**[0:00] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Good evening. We'll call the meeting to order and stand for the pledge of allegiance. **[0:27] Alissa McClure (City Clerk):** Roll call, please. Councilor Geissler. Here. Councilor Hjelle. Here. Councilor LeBlanc. Here. Councilor Peterson. Here. Mayor Boucher. Here. **[0:35] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Uh, do any councilors have announcements this evening to make? **[0:40] City Councilors:** Not tonight. None. **[0:43] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** We'll move on. Uh, communications are placed on file. Mr. Mulder, could you give us a short synopsis of the Northstar Ford closeout presentation? **[0:55] John Mulder (City Administrator):** Uh, Matt Berglund from Kraus-Anderson Construction was here tonight uh, to talk a little bit about um, the resolutions that have a change order in negative number and the last um, um, pay application that's on the agenda, but also talked specifically about um, their work is now done at the arena. There are a number of punch list items, maybe about um, less than a half dozen. Two of them uh, significant. They're going to redo some panels on the front end of the um, um, lobby of the arena and they also need to uh, um, do a final install or startup of one of the compressors. Um, but otherwise there's a few punch list items, they'll finish those through the warranty and then they'll do a warranty walk through at the end of end of this year. But um, basically it's been a good project. Um, he reported that everything he thought everything had gone well. **[1:51] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. Uh, next we have a presentation on the Adolph utility extension economic impact analysis. Mr. Chad Ronchetti. **[2:06] Chad Ronchetti (Economic Development Director):** Uh, Mayor Boucher, Council, thank you for the opportunity to present here this evening uh, yet again. Um, so tonight we're going to discuss uh, an economic impact study that that we did uh, looking at the extension of utilities uh, to the Adolph area, the southwest corner of Hermantown. Uh, we partnered with APEX, the Area Partnership for Economic Expansion to conduct this uh, conduct this study. Uh, and what we were trying to do was quantify uh, apart from Project Loon or apart from any data center project. So, uh, this study does not look at the impacts of a data center project, it only looks at the five scenarios that were studied. Uh, and we wanted to uh, quantify the potential uh, for economic impacts uh, if the city had water and sewer services, city services extended to the southwest corner. Uh, and if it were activated as a as a business and light manufacturing district. To understand this uh, and to do this, we reached out to the Bureau of uh, Business and Economic Research at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Um, the BBER as they're easily referred to. Uh, we're actually really fortunate to have a nationally recognized uh, economic analysis partner such as BBER uh, here locally. Um, they are extremely well respected nationwide uh, and recognized as a very unbiased organization. Uh, and their role is to collect, analyze and disseminate economic information along with some other things uh, and they're also often sought out for comment by media uh, when it comes to um, economic current events uh, across the country. Uh, and we're lucky enough to have them housed uh, right here uh, in our backyard. So, what did we ask them to do? Uh, well, what we tasked them with, the project scope was to look at five projects where companies had previously evaluated our region uh, but were unable to find a site that met their needs. So, these these are five different scenarios where companies actually wanted to come and be a part of this region and or expand in this region uh, but weren't able to find uh, what they needed in terms of site assets. Um and um, uh, these three scenarios ranged from high-tech industrial uh, the the uh, manufacturing of heavy manufacturing or sorry, of heavy machinery uh, and then regional logistics and wood production uh, wood product production. Uh, all of these could feasibly occupy the district if utilities were extended down to the area. So, then the study area, uh, we didn't want to focus on just Hermantown, we wanted to look at the county uh, as a whole um, as as a regional study. Uh, and so it it study quantifies the economic effects that would result from uh, developing the area, but again focused on the entire county rather than just Hermantown. It also focused on new development uh, versus the current stuff and how the new development would impact regionally with the primary focus being on long-term ongoing operational impact uh, across the county. Of course, every project, especially ones of the scale that were looked at in these scenarios, generates uh, construction activity and construction impact, but we set those aside for the purpose of this study and only looked at uh, the economic impact that would happen when they were up and running and and cooking along. Uh, so before we jump into the meat and potatoes, uh, wanted to give kind of a high level or give a overview of the definitions uh, because there's always jargon associated with this kind of thing and I thought maybe giving some definitions might help folks uh, digest what I'm presenting. Uh, starting with an IMPLAN study, uh, basically BBER uses some software that uh, models industry and consumer spending and the the ripple effects of that. So, once they're up and running, they run some iterations of uh, of annual impact uh, in order to model it out. Um, and the things that they come up with uh, are typically direct effects, indirect effects, induced effects and total effects along with multiplier and value add. Um, again, these are focused on uh, the operational impacts. The direct effects, you can think of that as the company's uh, annual spend, what they have on wages, what they go and they spend on paper, what they uh, you know, spend on attorneys, uh, on marketing firms, those kinds of things. It's the direct spend from the from the company or the industry itself. The indirect effects uh, are the goods and services that are purchased by the uh, by the industries that get money from the industry. Uh, so when a company starts an operation, they spend money say at the attorney. The attorney then gets some money from the industry and then what does the attorney do with the money that they got from the industry? What they do with that money creates the indirect effects within an economy. Uh, the