Elected officials should always strive to provide answers to questions asked by their constituents.
We were reminded of this responsibility after learning that Perry Village government leaders are continuing to provide more responses to inquiries that residents have about a data center that could be built in the community.
Those officials furnished answers to questions that were left in a box at a July 24 town hall meeting focused on the proposed data center, The News-Herald’s Bill DeBus reported.
Additional answers were supplied to questions regarding the data center that were asked at a July 31 Village Council meeting.
Councilwoman Ashley Hacking conducted research and composed answers to all of those inquiries. Hacking said responses are accompanied by Works Cited sections to show the sources of information.
“You don’t want to just hear from me,” Hacking said, during a recent council meeting. “You want to hear from actual experts.”
Answer to these inquiries are being posted in a special Data Center Information section that has added to the village’s website.
Within this section, the village also shared the Power Point presentation from the data center town hall. In addition, there are separate entries about the estimated financial impact that the data center would have within and outside the Perry community.
Many residents have asked questions and expressed concerns to village government leaders about the possibility of a California-based company building a data center campus on the former Champion Farm property.
In 2024, Province Group signed an agreement to purchase the village’s 163-acre portion of the parcel for $8,435,000.
Province, a real estate development and investment company, would own the data center campus and lease space within it to entities that operate computers and servers, said Mark Kerslake, a principal with the company.
The sales agreement between the village and Province has not yet been completed.
Village Council, at its July 31 meeting, voted to repeal a piece of legislation connected to development of the data center.
The ordinance had amended the community’s zoning code to add data center campuses as an industrial district use. In addition, the measure created a new section in the zoning code for regulation of data centers.
It initially was approved by council at a June 12 meeting. Village Solicitor James O’Leary said the purpose of passing that measure was to put parameters around any data center that would go in, regarding items such as building height, lighting, fencing and noise levels.
“So what we’ve done by rescinding that is take the ordinance back to the drawing board, take a look at it and decide how to do we want to approach that zoning, because there are other things we want to add to that and potentially bring back to council,” he said. “There are some other approaches that we could take to put some restrictions on a potential developer.”
Prior to the July 31 meeting, Province Group also withdrew its zoning application for the 163 acres it is hoping to buy from the village. In addition, a public hearing, which would have been held before council’s regular meeting to rezone the property for industrial use, was canceled.
However, even with the ordinance being repealed, Province Group could still build the data center under the village’s current zoning code, if it was granted a conditional use permit, O’Leary said at the July 31 meeting.
Champion Farm is a former horticultural nursery located between Route 20 in Perry Township and Main Street in Perry Village. Sections of the land are owned by the village, Perry Township and the Perry Joint Economic Development District.
Along with the 163 acres situated in the village, Province entered into agreements to buy 30 acres of the Champion Farm from Perry JEDD and 22 acres from the township. All 215 of those acres would comprise the data center campus.
Province’s sales agreements with the township and JEDD also have not been completed.
Since Perry Village owns the largest piece of the Champion Farm property that would go into the data center campus, it’s no surprise that government leaders in the community have been asked so many questions about the project.
Residents sometimes seem frustrated that village government officials can’t always provide immediate answers to their questions about the data center. But to the credit of council members and Mayor James Gessic, they’ve promised residents that they will perform research and provide responses.
Anyone who takes a look at the Data Center Information section of the village’s website can see that the community government’s leaders have worked hard to provide answers to inquiries about a project that has captured the attention of so many residents. It’s a good example of how elected officials should respond when constituents approach them with questions or concerns.