knew ahead of time about the consequences of trusting these them into our communities? The AI industry promises economic benefit, even though it can't turn a profit. It claims to make our jobs easier, while touting it will put millions of people out of work. And it claims to increase our quality of living, while producing slop designed to keep us on our devices as long as possible. And it claims to make our lives safer, while enabling a surveillance state that invades our privacy 24-7. The creek next to my childhood home was tinted a rust color from mine shaft runoff. With the amount of water and energy that hyperscale data centers consume, the pollution they create, and the impacts of climate change, I have to wonder if my children will even have a creek to grow up next to. And if they do, will it be polluted like mine? Council and especially you, Councilwoman Baxter, please vote to pass either a permanent moratorium on hyperscale data centers or a moratorium until we know how this industry will affect us. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Arya Mehta, who will have six minutes, followed by Kes Early and then Hudson Chamberlain. Hi, my name is Arya Mehta, and I'm a resident of Lexington District 3. I'm a student here, and so it is my future that is promised this exciting new industrial revolution with all of its exciting new AI tools. And I'm here to notify the Council and everyone else seated here that we do not want it. I would like a complete ban on all data centers above 25 megawatts. I would like an extension on the two-year moratorium. And I do not think that Dart Points is a trustworthy companion of Lexington or the communities that reside here. The representative earlier claimed that they will stop at 50 megawatts. Clustered all over their website is claims of super AI infrastructure. And I will tell you that allowing them in now without the federal checks and balances on AI, while it is completely unregulated, will mean there's no turning back. It will mean that the International Energy Agency's claim that a modern AI data center takes up as much power as 100,000 homes, it is those 100,000 homes that will be forfeit should the Council allow this to go forward. None of the students in my life want to be replaced by a GPT wrapper. None of the creatives in my life want an AI flyer hired instead of them. None of the parents want their preschool children's cognition offloaded to an educational AI agent. And none of the students want to struggle to perform basic cognitive tasks without an agent, only to graduate into a job market that would prefer the agent over them. I want to ask the Council whether the 20 jobs that a data center promises are worth skyrocketing electricity bills for the entire community, whether they're worth the AI cyber attacks that have already struck schools in Bourbon, Fleming, Harrison, and Allen counties, whether they're worth the AI-generated deepfakes of middle school children over in Henderson, Kentucky. I think this whole discourse around AI is centered on consent. You will have an AI agent coupled with every piece of software that you use. You will have a vastly inaccurate AI overview thrust to the top of your screen every time you make a search. And you will have a metal and glass monstrosity that squeezes your residents' water and electricity. On September 27th, the mayor of Lexington told this community that no one in local government had any idea about the Dart Points project until the Lexmark land was bought. Sounds like a trustworthy partner. Every AI CEO on this planet will speak to the inevitability of these exciting new tools because they don't want us to realize that we can hit the brakes and regulate around the atrocities that come with it. The Google AI overview does not have an off switch, but these data centers do. That switch resides with the council. And so I ask you to bring the two-year moratorium, a complete ban on all AI data centers, and to elevate this conversation to the state government. Thank you. Thank you. Please. Next up is Kes Early, followed by Hudson Chamberlain, followed by Madeline Royster. Hi, my name is Kes Early. I'm from the District 1. The only thing I like about data centers are that we are united and we all hate them. I think that the data center's moratorium should be extended to the next year at least, or maybe even two years. I mean, I think that would be a little bit better. I think that this will let the forest grow, help with pollution and other stuff like that. And the horses are special. If you put hyperscale data centers, boom, gone. And I'm a kid, so the decisions will affect my life. When we do put data centers, if we do, we should not let hyperscale data centers be built. It will affect health. Thank you. Next up is Hudson Chamberlain, followed by Madeline Royster, and then Jacob Slaughter. Can you raise up the podium a little bit? Thank you. There you go. All right. Good evening, Council. My name is Hudson Chamberlain. I'm a resident of Council District 8. I would like to address the easy out that many on the other side of this issue love to use when talking about data centers. They say something like, listen here, wise guy, you've got a phone in your pocket, right? That's a data center. That uses a data center. And obviously we all have phones that access data centers, and I wish I had the authority that that premise gave me, but I do not. Let's be real. We are opted into a system that gives us this little bitty tiny thing called a vote. That vote goes to the positions you all currently occupy. Let me be clear. Those positions are going to represent the working class. They will. Be it after this election cycle or the next, Lexington doesn't have room for elected officials who vote to make the rich richer at the expense of myself and my neighbors. This time, two years from now, I'll probably be 50 pounds lighter just from canvassing districts of counselors who failed to represent their constituents tonight. And probably a few more lighter from the stress of organizing those constituents and joining the efforts of myself, fellow Blue Grass DSA members, and no AI and KY coalition activists. Listen to the working class, extend the moratorium for two years, ban AI hyperscale data centers, use energy as the core metric, and make the process accessible to the public. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Madeline Royster, followed by Jacob Slaughter, and then Brayden Kopp. Hello, my name is Madeline Royster and I'm from District 10. Recently, there has been a surge in data center construction nationally. Many of us do not support this construction. Some smaller data centers are necessary to keep essential public resources like hospitals running. But that infrastructure already exists. I know I speak for many residents of Lexington when I say keep data centers out of Lexington. Those who support these data center development initiatives argue that these projects would benefit our communities and boost our local economy. This is false. Once a data center is up and running, they require very few people. These data centers are just warehouses of servers with skeleton crews that would bring no significant long term job opportunities to our communities. Estimates suggest that within just a couple of years, the electricity needed for data centers is going to be around 10 to 15% of total nationwide electricity demand. Why do data centers need to use all this energy? What will these data centers be doing that is so beneficial? Harvesting and selling our personal data, invading our privacy with technology like flock and axon cameras. This isn't even touching on the massive amounts of water used to cool the servers. The data centers' demand for water and electricity would also undoubtedly raise water