induced effects are come from the household spending. So, I come to work every day, I get a paycheck, thank goodness. Uh, and then what do I do with my paycheck? I go and I buy batteries, right? I buy books uh, at uh, at a bookstore. Uh, so the induced effects are how employees spend their wages throughout the economy. The total effects, simple enough, is just the sum of all those of all those indirect uh, direct and induced in fact effects. And then a multiplier uh, is how much additional spending or jobs uh, is generated throughout the study after each dollar or job created. So if uh, for ease of comparison, if a company comes and they they create one job in the economy, uh, they have a multiplier of two, that means one additional job is created in the economy. So, one job to one job, that's at a two at a multiplier of two. Uh, it goes the same for spending. And then the value add, you can think about that as like the local GDP, gross domestic product. Uh, what what is the the industry's contribution locally to the economy in terms of wages, rents, interest, all those things. Uh, it's the GDP created locally from those projects. So, uh, throughout the presentation, I've also set these on the side so you can reference them as we move forward. Uh, the five scenarios we were we selected uh, had the primary objective of uh, being sample developments that would align with uh, industrial manufacturing and warehousing and logistics. Uh, and then we used opportunities uh, that had previously come to the region. I think that's an important note. We didn't make these scenarios up. Uh, these were real life opportunities uh, presented to the region and we uh, we worked with APEX uh, and had uh, uh, where they had had site selectors come to them for opportunities or through the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development uh, and opportunities uh, brought to us through the state. Um, again, each of these are real um, and uh, uh, though they passed on the region, each of these did because they didn't have the assets necessary uh, for the sites that they were searching for, whether it was large enough in acreage, power availability uh, in substantial enough form, rail access, water and sewer, etc. Uh, and the thing to highlight here is the study really showcases how extending in water uh, how extending water and sewer uh, and utilities to southwest Hermantown uh, creates development sites uh, that the region really has a short of shortage of. I've been doing this uh, for quite a while now and one thing that really uh, holds us back in terms of site selection uh, and industry attraction is having sites uh large enough um that are not super complicated bedrock or wetland uh in their entirety uh to make it attractive. So, what scenarios did we study? Uh first was a regional fulfillment center, uh logistics center. This was a mid-sized one, so we didn't go big, we didn't go small. Uh scenario two is advanced specialty material manufacturing. So, this is high-tech industrial. These are the industrial facilities of today, uh not the dirty ones from the 1800s. Um scenario three is heavy machinery and equipment manufacturing. So, uh the big heavy earth-moving stuff uh that these are where they actually put them together and build them. Um scenario four, specialized manufacturing and distribution. So, this is uh like a like think an Epicurean, something where they produce a specialty wood product, uh prefabricated, and then uh distribute it from there. Scenario five, reconstituted wood product manufacturing. So, think trim and siding, uh where they it's wood-based construction materials. Uh I'll give examples as I go through uh of comparable uh names you might recognize uh so that it gives you a frame of reference. So uh into the depth of it, the study scenarios. I'll walk through each one. Uh as I do that, I'll talk about uh what the what the scenario was based on, a comparable uh name that you might recognize, uh the workforce that it might employ, uh and then I'll also the table in the lower left corner. I'll point mainly to the employment numbers and to the economic output as a whole. Of course, all these things are important, but those high-level numbers are what typically get talked about in the industry. So, scenario one is a regional fulfillment and logistics center. So, this is would be like a regional uh Target or Walmart distribution center, uh or it could be like a third-party logistics like a Solvay Transport. Uh it's not one of the mammoth uh fulfillment centers that uh you often see uh highlighted uh for the Amazon projects. This is a a mid-sized one. Um this scenario uh this scenario had a obviously has a need for a well-connected transportation network uh for its distribution uh purposes. Um so, being able to have uh easy accessibility to East and West Range, uh connection to I-35 for distribution nationally. Um uh that was the that was the key asset uh in Southwest Minnesota that drove the selection of this one. Uh the hiring, uh not a ton of jobs on this one, but again, it's not a large uh distribution center either at 215 jobs. Uh the multiplier is relatively low at about 1 and a quarter. Uh so, for every one job they create, another quarter job is created in the rest of the economy. Total output, $18 million um directly, and then the total effect overall is about $30 million. So, about twice as much, or 1 and 1/2 times as much. Scenario two, uh advanced specialty material manufacturing. This is think about suppliers to a Cirrus, right? Uh uh fiberglass type producer, or even a Boeing if if uh we were to think bigger. Uh no offense to Cirrus, of course. Uh but it even could be a specialized solar panel manufacturer, somebody that uh uses advanced manufacturing techniques like precision engineering or uh metallurgy or something like that. Uh the type of workforce workforce that comes along with that, specialized engineers technicians precision operators. Uh and then this would also likely be a regional exporter. So, uh it's always nice to have an exporter uh versus importing everything all the time. The the money works differently in the economy. Uh direct Oh, that the reason uh the assets that a facility like this would need would be a significant power supply. Uh when you think about metallurgy or or uh advanced tech, they tend to have large power demands. Um and a project like this uh or a a site like that close to a substation uh reduces the impacts from transmission related to uh related to electrical users. Uh impacts both financial to the project, but also the environmental cuz