First, the Bulloch County government’s moratorium, previously extended to Dec. 31, against a data center locating anywhere in the county unincorporated area remains in effect. Second, the issue at hand was a zoning text amendment, tabled from Aug. 4, intended to block zoning for data centers on a continuing basis. Last but not least, the Board of Commissioners voted 4-3 Tuesday night to kill that “ban” proposal.

If you know that the board consists of six regularly voting commissioners elected from two districts plus one countywide-elected chairman who votes only in the event of a tie, you’ll realize that a 4-3 count means Chairman David Bennett had to use his tiebreaker power.

But his vote was actually for a motion, made by Commissioner Timmy Rushing, to deny the proposed ordinance change, in effect killing the ban as a text amendment. Commissioner Ray Davis had seconded that motion, and Commissioner Ray Mosley also voted for it.

“Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we deny this text amendment, leave the moratorium in effect, and give everybody ample time to figure out what’s going on before we put something in permanently,” had been Rushing’s exact words.

The three who voted against the motion – and thus for the possibility of making the ban a part of the Zoning Ordinance – were Commissioner Nick Newkirk, Commissioner Toby Conner and Commissioner Anthony Simmons.

“If this motion fails, I’m going to make a motion to accept these text amendments, because that’s what I was put up here to do,” Newkirk said while Rushing’s motion was pending and before the vote on it was taken.

Because Bennett broke the tie in favor of the motion, it did not fail, so Newkirk never made his motion, which would have been, in effect, to impose a lasting prohibition on data centers in the county unincorporated area.

The chairman also made some brief comments before voicing his tiebreaker vote.

“I’ll go on the record saying I don’t think that this community needs a largescale, ‘Meta,’ data center,” Bennett said, in part. “But at the same time, I’m not going to ignore the fact that by doing an outright ban we’d put ourselves in a potential for legal jeopardy here in this community. I think there’s a middle of the road here. I think we can work this.”

‘Working group’ ahead

“I think that most of the issues that people discuss, we can mitigate them, we can work through them, and I’m willing to say that you go as far as to put them in an industrial park, and that helps mitigate some of those issues,” Bennett continued.

After voicing his vote “to disapprove this text amendment,” he offered a further proposal. Bennett suggested that the commissioners “develop a working group on data centers” so that they “can get a cross-section of people to speak on this issue.”

The group, to be made up of citizens named by individual commissioners, would “sit down and look at the facts” and could also make exploratory visits to see data centers of different types, he suggested.

“We have at least three months to look at this issue before our moratorium dies, and I believe that with some consultation with legal counsel we could probably extend that beyond the 31st of December,” Bennett said.

That followed public comments on the now-dismissed ordinance amendment, and by then the commissioners were an hour into their 5:30 p.m. meeting. So the commissioners took a brief recess before taking up several other zoning matters and items of regular business.

Near the end of the three-hour meeting, the commissioners added the Working Group on Data Centers proposal to the “new business” agenda. Simmons made the motion, seconded by Conner, to establish the committee, following Bennett’s suggestion that each commissioner select three individuals, for a total of 21 members.

That motion was approved 6-0. Bennett asked that commissioners have their nominees, citizens willing to serve, by the Sept. 15 meeting and said commissioners will work out any overlapping appointments and have the group select its own chair.

Not those regs

Between the commissioners’ Aug. 4 action, by a 3-2 vote, to table the ban proposal and Tuesday’s return for consideration, the commissioners on Aug. 18 heard a county staff presentation about a draft of a zoning text and map amendment that would allow data centers in specific “overlay zoning” areas, subject to regulations and requirements. But that proposal has not been through the county’s process for amending an ordinance.

That suggestion, and the fact that Statesboro City Council recently approved zoning – but has not yet received an application for a special-use permit – for a data center in the edge of the city limits on Burkhalter Road – may have contributed to some confusion going into Tuesday’s public hearing on the county “ban” proposal.

Applicable only to the county unincorporated area, that proposal, now dead, would have defined “data center” but then stated, in the separate sections defining the General Business, Heavy Manufacturing and Light Manufacturing zones, that each “does not include data centers.”

The county has no jurisdiction over the city’s zoning.

‘Undecided’ speakers

Eight people signed up to speak during the hearing, and Bennett, who often gives the “for” and “against” sides in a zoning matter 10 minutes each, at first said he was giving “for,” “against” and “undecided” each 10 minutes.

The first speaker may have said “undecided,” but argued that the board should consider regulation over an outright ban. Then the time allotment plan broke down, with “undecided” or “opposed” speakers saying they couldn’t coordinate to share 10 minutes.

Two or three who also called themselves “undecided” said the commissioners should consider all the facts but then decide against data centers, and one or two spoke adamantly against data centers.

The final speaker said he might be “the only one for” but spoke for regulation instead of a ban, and so he was actually against the then-pending county amendment.

But Newkirk a ‘no’

During the commissioners’ discussion, Newkirk presented a slideshow and commentary from a recent trip he took to Memphis, Tennessee. Data centers in that area, developed using gas turbine generators for their power supply, have drawn national attention for their alarming noise levels and emissions.

Newkirk showed photos of some of the buildings and many crisscrossing power lines and presented his own decibel-level measurements. From a loudspeaker he placed on the commissioners’ dais, he also played a noise he measured at 60 dB from the back of the room and observed that data centers operate 24 hours a day.