and electricity bills. Money is already tight for so many, and it would be irresponsible to agree to the development of these data centers in Lexington, despite knowing they would put this kind of strain on our communities. Also, where would these data centers be built? Would they be built in residential areas and disturb residents with their 24-7 noise pollution? Would they be built in secluded locations where they would have to destroy ecosystems? Would hills be leveled? Would trees be cut down? Climate change is already a major concern. Do we need to accelerate it by destroying areas that absorb greenhouse gases and are home to essential ecosystems and biodiversity? Going back to the noise pollution, noise pollution is shown to negatively affect animals. With horses and other animals being so central to the livelihood of so many in Lexington, as well as being important to our local economy, we cannot, in good faith, allow data centers to be built in Lexington. Lastly, I have a final comment about the zoning issue that others have discussed already this evening. We need to, sorry, review the drafting of zoning regulations for data centers so that they cannot take advantage of zoning regulations through the use of subsidiary companies, including multiple separate plots or other means that will be used to skirt regulation. Please listen to and prioritize your constituents and not corporate interests. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Jacob Slaughter, followed by Brayden Kopp, and then Kat Smith. Welcome. Hello, my name is Jacob Slaughter. I'm from the First District. One of the biggest things that our city is now faced with is not only the data center, but also acknowledging the safeguards that are in place. What are the safeguards to, what are the safeguards to any kind of penalty for when the data center exceeds noise limits, water consumption, power consumption? These questions and many more are more or less not only for today, but also for your children and your great-grandchildren. I want you to know that the big tech industry's motto, unofficially, is move fast and break things. I think a moratorium would be in order at this point. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Brayden Kopp, followed by Kat Smith, and then Warren Byram. Good evening, Mr. Vice Mayor, Honorable Councilman. My name is Brayden Kopp. I am a student in the First District and I grew up in the 8th. I come before you today to encourage you to ban all AI data centers in the entirety of Fayette County and continue a moratorium indefinitely until we can finalize a proper agreement on this issue. You have heard so many statements on what it will do to humans. But I just want to remind you that at the end of this month, the entire world's eyes will be on this city for the Breeders' Cup. If the noise will harm from these data centers, from companies like Dart Point, will affect not only our lives, but these horses. These horses will die because of these sounds. And if a horse and these ton of an animal can die from these data centers, so can a human. If the horses die, this county is based off, at the root of everything, is equine. If we lose that equine industry because of these data centers, we lose everything we have held dear for our entire life. We will lose millions, trillions of dollars even, because of the fact that these horses will die. People will move away, people will stop visiting this city. We will lose, and then what good is a city that no one wants? No, this city's economy will collapse because of these data centers. Our environment will be poisoned, our air will be poisoned, since we will have no water to drink because of companies like Dart Point that want to build centers that are like, that will take up everything we own. I thank you so much for your time, and I please beg of you to support Councilman Morton and Councilwoman Curtis' proposal to ban AI data centers in Lexington. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Kat Smith, followed by Warren Byram, and then Rebecca Ferguson. Hello, my name is Kat Smith. I live in the first district. I'm here to support a ban on AI data center construction here in Fayette County. I looked it up and I'm two miles away, which is a six minute drive. So I'm in pretty close proximity to where it would be constructed. And I have a lot of concern around the industry that is already known to pollute local water supply and air quality. These necessary finite resources that support the well-being and longevity of the Lexington community must be protected, because our people deserve better. My day job is as a stewardship specialist with a land trust locally. And day in and day out, I see how quickly these resources are being impacted already in central Kentucky by big scale industry and development. I've also done direct response to climate disaster both in and out of the state of Kentucky since 2021, and I've seen the heartbreaking direct devastation that extractive industries have had on the beautiful state of Kentucky and the people who live here. This industry is only going to exacerbate the effects of climate change both locally and beyond, effects that we're already seeing with increases in floods, tornadoes, heat waves, and extreme weather in the state. We need a moratorium on data centers instead of making quick decision money grabs that have severe impacts on the land. Impacts that once made cannot be reversed. Because of the increases in energy bills that we are already seeing in our current economy, I'm also a working artist outside of my other job to help cover my living costs. Part of my art practice is as a quilter, which is a craft I'm sure we're all familiar with here in Kentucky. And I'm in opposition to AI data centers, not only because of the impacts that it will have on our people and our land, but also the impacts I'm seeing it have on the arts industry. Kentucky has a long tradition of craft and art making that's really central not only to our economy, but our culture here. And I don't want to see that industry cheapened by AI slop that takes no dedication, no patience, no time, no hard work, no study, and most importantly, no heart. One of the biggest things which is missing from AI. Okay, this decision holds a lot of weight for me and my community. And I hope you will vote to ban AI data center construction in Fayette County completely. But at the very least, vote for a two year moratorium to make this decision thoughtfully. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Warren Byram, followed by Rebecca Ferguson, and then Rachel North. Warren, are you here? All right, Rebecca, you're up. Hello, my name is Rebecca Ferguson. I was born and raised in Lexington and am now a resident of District 10. And I believe Lexington should consider a continuation of the moratorium on data centers. And the recommendations made by No AI and KY on their changes in the ZOTA as well. The corporations that are building these hyper-skilled data centers are to create profit. Not for the people living in communities, but for the corporations feeding off of our data and our lives. One can list the negatives of those who would be impacted by hyper-skilled data centers. But I have yet to hear a compelling narrative on how these projects would positively impact Lexington. Almost every story of AI data centers that I have heard, whether that be in Latin America or other neighboring US states, are all distressing stories of pollution, water scarcity, and a lack of accountability for these large corporations. For Lexington to consider all of the potential impacts, it will take time. And the least the city can do is extend the moratorium until extensive impact studies based on current AI data centers can be made. But even as such studies result in