there's impacts with with transmission of electricity there as well. Uh direct effect was 180 jobs um and scaling up to about 277 in the total economy. Uh economic output in total was just shy of 60 million uh directly, and then another and then $80 million in total effect uh throughout the whole economy. Scenario three, uh heavy manufac- heavy machinery and equipment manufacturing. So, think like a John Deere, uh an ASV, uh maybe a little bigger than an ASV, but earthmovers, um you know, bulldozers, backhoes, those kinds of things. Uh they would employ largely uh skilled labor in fabrication, assembly, industrial engineering type. Uh the driver for the area uh and the selection was it requires quite a bit of space, um upwards of 130 acres or so, both for the facility, but also for equipment testing. Um once they're built, they got to take them out and test them. Uh the direct effect was 80 jobs uh with 180 in total. That's on the high end, 2.2 for a multiplier for the jobs. Uh direct economic output was $60 million uh and just over $80 million in total effect uh across the entire study area of St. Louis County. Scenario four, specialized manufacturing and distribution. So, think Cedar and Stone, um manufacturers of saunas, pre-prefabricated buildings. Um and uh things like that. Maybe an Epicurean. Uh folks that would be uh employed in an industry like this would be supply chain management um skilled woodworkers, craft folks, uh assemblers, logistics coordinators uh coordinators, excuse me. Um the driver on this one uh was another industry that really needs transportation connections. Uh they're importing wood, uh they're manufacturing materials, and then they're exporting them out. So, uh good connections is a is a major consideration on their site selection. Uh and they also need a lot of space because they need a lot of material laydown. Uh both for the raw materials going in, but also for the completed products. Uh direct effect from a project like this uh in terms of employment was 190 jobs uh ramping up to 328 for total effect on jobs. Um that's a that's a pretty strong uh pretty strong multiplier. The output direct effect, uh about $75 million or so, uh and then a total effect of 105. Uh so, just over $100 million in economic impact. And finally, scenario five, reconstituted wood product manufacturing. So, think uh Louisiana Pacific, the the manufacturer of SmartBoard siding, uh trim, uh any kind of engineered wood. Um this would hire folks uh you know, this would not only employ folks uh I think the key on this one is that it doesn't just hire folks at the uh at the facility itself, but it also has uh good supply chain ram- supply chain ram- ramifications uh across St. Louis County. For St. Louis County, logging um and trucking are really important for us uh given our uh wood resources. Uh and uh this would have this would have ripple effects uh through key industries across the county. Uh the major driver for this one was access to class one rail. Uh they ship a lot of their products uh by rail, uh uh but also the proximity to power and having those two co-located uh is extremely competitive. Um same as advanced tech uh on the on the power side. So, uh having them together uh would be really attractive. Employment, uh direct effect is 205 jobs with a a good multiplier of 2.21, making a total of 451 jobs throughout the entire county. Uh economic impa- the economic direct effect was really strong, $240 million a year. With the total effect being $300 million a year. So, a low multiplier, but a really big direct effect to the start. So, all the all told, uh in aggregate, um be about 1,500 jobs in total and about $600 million a year in economic impact uh from being able to attract five these these specific five scenarios. Uh just for comparison, cuz we can hear these numbers thrown around and uh they get kind of jumbled in my head. I don't know about anybody else. Uh so, having having a comparison, I think is really important. Uh and so, we talked to the folks over at BBER, uh and they thought that UMD was was a good comparative. Um the employment at UMD is quite a bit higher than this. So, in in total, the employment at UMD, uh they it's about 3,000 jobs throughout our economy, which is really high. Uh but their economic uh impact, or sorry, their economic output was about $435 million uh versus this, which is $600 million. Uh the impact of having these five scenarios realized uh was greater than the impact of UMD in total. Uh and also the thing I'll say is that uh the direct spend by UMD, that direct uh direct effect was $260 million uh versus the direct effect of these five scenarios at $450 million. Uh so, these are really significant uh and big numbers. Uh the thing to say on this slide is it's important when we look at the map to think about uh the co-location of all these assets. We got Class 1 rail, we got power infrastructure, we've got connectivity via transportation. Uh the only thing that's missing is the water and sewer. So, the point of this presentation was to really uh showcase uh the meaningful economic opportunity that could benefit the entire region uh by creating a BLM district that was served by municipal utilities. So, that's the end. Uh UMD will host this uh study on their website on a persistent link. Um you can log on, you can you can download it yourself, you can dive deeper if you want to look at the tax implications, for example. Uh so, uh there's a lot to this report. I think it's a I think uh um it'll take a lot to uh digest, at least it did for me. So, uh I would encourage you to log on and and have a read. Uh of course, I'll take any questions if there are any. **[20:56] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Any questions from council? **[20:58] Councilor John Geissler:** Um for me, just uh this link will be hosted on the UMD site, but we'll have a link to it on our site specific to this report, correct? **[21:05] Chad Ronchetti:** Mayor Boucher, Councilor, that's correct. We'll host a link on the—so, hermantownmn.com/project is where you'll find all of the project information for Project Loon. This isn't directly related, but it does show that if the pipe existed, it would uh open up economic opportunity beyond that project. **[21:34] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions from council? Next, we will move to general public um comment and discussion. Mr. Graves, do you have the list? Is this the only list? Okay. Okay, the first person who has signed up for public comment is Tom Bates. Could you step forward and state your name and