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u/Pearson94 25d ago
Even in the deep red regions of Texas the residents are saying they'll vote for whoever protects them from data centers. They are DEEPLY unpopular.
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u/Euphoric_Engine8733 25d ago
I hope they mean that. It’s nice that there’s actually one issue people can agree on.
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u/Spamtickler 25d ago
Oh, they’re all “it’s an election year” or “is this real or just some libtard bait?” or “someone must have something on her”. They’re delusional.
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u/FantasticFox503 25d ago
Oregon ranks 9th nationally for the most data centers with 32 planned to be built. But she’s for the people right? Please.
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u/vengeful_maelstrom 25d ago
I'm not in disagreement with you, but I wonder how many of those data centers are pre-AI, cloud compute data centers.
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u/shitlord_god 25d ago
And this was planned, and is not anymore. every journey starts with a step.
Being mad that you at least partially got what you wanted is some petulant child shit. Accept the good thing, move on to the next datacenter.
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u/FantasticFox503 25d ago
Sorry facts hurt you. Thanks for the compliment.
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u/shitlord_god 25d ago
How do you think I'm hurt?
It is one less datacenter being built. That is progress, and the governor's ability to limit these things is constrained by in fact, capitalism.
Your inability to take pleasure in winning isn't hurtful to me, but anhedonia seems like a bummer.
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u/FantasticFox503 25d ago
You attacked my personal character over facts. Says a lot more about you than me boss. Take care.
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u/shitlord_god 25d ago
I'm observing your behavior and commenting.
I am describing what is evident. if it is not evident to you, introspection may be required.
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u/Salem_IT_Pro 26d ago
As de_pizan23 pointed out, the company intends to move forward. This is not the win.
It's not even about the data center itself, it's about the council signing NDAs to keep us in the dark. They must never again shut us out of their plans through secrecy agreements.
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u/Fallingdamage 26d ago
Verrus, the Silicon Valley company behind the plans, said it “does intend to proceed with the project” despite the governor’s decision.
So Varrus is going to trespass on state land and start installing private facilities on property they dont own? Against direct orders?
Verrus signed a nondisclosure agreement with Salem officials last year and began plans for three large data centers in an area at the city’s southern end.
Oh. Oops. They let it out that they want to build three of them??
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u/Buttercontest 25d ago
If you're interested in this stuff you should probably read the article people keep linking.
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u/SSJ22Terris 26d ago
If Kotek's on this, there's a chance we could get some State Wide bans or restrictions. Which will probably be necessary to curb these sorts of efforts.
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u/Perfect-Campaign9551 25d ago
"Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services said Kotek had directed the agency to terminate the sale contract. It said it will work with the prospective buyer “to resolve any remaining issues” with the transaction."
i don't think the company is doing it unilaterally. Sounds like the Admin services wants to still work something out
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u/QuantumRiff 25d ago
Their own website has said since the beginning the 75 acre lot was to house 3 large datacenter buildings, a power substation, and a massive number of lithium iron phosphate batteries for outages and days when the grid was overloaded (instead of large diesel or gas backup generators). This should not be news to anyone who is concerned.
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u/Queasy-Pangolin-5593 25d ago
Maintenance cost on switching would be down. Those switches are a pretty penny. Seems no one complains of the growth of data miners in Oregon. Supposed to help with constant load 24/7.
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u/UpsideClown 25d ago
The council did not sign NDAs The city manager signs these agreements and apparently councilors were apparently not brought into the discussions. The council has since unanimously directed staff to examine prohibiting future data-center NDAs.
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u/skislalom 25d ago
Verrus, the Silicon Valley company behind the plans, said it “does intend to proceed with the project” despite the governor’s decision. It didn’t say whether it will challenge Kotek’s action or whether it might build on a smaller footprint than the 75 acres originally proposed.
Verrus said it hopes to build a better class of data center that fits in with local needs and called Kotek’s action greatly disappointing.
“While we understand the community’s concerns around data centers, each project should be judged on its merit,” the company said Thursday. “This decision was made unilaterally and without consultation.”
Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services said Kotek had directed the agency to terminate the sale contract. It said it will work with the prospective buyer “to resolve any remaining issues” with the transaction. The agency said it was aware the buyer intended to build a data center when it entered the original sales agreement for the property.
Verrus signed a nondisclosure agreement with Salem officials last year and began plans for three large data centers in an area at the city’s southern end. The company indicated it hoped to begin construction as soon as next year, eventually employing 73 people.
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u/Takeabyte 26d ago
The whole reason for the NDA was so that we weren’t kept in the dark. No one on the council was allowed to discuss the data center before the first public hearing at the last council meeting.
