10-07-26 WPT Midweek Moment

Let's start in Wisconsin Rapids, where the city approved a 12-month data center development moratorium on Monday night, joining dozens of other counties and municipalities in Wisconsin, taking a pause on this hot, hot, hot button issue.

The town and its residents... have a data center proposal that would be at the city's old paper mill site.

Now, important clarification, this doesn't shut down the proposal.

First off, the city council could still act on that application at an October 20th meeting, but you gotta assume that isn't gonna happen.

This gives the city some time to work on rules about all the very justifiable concerns about stuff like noise, water, power grid, you name it, so that promises made at listening sessions and in proposals are kept 10 years down the line.

A part of the pushback is that the community wants something that they feel would be more robust at the industrial site where lots of people used to work.

But there is this to consider.

At the GM plant in Janesville, production ended in 2009.

There was always hope it was gonna get reopened or sold or repurposed until it was finally torn down in 2019 and is a vacant lot to this day.

I get the importance of the history and the infrastructure But the paper mill has been dark for over six years and nobody benefits from letting opportunity sit empty because hope and nostalgia can turn into decades in the blink of an eye.

Now, any opportunity, whether it's a mill, a foundry, or a data center, needs to come with answers about what residents are signing up for.

Who pays for the improvements it needs? What happens if the plans change? Who checks the promises and who's responsible when something doesn't work the way it was pitched? Those are questions I'd want answered.

Hopefully, conversations on workable rules have already started because 12 months is gonna fly by and at that point, it's either gonna happen or it's not.

And if the rules of the game aren't straightforward and transparent, we'll be right back where we started.

And I would rather have a win-win than a lose-lose.

Let's start in Wisconsin Rapids, where the city approved a 12-month data center development moratorium on Monday night, joining dozens of other counties and municipalities in Wisconsin, taking a pause on this hot, hot, hot button issue.

The town and its residents... have a data center proposal that would be at the city's old paper mill site.

Now, important clarification, this doesn't shut down the proposal.

First off, the city council could still act on that application at an October 20th meeting, but you gotta assume that isn't gonna happen.

This gives the city some time to work on rules about all the very justifiable concerns about stuff like noise, water, power grid, you name it, so that promises made at listening sessions and in proposals are kept 10 years down the line.

A part of the pushback is that the community wants something that they feel would be more robust at the industrial site where lots of people used to work.

But there is this to consider.

At the GM plant in Janesville, production ended in 2009.

There was always hope it was gonna get reopened or sold or repurposed until it was finally torn down in 2019 and is a vacant lot to this day.

I get the importance of the history and the infrastructure But the paper mill has been dark for over six years and nobody benefits from letting opportunity sit empty because hope and nostalgia can turn into decades in the blink of an eye.

Now, any opportunity, whether it's a mill, a foundry, or a data center, needs to come with answers about what residents are signing up for.

Who pays for the improvements it needs? What happens if the plans change? Who checks the promises and who's responsible when something doesn't work the way it was pitched? Those are questions I'd want answered.

Hopefully, conversations on workable rules have already started because 12 months is gonna fly by and at that point, it's either gonna happen or it's not.

And if the rules of the game aren't straightforward and transparent, we'll be right back where we started.

And I would rather have a win-win than a lose-lose.