address? **[22:13] Tom Bates:** My name is Tom Bates. I live at 5369 Morris Thomas Road, Hermantown, Minnesota, 55811. Um today I you know, I don't know if you guys have thought about the hum from this this big data center. But if you've seen any videos, people that live around these data centers all are going like this [gestures]. Really, they put mattresses up over their windows and they try and cut it out but it's a it's a thing. It's a thing and and we should we should consider it because Okay, if you if you look at if you think about Hermantown, you got the data center here, and then you got the rest of Hermantown, and anything within 5 miles of that data center is going to be impacted by the hum from their big fans. Now, let me I'll just read this to you and you'll get it. You will get it. Um the higher frequencies can be filtered out, but the low end the lower hum is impossible to stop, well, near impossible. The study is found easily on YouTube by American Universities. Braxton Warren said that data centers can produce very very low frequencies, primarily below 200 hertz. You cannot block the—both the way you can other sounds. The trees they're planning for the sound buffer won't help here at all. They just it's it's too low a frequency. The fans and the chillers taken individually wouldn't be much of an issue. Um but individually, but the buildings will have 40 chillers each and many giant fans on each side of the building, plus the hum of their transformers. Uh Now, and think about this, there's the transformer sound and the fan over the top of that transformer when it gets hot, so it's quite a deal. Think of a big Harley Davidson driving by your home, you know, Now, now think about um 100 Hells Angels riding three abreast driving past your home. The windows vibrate, the house vibrates, the ground even seems to vibrate. Um now consider an orchestra, one violin, okay, playing a solo, not real loud, and another one joins in, and then the cellos, and then the bass, 36 and then pretty soon it's the whole orchestra, and a whole orchestra can get to be pretty loud, right? You guys ever been to an orchestra concert? I mean, boy, oh boy. That's the whole thing. Once you take a whole data center, just one building, into account, those all those fans, all those chillers, all that transformers, can get to be pretty loud cuz it all adds up. It all stacks one on another. **[25:23] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** 3 minutes, Tom. **[25:25] Tom Bates:** huh? Oh what? I'm at 3 minutes? Does anybody want to give me some time? No? I'll go up. Yeah. To to do that, you have to sign up. So, it's the same with the data center. It's cumulative, compounding the sound of 40 chillers, um the many giant wall fans, transformer cooling fans, plus the hum of the transformers. It's a lot of sound. I want you to think it's a lot of sound. Um and it's impossible to mitigate. It's impossible to live with if you live within a couple miles of this data center. On a quiet night, you'll hear it out to 5 miles. Who lives Who Who Who do you know that lives within 5 miles of that data center? A lot of Hermantown is within 5 miles of that data center. There's the problem. There's the problem. Um there's research coming out that that the low frequency sound is harm harmful to people. I'll summarize here. First of all, it disturbs our sleep. We seem to acclimate to sounds like the occasional car, truck, the train passing, the dog barking, but a constant multi-level low frequency hum cannot be acclimatized. Um because the hum keeps our body on a constant low-level alert, our sleep is disrupted and we have a growing sense of fatigue. That's documented. That low-level multi-frequency hum and infrasound, okay, even lower, brings on hypertension, heart disease, and increased stress hormones, and I'm not blowing smoke. You can find I I'm going to go home and and and uh what do you call document this more and more and more from government websites. Some of them. Okay? This isn't smoke. The data center will also have giant diesel generators. If they want a truly fail-safe system, this is going to blow your mind. They'll need perhaps 113 of these giant gen sets per building. 113 per building. Each gen set produces between 100 and 130 DBs per unit. You'll hear it in downtown Hermantown when they run their monthly maintenance checks. That's just for one building and they're planning for four buildings. I want you to really really think about this. I know you want to uh the the whole idea of having an industrial corner of Hermantown is probably a really great thing. I don't know if it's a data center. **[28:24] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** 30 seconds, Tom. **[28:26] Tom Bates:** I don't know if it's a data center. There's drawbacks with data centers that don't happen with the other what, four or five industries that you've got planned, and there's better industries to pull into that space. Now that you got it all set up. Okay? I'm done. I'm sorry it took so long. I really am. I'm sorry I whooped your paper off of your head. **[28:47] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Okay, guys, think sleep on it. Okay. Susan Anderson is next. Name and address, please. **[29:01] Susan Anderson:** My name is Susan Anderson. I live at 3959 Old Midway Road in Hermantown. Mayor and councilors, I'm here to speak against the hyperscale AI data center that's proposed to be built on a lovely property in the southwest corner of our city. I'm assuming you've all driven around the block there or walked the land, so you know um how beautiful this section is and that you've seen it before we lose it forever. It'll lose its real character. Over the past several months, we've heard from a couple of speakers who stressed how Minnesota has some of the best environmental protections and regulations in the nation, so we shouldn't worry about having this data center in our community. Well, I'm kind of worried. I would like to point out to you Northshore Mining in Silver Bay, Minnesota fined $19,000 recently for repeated violations of its wastewater permit from 2023 to 2025. As I was reading articles on Northshore Mining, following was an article on a rendering facility in Long Prairie, Minnesota fined 3 million for air quality violation between 2023 and 2024. I'm sure I could have found more articles if I had the desire or the time to do this. Now, they're not data centers, but they are companies that are supposed to follow Minnesota's high environmental standards, and they chose to ignore them. To me, a huge problem issue with