good regulation that would keep our families safe, how can we hold these corporations accountable if they decide to break our regulations? These are massive corporations that care more about profit than the effects that they would have on you, or me, or our futures. And how can we scale the accountability for such large corporations? Even if we perfectly regulate these data centers, how can we implement them? Implement regulations, what scale of fine would financially impact this corporation, and how could we enforce it? Once the data center is built and they potentially start breaking our rules, what can we do about it? I've seen articles on how these hyper-skilled data centers have harassed and bullied towns and individuals taking land and forcing themselves into communities with eminent domain and prolonged legal battles. Our point was, according to Mayor Gorton, allowed to, not allowed, but able to purchase the former Lexmark property without anyone in local government knowing. How can we expect corporations to stop such behavior once embedded in our communities? I would only imagine it would get worse in their attempts to keep the land they spent millions on and retain the large amount of assets they put into infrastructure. I don't imagine they would be willing to give up profits and investment and promise of profits. In this day and age where corporations are getting more power in this country, it is vital to put controls on growth to reduce risk for citizens of Kentucky. To what extent the city believes that they can enforce those regulations is up to them. But I would encourage the city council not to only look at scientific environmental data on the consequence of hyper-skilled data centers, but also studies of how people and communities have been impacted before putting anything into legislation. If we allow any other potential AI data centers into Lexington, these communities that are currently undergoing data centers present represents our future. And if those studies have not yet been done, how can we consider ourselves informed enough to allow such businesses willfully into our community? Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Rachel North, followed by John Marshall, and then Chris Campbell. Good evening, my name is Rachel North. I'm here representing the Northside Neighborhood Association as the president. I live in district one. I also happen to be a bio-environmental engineer, and I've been employed with the commonwealth for over a decade protecting our environment and understanding the deep connection that it has to our individual and collective well-being. I'm here tonight to express deep concerns for data centers in the north side, in Lexington, and in our wider commonwealth. Our neighbors have gathered to discuss their concerns, and a formal comment has been submitted to the council members via email. However, I am here to express some of those concerns, not limited to the following. Define clearly any penalties that the city has the authority to put in place for a data center that does not comply with SOTA requirements, including large fines and being shut down completely. None of this paying $10,000 and doing business as usual after destroying our environment. We're also in support of a new zone solely for the use of data center development, and that it should be considered. However, current zones could be an option. We're concerned about the use of zones B4 and I1, given their position near historically disproportionately harmed black and brown communities, as well as their cluster in district one. P2 is, after all, a research and development zone, and I2 is preferable to I1 because it's zoned for more intensive industrial uses. Although we believe this is the better course, further points are based on conditional use permits. We do not support the offering of tax credits or any economic breaks for data centers in Kentucky. In fact, the Kentucky legislator last year passed extraordinary tax incentives to stimulate data centers in Kentucky. We should do our best as a city to get those repealed or lessened. It doesn't make sense for us to plan a ZOTA, at least until the legislation outcome has been established this spring. Although we support a moratorium for two years, as many other people have said tonight. We also want power usage and power and water usage efficiency restrictions put in place. In order to ensure our natural resources are properly effective and being utilized responsibly. Just simply amounts of water and things like that are not going to satisfy that. All conditional use permits for data center development should include additional water consumption plan details, a utility infrastructure plan, a proposed site development plan, and a decommissioning plan. The proposed ZOTA addresses some of this, but it absolutely should have all of these elements. Add to the draft buffers to include no data center equipment within 1,500 feet of historically black communities and neighborhoods, or neighborhoods made primarily of non-white residents. Census tracts, sorry, where the majority of households make less than 80% AMI. Public parks, hospitals, the list goes on. We support the moratorium for at least two years. It's imperative for the protection of our commonwealth and our city. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all for hanging in with us. We are at the end of this tunnel. We've got six speakers left, and then we'll take another break. Next up is John Marshall, followed by Chris Campbell, and then Nikita Paramal. Good evening, my name is John Marshall, I'm part of the ninth district. And I spoke out at the last planning commission meeting on data centers. And I want to reiterate what I'd said there. One of the things was that there be a, I apologize, that there be a decommissioning bonds required for these projects and the Olark projects that occur in Lexington. And I sit here and listen to everybody tonight. And at this point, myself, I am not in favor of them. And I have a son who went to the University of Kentucky. He studied and graduated with a computer science and computer engineering degree. And this would be a job possibly, this would be a job opportunity possibly for him. But I, as his father, do not agree with this at this point. I don't understand, that's like his job. As people have asked me, said, what does your son do? I said, he could explain it to me ten times, and I probably still would not understand it. I'm an electrician by trade, I'm in the trades, and he's in a field that I do not understand at all. And I don't understand what's going on with these data centers, and what is their end result. I've studied a lot, I've sat down and watched a lot of videos on things, and heard things from people all over this nation. And at this point, I just don't agree with it, and I don't agree with what's happening. And I think there needs to be a lot of study into this, and we need to know, where is the end result? And who is truly, at the end of the day, where is the money, let's follow the money, where is it at? Is it somebody in this nation? Is it somebody in a foreign country that's actually pushing this? And we need that, we need that information, and we need to know. And I just don't feel comfortable with proceeding with them. And I think we need to really be serious about this, and I don't think there's been enough study. And I think the two year moratorium is a very good idea. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Next up is Chris Campbell, followed by Nikita Permal, and then Patricia Carlin. Thank you all for having me and having this meeting. My name is Chris Campbell, I'm from Richmond, Kentucky. I'm here because I've been going to a lot of data center events, because that seems to be the big thing that people are talking about right now. I'm also the Kentucky party candidate for US Senate this year. So, at a national level, when I think about that kind of policy, because that's the office I'm running for, I support a total ban on hyperscale and regional AI data centers. Specifically because of the negative health effects. Particulate emission and infrasound are the biggest things I see that are the negatives that can actually cause real negative health outcomes for people. As far as what this body should do, I would support extension of the moratorium. Particularly making sure that you actually take the time to gather the data, analyze it, and disseminate it. That takes time. And some of that data will be obsolete by the time you actually get all that information before you set to make policy. And additionally, you gotta remember, most of that data's gonna come from these manufacturers, as they're called. And that'll be fabricated data. Corporations have a history of fabricating data just to get policy passed. Speaking of manufacturer, I have heard a lot of people talk about claiming that data centers get reclassified as manufacturers. That makes no sense. Data is not manufactured. Data centers simply store assets, that's it. Makes no sense to try to find some tax loophole for them by redefining what they are. And when it comes to elected officials, data centers and their AI companies that own them should not be allowed to lobby. They should not be allowed to make private deals. And there should never be an NDA signed. No elected official should be signing an NDA with any private corporation. I've heard from people saying that they've gone up to council members and asked them about a company come into their community. And the council member telling them, I can't talk to you. That makes no sense to me. I like hearing that, it makes no sense to me. If a constituent comes up to you and you're an elected official, your only job is to speak with them with full disclosure and transparency. That is what you are there for, to serve them. So I think this body should push for a moratorium. It's really not fair that the onus of responsibility has fallen on city councils. I think what every member of every city council should be doing is petitioning the governor's office to call a special session. because the General Assembly should be looking into this issue now and taking care of it from a state level. Because they have far more resources and more legal ability to address this issue. Thank you for your time and you all have a great day. Thank you. Next up is Nikita Paramal followed by Patricia Carlin and then Sarah Dillon. Hello, my name is Nikita. I have lived in Lexington for nine years, the majority of that in District 3. I'm a member of KY Tenants and of the No AI in KY Coalition. And I'm here today because I'm scared for my community and my future. I am scared about the rapid proliferation of data centers across the United States and Kentucky. I do not believe that the general public has asked for the AI technology at the scale that we've been given. What people want is affordable homes, healthcare, groceries, and gas. Not technology that will surveil us, steal from us, take away our jobs, and offer little to society outside of the deliberate consolidation of wealth and power for a bunch of tech bros. It is wildly short sighted to enable an AI bubble that very well could pop in a few years through the permanent build out of facilities that will further compromise our chances for a livable future, climate, or affordable energy bills. Every summer is the hottest summer on record. And the strain on the electric grid from data centers has already caused blackouts throughout the United States. We simply cannot afford the climate and energy impacts that the intensive build out of data centers will force upon Lexington. I would like city council to support a ban on all data center development, particularly those larger than 25 megawatts, and to extend the current moratorium by two years, so that we can create a new highly regulated zoning category for smaller data centers less than 25 megawatts. I fully endorse the changes outlined in the technical comment from the No AI and KY coalition that has been emailed to all council members. And expect to see all of those future regulations developed during the moratorium. We need to stay firm on the number 25 megawatts. That's enough to power 10 to 25,000 homes, and is more than enough computing power for existing businesses to store their data. I also want to highlight the need to increase and maintain the current 1,500 feet buffer zones, not reduce or dilute them. Finally, I would like to speak specifically to the corporate interests that are at play today. I know that monopoly utility companies will not hesitate to pass the increased costs of building up the grid to meet data center demand onto rate payers like me. I know that DartPoints is on the record, lobbying council to ease up on the existing proposed ZOTA, so that they can get their foot in the door to build next to the Green Acres neighborhood on the north side. We were at Green Acres just last week, and we heard loud and clear, no one wants DartPoints or any data center in Lexington. It is delusional to trust or rely on these corporations to simply do the right thing. And we're looking to you all to be a leader. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Patricia Carlin, followed by Sarah Dillon, and then Adrian Williams. Good evening, neighbors and council members. Thank you so much for staying late. This is truly above and beyond, and I am very grateful. I am a voter and taxpayer in the first district. I have worked for over 20 years in technology. My PhD is in business, and I have worked for FinTech and been responsible for the deployment of electronic health records across one of this nation's largest fleets for cruise lines. Yet I am very opposed to having a data center in my backyard. I live 0.7 miles from the Lexmark campus. I worked at that Lexmark campus when it was actually providing jobs for this city. It is heartbreaking to me when I walk by the Legacy Trail, and I think that it's so beautiful now. It's so quiet when I walk past Lexmark and Coldstream. But if we allow large diesel and large fans to be there to cool this center, it will not be a beautiful ride for me and my fellow Lexingtonians. Location, location, location. Lexington is a beautiful location. That's what they say about real estate. That's what makes a value in real estate. But the three L's tonight are legacy, latency, and limestone. What is our legacy going to be? Will I be able to be on the Legacy Trail? Will I be safe? Will I have a quiet, beautiful, natural environment? Will I breathe easily? And I have heard my fellow citizens talk about banks and healthcare needing more data power. I have heard them talking about security. Let me tell you about latency. As a technologist, we right now, latency just means how much time does it take to get that data? How many milliseconds does it take to get that data to us? We're not going to get anything by having that data center here except maybe a few milliseconds. It's not worth it. The other thing is security is not guaranteed just because the server is here. The server is connected to the Internet, is going to be wildly open to any of the AI stuff that's going on now that we've heard about. It is not safe. That security is not guaranteed just because the server is here. And finally, limestone. We're sitting on, there's a limestone street right over here. This is the town built on limestone. If any of that water escapes through leak or done anything as they purge those water safe servers, it's not going to be good for our limestone. All of us drink the water here. It's not just my