Hermantown Council Approves Google Data Center After Midnight Vote Despite Fierce Opposition
Hermantown approves controversial Google Data Center during late night meeting
After four hours of public comment and two postponed meetings, the Hermantown City Council unanimously approved agreements for a 1.7 million-square-foot Google data center on over 200 acres near Duluth. Google dropped up to $80 million in tax breaks and cut the project from four buildings to three, but three lawsuits and state approval of a 500-megawatt power deal still loom.
You've changed as little as possible to legally say that you listened. We are angry that our local city council is representing a corporation instead of the citizens that they are supposed to.
- jsnell
Local officials granting tax breaks to data centers are just total morons. There is no polite way to say it. They have these companies over the barrel, any negotiation should be about how much extra money the data center shovels directly to the locals to make them enthusiastic about the DC, not about tax concessions.
But amazingly, they might not be the biggest morons of the story. This data center will make Google billions in profit per year. What beancounter is choosing to jeopardize that for avoiding $3M/year in taxes? How out of touch do you have to be to be to make that call, and why does that person still have a job?
- Dylan16807
Well I guess the question is whether those protestors were representative of the community as a whole. 3 million dollars in tax revenue per year is a pretty good upside.
- JumpCrisscross
We need a framework for permanent funds, modeled on that in Alaska and other petro-economies, where a fixed fraction of revenue from the facility is put into a fund that pays out a cheque to residents.
Maybe if a company complies they get expedited federal review or something.