this is the pollution that went on for 2 to 3 years before it was stopped. Even 1 year's of pollution would be a lot. My question to you, if built, would Hermantown's data center be monitored regularly and effectively to confirm that it's within environmental compliance? If it's only monitored once a year, we could have one full year of pollution before it's even noticed or turned in. In Minnesota, we may have the highest environmental standards, but they are only as good as the honesty and integrity of Google and its employees. Thank you for your time. **[31:30] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. Order, please. Next is Dawn LaPointe. Dawn has 3 minutes also from Jackie Dolans. **[31:40] Dawn LaPointe:** Good evening. I should have worn green tonight because I'm increasingly feeling— **[31:49] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Name and address, please. **[31:51] Dawn LaPointe:** No worries. I'm so eager. My name is Dawn LaPointe, 4731 Portland Road in Hermantown. I should have worn green tonight because I'm increasingly feeling something unfamiliar in my life, envy. I'm envious of the state of Maine. I'm envious of Eagan, Carver, and New Brighton Minnesota. More than 50 towns and counties have enacted temporary moratoriums on new data center projects across at least 14 states. At least 10 of those counties are just in Indiana. With many similar proposals awaiting votes, those numbers will continue to grow. Now, before anyone gets their hackles up at hearing the word moratorium, according to the Oxford Dictionary, a moratorium is simply a temporary prohibition of an activity. That's it. It's not a ban, although we could discuss that option, too. Those governing bodies are wise to recognize the need for a pause on data centers while they do much-needed due diligence. A pause allows them to study the many impacts of data centers on communities, the environment, and the use of resources. A pause allows them to put appropriate ordinances, zoning, and regulations in place to protect their communities. During the pause, they can determine whether it would be appropriate to place a hyperscale data center in a rural residential area. Spoiler alert, it is not. A growing number of municipalities, counties, and states across the United States are passing moratoriums on new data centers because it's the responsible step for any governmental body to do, and the sooner the better. I'm happy for those communities, but I'm also envious. Why are their values and priorities different? Why doesn't Hermantown, the city of quality living, acknowledge the need and benefit of a pause here? Some at the state level don't believe that the state should be intervening at the county or local levels. Perhaps some at the city and county levels are waiting for the state to act. Meanwhile, nobody is acting. You're putting us all at risk, including your family and friends. Will you please muster your courage and integrity and propose a 1- or 2-year moratorium on hyperscale data centers in Hermantown? Some of you have commented that until this project came to light, you didn't really know what a data center was. Well, neither did our ordinances, rules, and regulations. You're tasked with making impactful decisions that, if you approve, are likely to be to the detriment of our whole community and surrounding neighbors. A moratorium would give you much-needed time to learn important facts before moving forward with this project, not whatever filtered talking points and fuzzy math Google and BlackRock think it will take to get your approval, real facts. Given the weight of these upcoming decisions, I hope you're all spending at least as much time and energy researching facts as all of us are. Don't take it personally, but there are so many other ways we would rather be spending our time than attending all the city meetings, reading AUARs, and doing endless hours of research in our precious free time. We'd much rather enjoy quality time with family and friends, hobbies, or just resting. I'm pleased about the action that the St. Louis County Board Commission took on April 14th. Although one commissioner recognized that the proposed amendments to zoning ordinance 62 were inadequate, they did not approve them, and they sent them back to the planning commission for further work. That was the responsible thing to do. They did not get hung up on the sunk cost fallacy of the time and effort that had been put into the proposed amendments. They listened to the constituents' concerns in public comments. If anyone's unfamiliar with the the phrase, a sunk cost fallacy is the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial. Everything that comes to the city council doesn't have to be a yes. Sometimes it's appropriate to say no to proposals. It's even okay to say no to a project that staff have been working on, regardless to their attachment to it, how much time, energy, and money have already been put into it. Reject the sunk cost fallacy. Stand up for Hermantown. It's your duty to listen to your constituents and act in the best interest of the community. You don't have to play Minnesota nice to gazillion-dollar predatory companies that have no stake in our region other than exploiting it for their gain. They must see Hermantown as easy prey. In case you haven't noticed yet, our community refuses to be preyed upon. Stand up for Hermantown. Stop digging the hole deeper just because you've already invested in a shovel. Thank you. **[36:45] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. Next is Tim Resberg. Name and address, please. **[36:59] Tim Resberg:** Name's Tim Resberg, 3646 Midway Road, Hermantown. Uh, it's too bad that uh Chad took off. He talked about a utility extension in Adolph. I'd be nice to know where it's coming from. Is it going up strictly for the new substation and for the new data center? And the last that some of us have heard is that if this new line comes in for the sewage and water, that the data center would pay for it to be put in, and then the taxpayers of Hermantown are going to have to pay to maintain it, pumps pipe water everything. And uh it would have been able to tell tell us about the utility extension, talking about the water and the sewage and that. The people ahead of me were talking about the noise from these places with the transformers and that, and I've worked on them high-voltage transformers and that, and they are loud. And it's very hard to keep the noise down from them. And within a good 5-mile area, you're going to be able to hear—some people are going to be able to