Friday mornings here at Scott Sloan on seven hundred WLW, so this week and you're probably gonna spend a lot more time in front of devices than you do during the week right just because you're not working hopefully and you yourself. On average, you have around twenty one devices which are online in various places throughout the day, all of them using data pretty much all the time. And with the AI boom comes a need for more data centers. Thus the debate so here in the Tri State, the
debate over regulations being fought tooth and nail. And if you don't think this affects you, it's probably coming to your area, no matter if you live in the city or in the outlining area especial rural areas Ohio. Right now we're fifth nationally for data center development. We want to be number one. The state. ESUS is an economic machine force to get us on the technology well at the top of the technology map. I guess City of Cincinnati's you may or may not know, it's getting very proactive.
They just put a temporary moratorium on data centers in the city while they do a zoning study. Adams County last night there was another meeting over well, we really don't know. This is probably the most interesting battle over data centers is that adding the controversy over these plants comes a plan here in Adams County that's completely secret because Economic Development director signed a non disclosure agreement and nobody really knows what it's going to be, where it's
going to go, and what it's going to do. Other than that, everything's great. Alex Shaffer's here. Alex is a resident and he's proactive in the process of finding out if this is right for his community, and he's out in Adams County and the Monroe Township and joins the show this morning. Alex, welcome, are you brother having Yeah,
good to have you. So last night there was a meeting and I know basically the bottom line is you're not going to do a more toime like City Cincinnati has, but you're going to make sure there's some strict zoning regulations in place. So it's it's progressing, it's moving forward.
It's progressing, it's moving forward. There's a lot of community input last night, and essentially the role of the trustees now within the township is they are going to work with outside legal counsel to put in the framework for zoning, you know within these industrial areas within the township, because everybody was on the same page where we have to get more information, we have to have more facts and more importantly, we have to know even who these people
are that are wanting to come in and what they're wanting to do.
Yeah, so what raised the red flags for you about these projects and what motive motivated you to get involved?
You know, these sites at Stewart and Killing Station, Killing is in and Roe Township have been empty for roughly eight years since the power plant shut down, and a lot of that has to do with the site cleanup. And those were the economic drivers of our county. And Adams County is such a prideful, beautiful countryside, but those were the economic drivers that really our community was built around. So it is these are general generational issues that we have in our county and we want to make sure
that we're doing the right things. So not only us, but our children and our grandchildren are proud to continue to live and remain in Oudams County.
So this isn't completely going. Hey, we don't want a data center, we don't want any of this stuff stay the hell out of our town.
No, I would say everyone is of the mindset where as I would akin these NDAs too that mister Worley signed is you're essentially agreen to get married before you've even seen who you're going on a date with. So you know, we need to have more facts and we need to know exactly who these companies are. Are they are they you know, companies based in the US, so are they foreign based companies? And you know what exactly the plans are because there's so many different variables that come into play.
And I think that's a critical point because in this particular case, and we'll get into the NDA battle in just a second. And Paul Warley, I believe is the Economic Development director for Adams County, he signed it out with a company. But you guys have no idea on you know, the size and scope of the project, the
exact location. I mean, you could kind of figure that out maybe with EPA records, but if you don't know the company, you don't know even if it's a data center or the type of services they offer before this thing goes in.
So the projects that are being proposed in Spring Township are a little bit further along, specifically at Stewart Side, and there's also Buck Canyon site which is across the road too soon in Row is very much earlier on in the process, which is very fortunate. And so that's precisely it. You know, we we have to have more information on this because there I mean, it's just it's a black hole right now for the county.
Okay. So the Economic Development Director signs this non disclosure agreement with a couple of companies and says, we've got to do this and they'll be transparency if the project gets to a point. So, you know, how do you respond to residents like yourself being asked to wait for details until the deals are newly finalized. What point is it too late for meaningful public input?
I think that starts at the time that you actually signed the NDAs. You know, Paul Whorley executed two NDAs, one in January of twenty twenty four, the other one was in November of this year, and based on my tracing them, it's my opinion that they are linked to Amazon because the framework around the NDAs is the same as what's going on in Mount War right now in Brown County, And you know, to that point, and I had raised this issue in discussions with some of the
commissioners on Monday. Is Paul Worley serves at the pleasure of the Board of Commissioners in Adams County. So how is the Board of Commissioners able to oversee Paul discharging his job duties for the board and thus in the best interest of the county if they cannot even monitor what he is working on. Who is who he is working with on these sites?
Sure, but from the company standpoint at Amazon or whatever it might be, we don't know. At this point. He's
kind of like the conduit. So in these deals, you get a guy like him, an economic development guy, signs a non disclosure agreement with whoever's building this thing, which is kind of standard practice because you know, they want to keep the secret for as long as poss from the competition because there's a lot of proprietary technical information involve But the people who don't sign it would be the the elected lawmakers, right that would be the county
commissioners of Adams County. And so at some point there's going to have to be a you know, disclosure so that you can you can vote on this. So based
on that is this anything? Is this? Is this different than how it's done elsewhere, Not that it makes it right, But you know what I'm saying is like, if this is standard practice, I get why Amazon or whoever is trying to protect their interest here because you know, you don't want all this information out there until you get a deal kind of put together.