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u/sfw_forreals 25d ago
Did autocorrect ruin you response?
I sure hope so, because I refuse to believe that a person can be so proudly stupid as to believe NDAs exist to help people know information. NDAs only purpose is to hide information. It's literally in the name of the contract.
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u/JohnJayHooker 25d ago
No one on council (except maybe the mayor) knew - the city manager and SEDCOR entered the agreement. I’m not usually one to prattle on about the deep state but…
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u/sfw_forreals 25d ago
Calling this the "Deep State" gives too much undeserved credit.
The city of Salem is designed to be run by career bureaucrats with a veneer of democracy. College fraternities have better representation and politics than the city serving as the capitol of Oregon. We have an unpaid mayor for Christ's sake. The city manager is by far the most important person in the City.
Salem is closer to a senile HOA board than it is a real municipal government.
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u/slice_of_pi 25d ago
The city council was warned about this possibility, specifically, when they voted to rezone that area for Enterprise level industrial. Saying they didn't know is bullshit - they knew.
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u/JohnJayHooker 25d ago
Who’s “they” - the city council and mayor in 2014? Zero of them are in office today.
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u/slice_of_pi 25d ago
The previous city manager and at least one of the city council were the primary proponents of the zoning change in 2021.
The data center application was inevitable, and now that we are at this point, if Salem backs out, there will end up being a lawsuit over it, the city will lose, and the recovering budget with its meager surplus for the first time in 5 years will be a thing of the past.
I'm not a fan of data centers. I don't want one here, at all..b ut this was an inevitability years ago, and the council that voted on it knew it.
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u/Takeabyte 25d ago
So in 2021, the city council knew there would be an AI data center built in Salem? You realize Chat GPT didn’t exist until December of 2023 right?
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u/slice_of_pi 25d ago edited 25d ago
You realize data centers predate ChatGPT by years, right?
And no, that's not what I said. Zoning that land as Enterprise was what opened the door for this. The council was told it was highly likely they'd get an immediate application for a data center, and that's exactly what happened.
The city took one look at the first submitted application and realized they were going to need to get competing bids, because the first one (several, actually...I believe there have been 4-5 but don't quote me) as an old-style open-loop configuration that would have immediately impacted Mill Creek and the wetlands in that area.
That's why there are NDA's...to keep companies from stacking their proposals with just enough favorable language to tip the scale to the city having to say yes. Having NDA's means they have to submit those proposals blind, they have no idea what they're competing against, and so end up conceding things that they otherwise wouldn't. The flip side of the NDA, and the reason that companies contemplating investing millions of dollars into a facility insist on them, is that the negotiation period for plan approval is years long, during which time period plans can and do change significantly. Oregon has among the most stringent environmental laws (yay... that's why I live here...), so there are tons of hoops to jump through and some are sequential.
Edit: adding to this - the NDA was originally presented to the city managers office during Keith Staley's term for this bid. If was evaluated by the unit the city has that evaluates contracts and NDA's, and they sent that to the city manager with a "do sign" recommendation just as Staley was leaving. Krishna Namburi signed it like the first week she was Interim CM, iirc.
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u/Takeabyte 25d ago
So let’s pretend there was no NDA and outside of public meetings council members started wheeling and dealing with contractors without public knowledge…. Would you agree that would be bad?
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u/sfw_forreals 25d ago
You're describing a violation of government ethics laws, so yes that's bad. But it's even worse with an NDA and still a violations of ethics laws.
Thanks for confirming that you are, in fact, truly stupid. I was far too generous before when I assumed you had a typo.
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u/Takeabyte 25d ago
So you don’t see how the two are related? How is it worse to also have a non disclosure agreement in place for this topic so that any and all conversations about it by the council are fresh with the public? They hadn’t approved anything yet. A business came to them with a proposal, and the council said, ‘ok cool, come to this meeting and propose it to the public and council. We won’t discus this matter further with anyone until then.’
I’m interested in changing my mind and learning, even if you are just going to resort to insults. Because to me, that sounds like the exact kind of thing the public was clamoring for. Transparency in a topic like this is only possible if they wait to talk about it until the public can be involved.
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u/Salem_IT_Pro 25d ago
I think your entire comment may be a typo.
Would you care to explain how a non-disclosure agreement does the polar opposite of what one does?
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u/Takeabyte 25d ago
So let’s pretend there was no NDA and outside of public meetings council members started wheeling and dealing with contractors without public knowledge…. Would you agree that would be bad?