hear this. And then plus with this data center going in, with the pollution it's going to create and the runoff, it's going to drop the value of taxpayers' property, of their homes and that in the surrounding areas, and you guys have never brought that up before. And then also with that noise and that light pollution and that, when they're going to put these buildings up, that bedrock is only down 16 ft or so. Now, what about they might have to be blasting to get the footings and that down for these buildings that are going to be 50 ft or more, and the other buildings and that, what's going to happen when this blasting and all this drilling is going to do to the surrounding people's wells and their foundations on their houses? **[39:35] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** 30 seconds, Tim. **[39:39] Tim Resberg:** Who's going to be responsible to help help the taxpayers out with that? Think about that for a while for your taxpayer people that are in your community members. Thank you. **[39:56] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. And next is Jonathan Thornton. Name and address, please. **[40:11] Jonathan Thornton:** Mayor and councilors, my name is Jonathan Thornton, 5869 Hermantown Road. It's been a bit since I've talked in front of you, gentlemen. Um believe it or not, this is kind of stressful for me. I'm not sure why. Maybe the emotions from uh living in this city for most of my life and my parents being here for nearly 60 years so I think that's where it's coming from, but um regarding the Adolph development economic impact study that we heard earlier tonight by Mr. Ronchetti, and I I have to repeat what uh Mr. Resberg just pointed out is the fact that every time I come up here and speak, which is very not very frequent, uh Mr. Ronchetti seems to leave. It's actually quite frustrating as a constituent that that happens often. Uh just want to point out that the word neighborhood was never mentioned. Not once, not once was it mentioned in his presentation. The word neighborhood was never mentioned. Believe it or not, there is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of Hermantown. There is. There's a lot of people in that neighborhood that put in thousands and thousands of hours of volunteer work to fight this battle, okay? As a Hermantown resident, we expect that you look out for the best interests of us, the constituents, not the interests of trillion-dollar companies. That's an expectation for myself and for my neighbors. The 2045 comprehensive plan is mentioned many times throughout—I'm switching gears now to an AUAR scoping document topic now. Uh the 2045 comprehensive plan is mentioned multiple times throughout this new AUAR scoping document, multiple times. I'd like to remind the five of you. I'm talking to the five of you, by the way. Not to the city staff, to the five of you. I would like to remind you that the 2045 comprehensive plan steering committee met for 18 months, from '22 to '24. The future urban services area that was mentioned again tonight in the southwest corner of Hermantown was never mentioned during the steering committee meetings that I attended, and I attended every single one of them. It was never mentioned. I would like to highlight a few questions that came up during the pre-agenda meeting tonight. And that is that Councilor Geissler asked the question, "Why does the new AUAR appear to be authored by the city of Hermantown and not the consultant?" It's a very good question. Actually, Mr. LeBlanc also asked the same question. "Why was it authored by the city of Hermantown and not the consultant?" **[42:55] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** 30 seconds, Jonathan. **[42:57] Jonathan Thornton:** Uh Councilor Geissler also asked, "Why was the data center not mentioned as one of your five scenarios in this study that was just done?" It's a very good question, Mr. Geissler. So, I have I have my own ideas of this, okay? My ideas are it's part of a pattern of behavior by the city staff by not including the data center as one of those five scenarios. You are again trying to mislead your constituents. It's happening every day. It just happened 5 minutes ago. He lied specifically and he said that it had nothing to do— **[43:25] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** 3 minutes, Mr. Thornton. **[43:35] Jonathan Thornton:** —with the data center, and it does. Thank you. This is a pattern of behavior by the city staff. I'm talking to the five of you. This is a pattern of behavior by the city staff by not including the data center as one of the five scenarios in this study is once again trying to mislead your constituents. Very clear to me and very clear to my neighbors. When you consistently use the 2045 comprehensive plan as your basis for all of the new planning that you're doing in the southwest corner of Hermantown, you are again misleading your constituents. The future urban services area was never discussed and did not come from the community discussions, period. Today, April 20th, 2026, would be a really good day for the city of Hermantown to stop misleading your constituents. **[44:20] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. And next we have Owen Lyons. Name and address, please. **[44:48] Owen Lyons:** I'm Owen Lyons, 5143 West Arrowhead Road. Um the city of quality living, it's going away. This industrial site I hear about, water sewer an industrial site or manufacturing, you need storm sewer. You're relying on ponds, experimental ponds, that are supposedly have filters. What do they filter? What chemicals will they filter? Are they on alarms? This site, I used to build these buildings here. For instance, battery backup, there's transfer switches, power goes out, transfers to battery, and goes to generators. There's so much chemicals involved with all this. You have antifreeze, acid. Put it this way, the battery racks in each one of them buildings, they'll be five, six batteries banks high. There's so much power that that building will need that if power goes out, goes battery, transfers to generators. Generators have diesel fuel, antifreeze, the chillers, the closed-loop system has antifreeze. Um they're going to this runoff is going into a pond with filters. What chemicals, what contaminants do those filters take out of these people's water in that area, Midway, Solway? I have grandkids that live right there. If for some reason you okay the building of this, the city of Hermantown should be legally liable. So, you might want to take this into consideration. Corporates, never trust