The debate on whether NDA is a standard practice or not really dependent on who you ask. I can tell you in certain areas and Columbus, which Columbus has over one hundred data centers right now, is not the most standard practice. And to your point about competition, that is actually what NDAs specifically inhibit. My degree is in economics
from Ohio State University. And when you put an NDA in place, that prohibits you from even looking at other alternatives as to those sites and those developments, thus reducing competition. What happens when you reduce competition, you harm the consumer. Who's the consumer here, the residents of Adams County.
Yeah, and I get the argument, and you guys, you definitely should have a hand in the process here. We don't want government just going out and no, we know what's best and that's it. Doesn't work that way. County officials there will switch to the jobs saying, they said, well, seven hundred seven hundred jobs lost with the power plant
closures there in Adams County. Another five and a half million from a school funding gets pulled out because as they said, look, I've going hey, listen, this is going to help support the tax space here. But as I understand it, data centers are obviously exempt from property taxes because it's commercial. What about the job creation?
So job creation, the studies have shown that you have to have roughly twenty million dollars of capital input costs to create one full time job. So if you have a billion dollar data center development, you are only going to create roughly fifty jobs, Whereas if you look at other industrial usages for that site that actually provide you know, not only additional jobs and infrastructure and increase land value
for the community. You are actually specifically targeting a broader workforce, the technical skill set of the workforce that we have in Adams County. And it's also then benefiting the community for people to work there and also the school districts in terms of the generation of those taxes from the payroll.
Yeah, well, what about the element of what about then this is you know, the trial, love the trades, but there'll be like over a thousand, around one thousand construction jobs for up to five years, and some of those would have to be in place for maintenance because a minute you finished this huge project and to take you three years, you're going to start having to refit some areas that were done three years ago because it's technology
to change as rapidly. So some of the estimates say, you know, maybe one hundred million plus in local wages, one thousand, two thousand workers. Eighty percent of those will be in radius of where you live. Those jobs are nothing to sum your nose ap.
There are nothing good. Some of your knows that, But I think you have to look at the actual data in terms of the payroll. And I've talked about this with David Gifford, the county auditor, who's a good friend of mine. And you know, when people try and say these auxiliary jobs that are created in the permanency of them, the numbers simply do not support that in the payroll records,
and the auditor has that. And I think you also overall, with these data centers and the job creation, you have to look at what's happening in the Greater Columbus area with Intel, where essentially Mike Dwine sold the farm to Intel and we had and the plants were supposed to open last year, and they were all these financial incentives and benchmarks that were supposed to be met by them.
They have not might have the option to enforce those agreements last year, and he basically said, no, it's okay. You know, you can do whatever you want here in Ohio. So what would make the situation any different in Appalasha areas and all?
Now? Yeah, But at the same time, you look at it and go, are there industries that are are knocking at the door and trying to get their way into Adams County right now? You know, you mentioned Columbus, Cincinnati, the big cities. A lot of companies want to do business in those areas. It makes a lot of sense for reasons we don't The obvious reasons would be infrastructures are ready in place. But you know, Adams County I
lost jobs, power plants. Is it kind of like you're turning your nose up with a good thing or you're trying to basically avoid a slam dunk here. I mean, I think people see this and go, well, it's Adams County. It's not like and it's not being I'm not being derogatory. It's just like there are in companies that are looking to knock the door down to Adams County at this point. Are there.
No, I would disagree with that. The sites have been looked at for a multiple for a multitude of different sectors over the years. And again, I think it's important for people to remember that once the power plants close, it's not like you can just open up, you know, a new enterprise there the next day. There's so much environmental cleanup the head to be done with King Fisher Partners to come in.
It's a brownfield, yeah, exactly, precisely, yes, yeah, yeah, and but okay, so there's some infrastructure there, but people are you're, well, well, i'd rather build something, you know. At the same time, you know, these data centers take a lot of power, so you know, put two and two together, it's pretty obvious that you want to be near water, which you have, and you want to be near you know, megawats of electricity.
They're easily accessible, correct, And we do have the power grid there in place. And you know, this is something that the Big Ramaswami has discussed about the strain on the power grid right now, and there's currently a House bill in place, House built six forty six sitting in the House Rules Committee in terms of actually setting a thirteen member commission to study these data centers because of the boom of them in Ohio, because of the strain
on our electrical grid. So I I kind of akin it to people as this is, how are we going to continue as a society to supply the power and energy to these data centers because they are not they are they are an energy input. They are they are not an energy export if we do not have facilities in place to actually generate that power for them.
Yeah, I've talked about this a lot of my show Well in the Future. And you know, you're in the tech sector as well, So it's not like you know, your lutte, your scream at the old man, scream at the clouds and saying damn computers go away, right, I mean you lean. We all lean into it. We're all and it's it's such a paradox, right, Alex, because we're all guilty of this. We all have devices. I mean, we're talking, you know, digitally right now, I'm recording you digitally.