backyard, it's all of your backyards. Anybody here, any voter here, any citizen here is going to be at risk for having contaminated water if anything happens on that site. I urge you to vote against that. Thank you. Next up is Sarah Dillon, followed by Adrienne Williams. My name is Sarah Dillon and I'm a resident of the first district. I'm speaking to you today as someone who has lived more than half my life in coal mining counties in central Appalachia. I have lived experience as a poor and working class person and a survivor of cancer from living in places affected by a rogue industry and its boom and bust cycles. I am asking you to pass a 30 month moratorium before the current one expires. Better yet, pass it tonight. I'm asking for a few months longer than the two years that other folks are asking for, because this will give us time to get through the 2028 presidential election. I'm not asking this for political reasons, but so we can see how the markets and thus the AI industry responds to whatever that outcome is. There are already many indicators that the industries that rely on these data centers are in an economic bubble that is becoming more and more precarious. Sam Altman of Open AI is arguing that we're in such a bubble. And the International Monetary Fund is citing it as a significant risk to financial stability and learning what might happen when it bursts. So it's not an issue of this artificial boom will bust, but when it does. Will we, Lexingtonians, be left holding the bag? Be left with the legacy costs and the long term pollution? With paying to clean up an extremely foreseeable mess? Much as Eastern Kentucky has been doing with the coal industry for generations now. When that industry began in the county where I'm from, my grandfather mined coal with a pickaxe and a shovel that was hauled out of the mine in carts by mules. In recent decades, however, that industry has gone hyperscale. Mining with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, explosives, and scraping out the coal with drag line machinery many times bigger than these chambers. I see parallels in the two. We need these two and a half years to craft a ZOTA that will account for the outcome of such a bust, whether because of an election or a market crash. We don't want to be left with abandoned sites that have sucked our resources and negatively impacted all of our lives. But most especially black and brown and poor and working class Lexingtonians, with noise and light pollution and increased utility rates, and be the ones who have to clean up the messes these companies leave behind. Just today, I was looking through and there's several headlines from recent weeks of how these companies are just going rogue. They just try to get in the door, show up, and go rogue. The modern tech industry was founded on the maximum of move fast and break things. We know Dart Points is moving fast. Are we prepared when they also break things? I urge you to pass a 30 month moratorium tonight. Thank you. All right, our last speaker tonight will be Adrienne Williams. Good evening, council. My name is Adrienne Williams, and I'm a resident of the 5th District of Lexington. I'm here with Kentucky Tenants and the No AI and KY Coalition to state my opposition to all new data centers above 25 megawatts in Lexington and in Fayette County. And to ask for an extension on the moratorium for a full two years. This ZOTA will set a precedent for how the city and county approaches data centers and other industrial developments in the decades to come. It's also a reflection of who the city is and is not willing to listen to. Tenants and homeowners here in Lexington want our rent, property taxes, and interest rates to go down. We want our property management to do their job in keeping our homes in good repair. And we want to be able to stay safely and comfortably in our homes and in our neighborhoods. We know how much of a strain most data centers put on the grid and on the utility bills of neighborhoods surrounding data centers. Which tend to be poor and working class neighborhoods that cannot afford the cost increase. We know that they are a net negative for the people who have to live around them. And that any gain is shared amongst the small amount of people who profit from having a stake in the data center. By and large, those folks are not and will not be everyday Lexingtonians. I personally would prefer that hyperscale data centers be banned entirely here in Fayette County. But failing that, I ask that council extend the moratorium on data centers out the full two years and include strict regulations on their construction and energy use. Thank you. Thank you. This concludes the public comment part of our meeting. I want to thank everybody for being here. No matter what side of the issue you're on, I think we can all think of more fun ways to spend a Tuesday night. But you all are here because you really care passionately about this issue. And we're here because you elected us to listen, to take in the facts, and to make tough decisions. And that's what we're here for. It is 8.35, let's break until 8.45 by that clock, and then we'll begin council discussion. Thank you all. We'll resist. We can get back started. There should be plenty of seats in chambers now. If anybody out in the mezzanine wants to join us in here, please do. All right, I'm going to call us back into session. And I'm going to start our discussion by calling on Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I want to say a quick thank you to everyone who spoke today and who has given us feedback through the Engage Lexington page and over email. I also want to say thank you to our planning staff for preparing a draft zoning ordinance for us and for the planning commission under a fast timeline and a rapidly evolving environment for technology and policy. So thank you to our planning staff. Colleagues, when we received the zoning ordinance text amendment, I'm going to call that ZOTA for short, from the planning commission, we did move that ZOTA to this meeting. So we will need to take action on that ZOTA because it has been placed here. So I need to make a procedural motion for the sake of council discussion of that zoning ordinance text amendment, that ZOTA. And for consideration of any amendments that this council may want to make. So to start our discussion, I move to place the zoning ordinance text amendment under the regulation of data centers as recommended by the planning commission to the docket for the first reading at the council meeting on October 8th. We have a motion and a second. Any questions or discussion on Council Member Sheehan's motion? Yes, I'd like to actually make a friendly amendment, make an amendment to that. So, but I'd like to make comments before that. So first I want to thank everyone who took the time to come out today and provide public input. You could have been anywhere else, but you chose to be here and take part in an important conversation that will shape our community, and I commend you for that. Public input should be the driving force in our decision making process. That means listening to not only stakeholders, developers, industries, and representatives, but most importantly to the residents and constituents who will actually live in the consequences of decisions we make here. So as I've said in previous meetings, I believe the recommended policy falls a little short of what I think Lexington needs. I believe we need a more intentional, responsible, and equitable approach to data center regulations. One that clearly distinguish between principle uses and legitimate accessory uses and strongly regulates both. From my perspective, we need a framework that prohibits all large scale data and AI data centers while creating a strong set of