corporate. Never. They will burn you, turn around, and change your name. Thank you. **[47:09] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. Thank you. Next is Sarah Lofald. Name and address, please. **[47:26] Sarah Lofald:** Uh my name is Sarah Lofald and I live at 5502 Hermantown Road. Uh and I'm going to apologize in advance cuz I might be a little spicy tonight. Uh at the last meeting I spoke about the ambiguity around the last AUAR and all of the other ordinances and zoning rules that were changed to fit the proposed data center, uh all of which were covertly manipulated by city staff at the behest of the developer to look innocuous, just regular updating of language to fit the changing times. All of which were clouded with catchphrases like economic growth and progress and expanding the tax base. All of which were passed with zero public comment until the media, not our own elected officials, revealed it to the public, at which point public comment became immediately and undoubtedly apparent, only for those ordinances and zoning rules to be passed unanimously, while the council assured concerned citizens they were definitely not approving a data center. In January 2025, a resident emailed Eric Johnson and Mayor Wayne Boucher to directly ask if the company requesting to purchase his land was going to build a data center. The response from the city only mentioned the wetland delineation, and despite being told it would be a data center in September 2024, Mayor Boucher suggested the response not include recommending the resident reach out to Chris Bates, the development manager at Mortenson, the developer for the data center. In April 2025, another resident spoke at a city council meeting to directly ask what the project across from his home would be. For 11 minutes, he directly asks multiple times if the council knows anything about a database, only to be rebuffed about the amount of time and told, "There is nothing we can talk about now" by John Mulder, "and we don't have any information about any database thing at this time" by Mayor Boucher. This entire process has been shrouded in deflection, partial truths, and outright lies. In the last City Council meeting, Mayor Boucher made sure to comment that no one on the council has signed an NDA. And while this is technically true, it is concealing the fact that at least two city staff sitting in front of us now— **[50:06] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** 30 seconds, Sarah. **[50:08] Sarah Lofald:** —have signed an NDA. The City of Hermantown emails, letterhead, and website make a bold claim, "Working together to serve and build our community." This process has made me question exactly whom the City of Hermantown is working together with and whom they are serving because it doesn't seem to be the residents of the community. So, I ask again, if the residents of Hermantown show up at a City Council meeting to oppose the development of a massive data center complex by Google, will you listen? **[50:49] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. Next is Emma Rickman. **[51:02] Emma Rickman:** Emma Rickman, 5215 Chris Drive. Uh I'm going to humbly request if anyone has the ability to cede time, I might go over by a smidge. Uh I was not here for the pre-agenda meeting, and I just have to say it is very encouraging to hear Councilor Geissler and Councilor LeBlanc ask questions I was thinking the same while I was listening to uh Mr. Ronchetti's presentation. Uh why is the elephant in the room not part of that particular scenario? Anyway, so I just want to say thank you. Um now on to what I actually want to say. Uh since I first became aware and involved with Google's Project Loon, I have personally dedicated hundreds of hours fighting to stop this project. Like over 100 at this point. Um and I say that with both pride and sorrow. This dedication comes at a cost, a sacrifice, or many small sacrifices over and over and over again. Lost productivity personally and professionally. Our community has been asked to become overnight experts if they have any hopes to being taken seriously because our feelings are not good enough. And even when the facts are presented that relevant studies and information being provided in regards to data centers, regardless of the specifics of this project, it is still not good enough to move the dial. I want to take a moment to say thank you to my neighbors who are here and who are not here, who are taking time to help bring visibility to our cause, our fight. Many of you, too, are sacrificing your valuable time speaking out in opposition to this assault on our city. Combined, we are talking thousands of hours. And when I say I see you, I mean it. Um I walk this road with you. This journey has been draining, daunting, overwhelming, never-ending, a sprint and a marathon all at the same time. I see what it is costing you and us, and ground has not even been broken, and I hope it never will. Our physical and mental health is already being impacted by this hyperscale data center. I have started constantly clenching my jaw from the stress of this, and I now need to get a night guard, which my insurance does not cover, and my appointment continues to be pushed out until June now. So, that is a real anecdotal my experience from this. **[53:30] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** 30 seconds, Emma. **[53:32] Emma Rickman:** Ooh, I'm going to need more time, people. Some things you cannot quantify or even inventory. We all have better things to do with our time. **[53:40] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Mr. Graves says you have another 3 minutes. **[53:48] Emma Rickman:** Thank you. But we are here because it matters and we care regardless of the cost. We are spending countless hours reviewing the AUAR scoping document. Have you read the document yourself yet? Councilors, have you read the document? Will you be submitting comments yourselves? I would hope and expect you would as this project impacts you as residents of Hermantown. I have driven the perimeter of this project several times now, and each time I am almost rendered to tears. I have started writing my friends and neighbors' names on each parcel impacted, including those outside the boundary of Hermantown. We are not a number, we are not a parcel, we are not a zoning district, we are not a future zoning district, we are real people, and we deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. I attended a County Commission meeting last week, which I drove 2 hours round trip to spend 5 hours attending a public