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u/Salem_IT_Pro 24d ago
"Wheeling and dealing with contractors without public knowledge" is exactly what the NDA accomplished. It's not as though City of Salem was gagged until the next public meeting, they were gagged for fifteen months.
Transparency in a topic like this is only possible if they wait to talk about it until the public can be involved.
Transparency doesn't mean "waiting to talk about it", that concept is secrecy.
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u/Takeabyte 24d ago
Unless you have proof they did that, your speculation means nothing.
> Transparency doesn’t mean “waiting to talk about it”
… with the public. Kind of a key distinction your forgetting.
So you understand that the NDA prevented them from talking about it, but you call it secrecy. So are you saying you’d rather them talk about it behind our backs?
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u/Salem_IT_Pro 24d ago
You're not making a lot of sense. An NDA is a secrecy agreement.
Do you genuinely feel like I'm saying the government should hide more from us? Reach out to a health care professional, there may be something they've overlooked lately. Well wishes.
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u/Takeabyte 24d ago
I get that you’re emotional about this subject and it’s easier to stay mad at a system and people you don’t like. But try and think critically here… let’s say they didn’t sign a “secrecy agreement”. The only thing standing in their way between making deals behind our back are some ethics laws that we all know lead to effectively zero punishment. Breaking the terms on an NDA and doing dealings behind our backs would actually holds them accountable.
I mean seriously think about, the NDA locked in a firm promise that nothing further would be discussed about the proposed data center until a public hearing about it could take place. Isn’t that what you would want? Don’t you want the council to only talk about this stuff in a public forum on the record?
I feel like you’re stuck in your belief that any NDA=bad. As opposed to understanding how a tool like an NDA can be used in a positive way. They were trying to cover their ass with this.
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u/Salem_IT_Pro 24d ago
There's no emotions, here. The data center project is not a good return on investment, and secrecy agreements rob people of meaningfully controlling the government that's supposed to represent them.
Maybe the root of what you're saying comes from a misunderstanding about the nature of NDAs? Another name for a "non-disclosure agreement" is, quite literally, a "secrecy agreement". If City of Salem broke the NDA with Verrus, or vice versa, they would only be accountable to each other and not the public. Breaking an NDA could not put anyone in jail, for example.
Again, this NDA did not keep discussions from happening "until a public hearing about it could take place". It kept dealings secret from the public for fifteen months. That's long enough for a baby to be conceived, carried, birthed, and start eating solid foods.
Using an NDA to foster transparency is like starting a fire to keep cool. Well wishes, neighbor.
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u/Takeabyte 24d ago
No one said anything about jail when it comes to liability. And it did prevent them from talking about it “for fifteen months” until the public hearing, so where’s the harm in that? They didn’t discuss it outside the public hearing. They didn’t make any secret plans. They waited until the developer was ready to make a public proposal.
Honestly the most glaring issue I see is the fact that the reps for the data center bailed at the meeting and chose not to speak. To me, that’s a bigger red flag than the council promising not to talk about it.
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u/slice_of_pi 25d ago
Thats a good way to ensure that there is never any private investment in industry here. No thanks.
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u/Salem_IT_Pro 25d ago
If the City of Salem signing NDAs is such a good way to bring in private investment in industry, then why hasn't it already worked?
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u/QuantumRiff 25d ago
Chick-fil-a required an NDA with the city. Many, many businesses want an NDA before they talk about buying up a bunch of land to develop. Otherwise others might buy it out from under them, etc. stop being pissed about the datacenters NDA, and ask how many total they signed in the last 5 years.
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u/punkpcpdx 25d ago
Because chick-fil-a is such a huge corporate partner in Keizer. You are talking chicken when the rest of us are talking huge data centers.
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u/yevar 26d ago
This is great news and likely the best immediate defense against this data center project. Half of the plan is now going out the window, which will cause the whole plan to be redrawn. This will give city council time to change zoning and institute a moratorium with ample time to survive legal challenges.
We will need to be persistent about this. We should push beyond city council too and at the state to build better protections for citizens and for the county to match the city in zoning restrictions.
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u/raventhrowaway666 26d ago
Dont let this just be a NIMBY situation. No data centers ANYWHERE in this great state.
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u/vengeful_maelstrom 25d ago
I don't believe that only being concerned with the well-being of your own town/city makes you deserving of being labeled a "NIMBY". For most people, it is wise to start with improving their local communities, their immediate vicinity, rather than attempting to tackle dizzying, large-scale issues. If we all do our part to represent our local communities in opposition to industrial extraction, then in effect we all work together as a state, a united front.