regulations for minor data centers and legitimate accessory uses. If you look at the recommended zones, just that, and I1 and B4, it just clearly speaks for itself. So we cannot ignore that these existing I1 and B4 zones are located in the communities and where that surrounds them. We should not place the burden of unknowns, unanswered questions, and potentially significant impacts disproportionately on historically underserved and undervalued communities simply because the existing zoning codes make that possible. This is about whether we are willing to be intentional about where development occurs, how it is regulated, and who gets meaningful voice in that decision. So that brings me to the motions that I plan to make. My first motion concurs with the proposed ZOTA by removing the reference to computer and data processing centers wherever it currently exists in the ordinance or proposed ordinance as principle use. The motion seeks to delete the remaining recommendations in the proposed ZOTA related to allowing data centers as a principle use within the existing zoning districts. And there are three primary reasons for this motion. First, removing computer and data processing centers as a principle use from the zones highlighted on the map aligns with the state of goal of creating a separate zoning category specifically for data centers as principle use. Second, the proposed ZOTA contains definitions and standards for different types of data center operations. Those definitions and standards may change as we work through a new ZOTA. Rather than locking those definitions into a current ordinance tonight, I believe we should give ourselves the opportunity to develop them intentionally through a separate process. And third, I want to be very clear that this motion does not negatively affect existing legitimate accessory uses. It does not mean we're trying to eliminate existing accessory uses that are currently permitted. The intent is to remove the proposed principle use pathway while we develop the appropriate framework for regulated minor data centers moving forward. I believe the distinction is extremely important. So the second motion is to initiate a new zoning ordinance text amendment process to create a separate zoning classification for minor data centers with strong regulations governing minor data centers and appropriate accessory uses. It allows us to develop more precise language, establish appropriate standards, address the questions and unknowns that remain, and determine where this use is actually appropriate. And importantly, this does not end the public process. This proposed language will go back to the planning commission where there could be more opportunity for public input and opportunity for the planning commission to consider, modify, and take actions on that draft. Then it will come back to this council, or the future council, where we would again have the opportunity to hold a public hearing, consider public input, amend the planning commission's recommended draft, and ultimately decide whether to adopt it. That is the process I believe we need. It provides more transparency, it provides more time, it provides more opportunity for public input, and it provides more accountability. Most importantly, it establishes a framework before the projects can move forward, rather than trying to fit a new and potentially high impact land use into a zoning district that are not created specifically for it. Because responsible planning is not simply asking what zoning code technically allows. Responsible planning means asking whether what we are allowing is appropriate for the community. And we have to acknowledge that the communities identified on this map did not arrive at the current circumstance by accident. Many have experienced decades of disinvestment, industrial development, and decisions in which residents did not always have a meaningful voice. We cannot look at the map in 2026 and pretend every neighborhood is starting from the same place. So when we consider a new potentially significant land use, we have to ask, who benefits, who bears the cost, what are the impacts? And why should communities who have historically carried the load have to carry that burden and expect to carry it again? I believe these two motions give us the opportunity to do exactly that. We have the opportunity tonight, not to simply react to a proposal, but to create a better framework for the future. And I believe these two motions give us the opportunity to do exactly that. Lastly, I want to highlight a third and important piece of this effort. Throughout this process, I'm going to work with Council Member Curtis regarding the extension on the data center moratorium. Extending the moratorium is needed to give the process the time it needs to move forward responsibly. We need to adequately develop a separate zoning classification, address outstanding questions, establish appropriate safeguards, and ensure we have a transparent process that meaningfully incorporates public input. So I look forward to supporting that extension on the moratorium. Ultimately, these actions work together. Moratorium gives us more time. The first motion removes the proposed principal youth pathways and existing zoning framework. And the second motion creates the opportunity to create a better, more intentional policy for the future. So with that, I'll make a motion to amend the Planning Commission's recommended text amendment to retain the commission's recommendation to clarify emerging land uses by deleting references to computer and data processing centers as a principal use in the professional office P1, university research campus P2, downtown frame business B2B, wholesale and warehouse business B4, community centers CC, and the economic development ED zones. But to delete all other recommended text amendments pertaining to data centers and server rooms so that the council may freely consider alternative means or of defining and regulating data centers uses in Lexington, Fayette County. So moved. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second to amend Council Member Sheehan's original motion. Discussion on the amendment. Council Members, sign in. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Council Member Morton, for clarifying your full intent so we can have that in mind as we consider this amendment. I want to point out that the ZOTA that has been before us did two things, right? So it established the new definitions for major, minor data centers and server rooms. And then for major, it said that can't happen in any zone. And for minor and server rooms, it showed where it can and then created some regulation for minor. So your proposed motion, just so we're all clear, is to pull all of that language out so you can create the new zoning category to consider those. Yes, ma'am. Okay. The other thing that the ZOTA did was delete what I consider problematic language, which is the computer and data center, data processing language, because that our technology has changed and that is not how we think about computer and data processing anymore. We have these new technology uses, so that was old language that we do want to delete from the zoning ordinance. So your proposed amendment would leave that deletion moving forward. Correct. But take out the rest of the language so that that can be considered in a separate ZOTA. Yes, ma'am. Okay, good. because I do want that language to be deleted out of our current zoning ordinances because I do think it is problematic and leads to loopholes like what we have seen in Louisville where they are developing a hyperscale data center based on telecoms hotel language that is also old language. I'm going to support this motion and I do support moving the other language to the new zoning classification as you want to work on. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Council Member Morton, for your work on this and the motion. I guess Council Member Sheehan did a good job of kind of breaking down the motion, but I just want to be clear that in your motion, we heard a lot of concern tonight about the existing uses in those computer processing centers. What we're doing is we define data centers more deliberately going forward. Does this not impact, does this motion not impact the existing facilities and the uses? That is correct. That's correct. I want to get somebody from planning to kind of, if you don't mind just elaborating to us why that's the case. Mr. Crum. Good afternoon, or rather good evening, everyone. Daniel Crum, principal planner with planning staff. So once again, the current zoning ordinance framework is just computer and data processing centers allowed as a principal use in a select handful of zones. And so the current motion, as far as I understand it, would be to delete those as essentially anywhere that they're listed and then tackle that onto a new framework. If a use is not listed in that particular zone, it's not allowed in that zone. So essentially, any existing business would be allowed to continue to operate, but they would be doing so as a non-conforming use basically from that point forward. So they wouldn't be able to expand or kind of modify essentially their operation. So that is in effect kind of what would happen if you just X'd out computer and data processing centers, and then as you were sort of in the interim of adopting that language into then crafting new language or a new framework. Okay. Well, I appreciate that explanation. I think we just want to be, at least I want to be clear that they can continue that use while we're developing a policy for us going forward. Thank you. Thank you. Council members, any other questions or discussion on Council Member Morton's amendment motion? Council Member Savigny. Thank you. Yeah, I just have a quick question. If we approve Council Member's motion, which kind of alters the language that came from planning, are we done altering the language, or can amendments be made afterwards? Like so, if you want to add something in or you want to tweak some language that's currently, that currently is in another part of our zoning ordinance that it's on the telephone exchanges basically. I'm not sure who you're addressing. So what I'm asking is, do you make a motion now to amend his thing to try to change what it is? Or is what we're approving of his the final time that we're going to actually have a discussion about this? I think you'd have to make the motion to amend it now before it's voted on and finalized, whichever way it's voted on. Okay, all right. I've got a general concern about Internet exchange points. And so I'm, and right now they're kind of operating, I guess, there's no real zoning. Thank you, whoever's got that going. Right now, they're law, they're acting as law or planning. They're acting as, they're not even defined in our thing, correct? So where are they actually placed? Nowhere? They're not defined in our current ordinance or in this proposal. Okay, and so then my question, so that I don't have to do this, make this request, is what do you think the actual time frame is, Council Member Morton, of actually turning something around? Yeah, no worries. What do you feel like the actual time frame is to turn something around on this? Because I'm just a little, I'm concerned that there are businesses that are not data centers that are Internet exchange points and that are telephone switching gear and that kind of stuff that won't have, that are going to get caught up in this and won't have the ability to actually move forward with some sort of project. Yeah, I understand your concern. So my intent and time frame, I honestly want to, I don't think we should rush through this. I do plan to take our time and do our due diligence within it. But I do understand that based on legal advice, there's only so far we can take a moratorium. So my hope is to, after this, if this is to pass, to start the work tomorrow and get to working on a draft. So I think there's multiple ideas out, if that's something with a council work group or something where we work together, bring multiple council members together to create that. But I can't give a definitive timeline, I would say, or time frame related to what that looks like. But I can tell you that the work will start soon. Okay, so I'm going to make a motion just to see if there's an interest from council. So I'm going to move that we have a, in the P1, P2, B2, B2A, B2B zones, there is a current definition in all of them that is a certain number for principal uses that says, telephone exchanges, radio, and television studios. And I'm going to recommend to change that language, to telephone and internet exchange points, radio and TV stations. So moved. We have a motion, do we have a second? That's cool, great. All right, that motion fails for lack of a second. Thank you. All right, so we're back to discussion of Council Member Morton's amendment motion. Council Member Reynolds. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I wanted to ask someone from planning their opinion on forming another zone for data centers. I originally had some concerns about that, and I thought I heard that from planning as well. So I wanted to just hear your opinion. Yeah, so once again, Daniel Crum, planning staff. The recommendation that was brought to you by the planning staff and the planning commission was to take the conditional use approach. Once again, within the existing sort of zoning framework we have. The option that was put on the table for an exclusive use zone is something that does exist in our orange currently. It is sort of a very rare occurrence though. It's so far is only used for landfills. So there's currently one exclusive use zone, they're really beneficial for these sort of strange, noxious uses that really don't fit in another zoning category. Things are big, large, and impactful, regardless of kind of the scope that it operates at. In this instance, a landfill, basically at any level, is going to be a problem. And so it's necessary for the community, so we created our own zone, and it's on regulations. Within an exclusive use zone, you can create standards, location requirement, etc. A lot of the aspects that are being kind of discussed with this bill, or with this text amendment. One of the things though that it doesn't necessarily play super well with an exclusive use zone is sort of the smaller scale. So a conditional use and staff in the planning commission's framework lets you kind of evaluate that, whether it's 500 square feet of use or 10,000 square feet of use. So basically, the exclusive use zones are most useful when they're sort of at their largest, more noxious scale. And so the planning commission's recommendation, as well as the staff's initial recommendation, follow the conditional use framework for that. But there is a pathway to do all of those same things under an exclusive use zone as well. Or you could add a conditional use for the smaller data processing. You could theoretically have a framework where a data center of a certain size would be a conditional use in certain existing zones. And the EX could be for a larger gradient or above a certain size. Really, there's a lot of flexibility there. But really, once again, the point of the exclusive use zone is handling a use that is so noxious and so different at that scale that it doesn't work anywhere else, including within our kind of traditional manufacturing storage warehouse business type zones. Okay, thank you for your description of that. Thank you. Thank you. Council members, any other comments or discussions on Council Member Morton's amendment motion? If not, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion passes. We are back to Council Member Sheehan's main motion. If anybody has, I assume, Council Member Morton, you have your next amendment? You are correct. Yeah, you are correct. Okay. Any other discussion on the main motion as amended? Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to say for just clarity that this motion would now only delete the language, this ZOTA now would only delete the language of computer and data processing throughout those zones. And the motion that I made would give it first reading on October 8th, which is this Thursday, and then the second reading would follow, assuming no suspension of the rules or anything like that, on October 22nd. Thank you. Thank you for that clarity. Any other discussion on the original motion as amended? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion passes, and so I believe Council Member Morton has a new motion. Yes, so I move to place on the docket for the October 8th council meeting a resolution referring to the planning commission, proposal to create a separate zoning category for data centers as an exclusive use, wherever the data center serves as the principal use, and recommend regulations pertaining to data centers operating as an accessory use. In recognition that emerging data center uses have specific characteristics that do not readily permit them to be classified as principal uses in ordinary agricultural, residential, business, professional office, or industrial zones. And in order to ensure proper integration and distribution of the land use in Lexington, Fayette County, in compliance with the pillars of equity and sustainability set forth in the 2045 comprehensive plan. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Discussion on this motion? Council members, please sign in. Council Member Rao. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and just clarity, Council Member Morton. So this motion is referring this item to the planning commission to develop a new zone tax amendment for this special zone. Yes, it is referring it to the planning commission and to put, I guess, on their agenda, this new zone. I think there's still conversations related to what that draft consists of, who works on that draft. Is it a group of council members, is it staff? I think we're still working through that. But this, what it does is, rather than initiating it, which would create a timeline, this allows for, I guess, more flexibility and more time to give intentional, responsible attention and work towards that ZOTA, I would say. So this doesn't start the traditional 60-day clock. Could somebody from planning explain the time frame and the lack thereof and what kind of constraints we as council and the planning commission may be under? Jim Duncan's got it. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Initiating a ZOTA or a text amendment by statute compels the planning commission to hold a public hearing within 60 days of the initiation. By referring this to the planning commission, you're simply stating the council's intention that a new zoning ordinance be created, or a new category in the zoning ordinance be created, and that it be brought back to the council, ultimately, for a final decision. It does not put a time frame on it, and it does allow for the text to be created, which it doesn't exist right now, and then presented to the planning commission for a public hearing, and then returned to the council for final action, but not on the strict timeline of a statutory initiation. And so that's what we did last time. Last time, we sent it to them for, how was it, what o'clock? Yes, you initiated the ZOTA. You asked the planning commission to create a ZOTA related to data centers, and you initiated that. And that meant within 60 days, the planning commission had to hold a public hearing and return that back to you. Okay. All right, and then Council Member Morton, it's your intention to work with fellow council members and some folks in the public to help draft language that's going to go to the planning commission? Correct, correct. I believe, what my intention is, after this meeting, if this passes, I will get a consensus of this council, of the best route, what this council believes the best route to move forward responsibly and intentionally. Whether that be, as example, creating a small working group and looking at this, or whether it be, if it's the consensus of this council, to allow staff to work on it. I'll go by the consensus of this council. I'm open and more than open to working on this item and helping create that draft document. Okay. All right, thank you. I'm clear. Thank you. Any other discussion on this motion? Council Member Sheehan. Council Member Morton, I appreciate that you want to take the zoning ordinances in a different direction. I have been the sponsor of this item in general government and planning committee. But this work will extend beyond my term into next year. Are you willing to take over sponsorship of this item? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Any other discussion on this motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Thank you. Council Member Curtis. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, colleagues. But most importantly, thank you to every single person who came here to council chambers tonight, who wrote to your council member, who gave us calls, who stopped us in Kroger's to talk about this. Who has made it abundantly clear over the past several months that there is consensus across every divide you can think of. Artisan affiliation, socioeconomic status, racial identity, gender, what have you. We have all agreed, and I know that I have heard from my constituents on this issue more than any other issue in my time on council. You want us to slow down and get this right. When I was present at the July 30th planning commission hearing on this, that was what you all were saying then too, you came here tonight and you said it again. I told you at that planning commission meeting that if we could not get stringent enough guidelines in place by the current expiration date of October 31st, 2026, I would fight like hell to extend the moratorium so that we can. So with that, based on the overwhelming consensus of what we have heard tonight, and the necessity for us to take the time to get this right. And in coordination with the motions that council member Morton has made, I'm going to do that now. I move to place on the docket at the October 8th, 2026 council meeting, a resolution extending the existing moratorium related to data centers to remain in effect until no later than October 31st, 2027. And which shall continue to bar one, the urban county government's acceptance and processing of applications for zone map amendments seeking to change the zone of any property in Lexington Fayette County. If that application includes a preliminary development plan showing a data center as the proposed use. And two, the urban county government's acceptance and review of development plans for data centers in any zone. And three, the urban county government's issuance of any permits, approvals, and authorizations necessary to the operation of data centers in any zone, so moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. We have a motion and a second. Council members, if you have any questions, please sign in. All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion passes. Colleagues, any other amendments or, sorry, motions for tonight? All right, I believe we are at the end of our agenda. Thank you all for coming out and hanging with us. Thank you to council and thank you to staff as well for all your work.