It's going into a cloud. And so we're guilty of this ourselves right now. We have no choice but to figure out a way we can all live with us absolutely.
And you know, my company uses you know, cloud servers, and you know, we have to have them as society, and we have to have them also in terms of national intelligence and also being independent from you know, foreign control. And I think we all saw what happened with COVID when manufacturing shut down and the rest of the world look that, you know, Oh my god, look how de pendent we are upon China. So you know, that is definitely,
you know, a great point. And that's the thing I think everyone's standpoint is we are not saying no to data centers overall, but in terms of specifically the locations and the phases in which you possibly would put those in and where you would put those in at is what the biggest concern is with not having any information from these companies.
The number one of the biggest outside of transparency the politics of it, which generally they tend to settle down at some point. What's the biggest concern for residents. Would you say, there Alex Schaeffer and Adam's count over this, I.
Would say specifically where they're proposing it is, you know, the landscape in you know, the southern part of Adams County, the hills and the river and everything is what makes Adams County beautiful. And also, you know, you know, the side effects that you have from the data center's long
term is something that again we don't know about. So if the state is at the process to where they're looking at creating a thirteen member committee to study those effects, then us as Adams County should sit here and look at it and say, Okay, if this is a broader issue at the state and obviously the national level, you know, we don't have the ability as a small community to
fight this later on down the road. So we don't want to make the wrong decision now that we look back ten years and we're like, what did.
We do right? It's hard because you know, you're at the tip of the spirit at this point. There are not many other piers you could look at that have been doing this for you twenty years and see what the long term effects are. You got to make a decision. It's going to impact the next.
Hundred exactly, and you know that's that's honestly the problem in society with a lot of things, whether that's technology or medicine, and you know, we have to continue to evolve and adapt.
Yeah, there are unforeseen consequences that no one can predict. And usually that's the case. We didn't we didn't think of that, or we didn't see that coming. Because while the world is always changing, for sure, so are the next steps here.
So from area township right now they're in the process of obtaining outside legal councils start drafted in the framework for what they want to put in for zoning. Specifically their Sprig Sprig Township has a meeting I believe it is February twenty third, and there there is going to be some more information hopefully that'll come out about at that standpoint. And so overall for the county, the commissioners have promised to have more public input and a more
dedicated special meeting to this. But again I think it's very important to point out, you know, in terms of these developments, the Board of Commissioners has the option and to direct mister Worley to recuse himself from these NDAs, and that prevents these companies moving forward with the speed that they would like and garner that public input and have these representatives come in and talk to the community, talk to us about what their plans are and how
they want to integrate themselves into our county in a way that we're proud of, just like General Electric has done with their jet engine testing facility in.
People makes sense, you think Cincinnata has it right putting the moratory minus.
It did I do? And several other townships and Columbus have done that. Jerome Township, Washington Township, and the City of Dublin have done that. And they have data centers kind of around the perimeter of the City of Dublin. And because you know right now it's an arms race for data centers, it truly is, and that stems from, I believe, you know, a technological arms race with China.
So again, in order for us to properly look at this for our future and look at the side effects of it, and look at where we want to see these things in the landscape of our communities, we have to put the pause button in place. Get more information, get more facts, and surely be able to make candidly a more educated and informed decision.
Alex Schaeffer is a residence in Adams County, and it's certainly one of the more interesting cases because of NDAs and land and not knowing what really is going to go and who even owns the data center for that point. But it's a great example to look at for the rest of us because Alex, as a resident, is getting involved. He's being proactive in the process of finding out if it's right for his community and where he lives and breathes,
heats and works. And that's a battle. You hearing this's going well, that's Adams County, but guess what it's happening in Cinci. It's going to happen in not only the city, but it's going to happen in maybe suburban areas, but particularly rural areas, Butler County, Mount Orb. The list goes on and on and on. So it's a battle we're all going to have to face, or an issue we're going to have to face, I guess and figure out
how to to what the best practice is. It's not going away, We're going to have to put them somewhere. How do we coexist, I guess is a question. It's a great case, Alex. We'll talk again in the future, I'm sure. Man. Thanks for coming on in shedding some light on this issue.
Absolutely, And Scott, you know on behalf of the people of Adams County. Thank you for having me on to allow us to raise our voice on your platform into the greater Tri State area. We are truly and greatly appreciative of all.
I appreciate you, brother, and again we'll talk soon. Thanks again, Thanks Scott. All right, there you go, Alex Schaeffer on the show. Yeah, you hear that, you go. It doesn't really, it doesn't concern it, does it concerned? We're the ones doing it right. We use all this stuff as far as information goes in data. We're using it right now, you're using it right now. We're all using it. We have no choice. This is it's what it is. It's
the future too. So can we lean and make money and make Ohio a more vibrant and improve our economy because of Intel, because of AWS et cetera, et cetera. But we also have to live where these plans are too. So watching these guys, I think it's a great test case for all of us. If you will anyway, we'll continue to follow that. Scott's Loan Show continues seven hundred WLW