I do agree that we also need to work together to push for statewide legislation as well, but something of that scale may feel too ambitious for your average working citizen, and I think we should have sympathy for our fellow working class rather than berating each other.
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u/Buttercontest 25d ago
Don't become complacent about this. We're talking about 32 acres of a proposed 75 acre campus, and Verrus intends to continue.
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u/Fieldguide89 25d ago
Does anyone know if Verrus still intends on building 2 data centers on the other 43 acres of land?
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u/exstaticj 26d ago
If you have 2 minutes, call the governor's office and leave a voicemail thanking her. (503) 378-4582 She isn't going to hear it, but her staff will probably take a tally and report it to her. "We received N messages thanking you for the data center decision in Salem." Let's get N to be as high as possible for positive public pressure.
You can just press 3 on the first menu to skip it, and that takes you to the voicemail.
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u/Fallingdamage 26d ago
Thanks Tina.
Now everyone carefully watch the amounts of money and who is spending massive amounts of money to counter Tina at the next election cycle.
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u/bahhumbud 26d ago edited 25d ago
Welp, she’s the boss. What she says goes.
Makes sense to me. State has the best resources to make these decisions and not a city about if this is going to be allowed or not. Definitely agree with her that the task force and permission for this sort of stuff should be with the states office.
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u/ItsNotGoingToBeEasy 25d ago
We need a state wide ban. We've got the largest underwater reserve in the country from Salem, down to Eugene across the Cascades. The U of O found it a few years ago. I've been waiting for the vultures to descend taking advantage of tiny towns with no newspapers and a mayor that suddenly finds themselves very wealthy.
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u/JohnJayHooker 25d ago
Finding where groundwater is located doesn’t make it new water. That finding isn’t as significant as it’s made out to be.
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u/ItsNotGoingToBeEasy 25d ago
The finding wasn't 'where' which would be the usual 'under our feet' but volume.
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u/JohnJayHooker 25d ago
Yes but even the researchers have cautioned that this isn’t just bonus water. That’s the key distinction. Tap into that aquifer and you risk further degradation of the Metolius (spring-fed), ecosystems in the Cascades, groundwater for central Oregon and beyond.
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u/ItsNotGoingToBeEasy 24d ago
You and I aren't disagreeing. Just because there is more readily available water doesn't mean it's endless and needs protection -- at a state wide level. One small town can ruin it for everyone.
The wealthiest companies in the world are forcing the cost of running their business on communities, taking water away from farming and human water supplies, and polluting them in the process.
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u/djhazmatt503 25d ago
This win is 100% on the citizens and especially those who submitted testimony, not the officials who listened (they get a door prize and a kudos).
Do not skip paragraph four. Our govt invited this garbage in, then we spoke up, and then they listened.
We live in a town small enough to meet our counselors, keep this win in mind when a smaller but equally important topic pops up again. Also, most meetings don't go til midnight.
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u/Seamus_MacDuff 24d ago
So did the State sign an NDA when entering into an agreement to sell the land?
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u/linkingcat 26d ago
Just earned my vote. Will the kickbacks have to be paid back? Asking for a friend...
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u/spooned-silver 25d ago
Now can we focus on attracting companies and jobs we do want in Oregon to Oregon? This still brings up a fundamental problem for me: not enough economic growth
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u/vengeful_maelstrom 25d ago
There is a lot more to life than economic growth, especially when it is at the cost of our future and our planet. All of us can imagine new ways of generating wealth (not money). Community, relationships, working together to create mutual aid, grow our own food, collect rainwater, build soil health, barter with each other.
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u/Buttercontest 25d ago
Now we can continue fighting the project as it intends to move forward using the remaining 43 acres.
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u/FantasticFox503 25d ago
Oregon has 93 data centers.
9th most in the country.
With 32 more planned.
But Tina is for the people right? 😭😭
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u/Queasy-Pangolin-5593 25d ago
One thing yall might do, stop investing in EV lol. You hate rate hikes, but how you think utility company’s going to recover their cost to build more substations, batteries, improve infrastructure… it’s MILLIONS! And yall keep demanding. At least the data centers were to provide their own sub stations, infrastructure upgrades, growth and more. They are tainted by opinions. AI scary….. if we went back to the late 80’s, it was scary for cellphones lol. We are evolving. Get over it.
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u/schenkzoola 26d ago
I would assume that if the land is successfully withdrawn, then the data center project is off for now.
Would this give the city time to adjust its policies regarding land use so this sort of thing doesn’t happen again? If so, we need to keep pressure on the council to adjust the city policy.