hearing on ordinance 62 to wait my turn to speak for 5 minutes in opposition to the proposed amendments and their lack of clarity. I was delighted to see an actual decorum of conversation at multiple points among commissioners. Our feedback was given space, and it yielded a hefty discussion. It was refreshing to see many of them engage, and that discussion culminated in tabling the ordinance and having it sent back to planning and zoning for further review. For the first time, I felt heard. A small win. We could really use a win, and you do possess the power to find the exit ramp at any time. You do not have to wait until permits are on the table. Your loyalty does not have to lie with Google. What about your constituents? Please remember that Google does not vote for you, we do. Thank you. **[55:26] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. Next is Alicia Naveda. Name and address, please. **[55:37] Alicia Naveda:** My name is Alicia Naveda, and I live at 5219 Wedena Street in Duluth. I'm sharing a story today about another city with a data center built by Google. This city is The Dalles, which is a city in Oregon, and it has a population of 16,000. Google built their first hyperscale data center outside of Silicon Valley in the city in 2006. In 2021, a newspaper requested that the city disclose how much of the city's water was used by the data center, and the city's district attorney ordered that the water usage be released under public records law. The city refused due to its non-disclosure agreements with Google, noting the water usage as a trade secret, and the city ended up suing the newspaper um a little over a year and $150,000 later, the city settled and agreed to release their water usage data. And Google, of course, paid for the city's attorney fees. So, here's some of that water usage data from The Dalles, Oregon. In 2012, with one data center, Google used 100 million gallons of water every year, 12% of the city's water. Today, with four data centers, Google alone uses 550 million gallons of water every year. That's 40% of the city's total water. The city is currently attempting to acquire more federal land in order to expand its reservoir to hold enough water, and revenue from Google will cover a quarter of it, and the remaining costs are expected to be covered by loans and increased public water rates, which are expected to double. Throughout this story, we see multiple similarities to Hermantown. Both The Dalles and Hermantown are small towns with small budgets uh entering into deals with a tech giant. In both cities, Google used non-disclosure agreements to hide information, including resource usage, from the public. And since The Dalles' data centers are 20 years ahead of us, um we can see some future possibilities for Hermantown. The first is more data centers. 20 years after the first hyperscale data center outside of Silicon Valley, the fifth is to be added this year in that same city. Second, increased resource usage. So, they started with 12% of the water in 2012, and now they're at 40% of the total city water usage, and are looking to expand infrastructure. Third, low job count. Google employs 200 people in The Dalles across four hyperscale data centers, and their original job estimates were 200 people for just the one data center. And finally, continued secrecy. It took 15 years and a lawsuit just to see how much water they were using at the data center. So, those NDAs are still hanging around affecting relationships with the city and its residents. And in sharing the story, I just want to say that it doesn't get better, and I hope we can look to the lessons from The Dalles and say, "Not for us." Thank you. **[58:56] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Mr. Graves, did someone else sign up to that list? Wasn't Mr. Bergeron signing up, and he conceded his time? Is there anyone else that wishes to sign up and speak in general public discussion this evening? If no one else is on the list and signs up, we'll move on to the city agenda. First is the consent agenda. Minutes approval or correction of the March 23rd, 2026 City Council work session minutes and April 6th, 2026 city council continuation minutes and accounts payable approved general city warrants from April 1st, 2026 through April 15th, 2026 in the amount of $639,836.96. Is there a motion? **[59:56] Councilor Andy Hjelle:** Make a motion to approve. **[59:58] Councilor John Geissler:** Second. **[1:00:01] Alissa McClure (City Clerk):** Roll call, please. Councilor Geissler. Aye. Councilor Hjelle. Aye. Councilor LeBlanc. Aye. Councilor Peterson. Aye. Mayor Boucher. Aye. **[1:00:12] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** And I'd like to make a short comment if anybody would like to stick around. This is a lot of fun stuff. We're we're almost done and there'll be a chance to talk to some of us at the end of the meeting. Next is resolution 2026-41. Resolution authorizing the purchase of a John Deere 325G tracked skid steer in the amount of $74,500. Do we have a motion? **[1:00:39] Councilor Brian LeBlanc:** Move to approve. **[1:00:41] Councilor Joe Peterson:** I'll second. **[1:00:44] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Mr. Mulder. **[1:00:45] John Mulder (City Administrator):** Um so this is a purchase of a tracked skid steer. This was part of our capital improvement plan um and it's included in this year's budget. **[1:01:04] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. Any questions or comments from council? It might be worth noting that Paul said that we spend roughly 15 grand a year renting one currently. And that the life expectancy is 15 years for this one. With proper maintenance. Okay, and no one has signed up to speak on this issue. So we will move to a roll call. **[1:01:24] Alissa McClure (City Clerk):** Councilor Hjelle. Aye. Councilor LeBlanc. Aye. Councilor Peterson. Aye. Councilor Geissler. Aye. Mayor Boucher. Aye. **[1:01:24] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Next is resolution 2026-42. Resolution authorizing the city of Hermantown to support St. Louis County for the 2027 project county state aid Highway 32, Arrowhead Road sidewalk, curb, gutter, and storm sewer. And this would be the Arrowhead Road from Haines Road to Maynard Drive. Do we have a motion? **[1:01:51] Councilor John Geissler:** Motion to approve. **[1:01:53] Councilor Joe Peterson:** I'll second. **[1:01:55] John Mulder (City Administrator):** Again, Mayor, as you talked about, this is from Haines Road to Maynard Drive. Um that is one section of the county's portion of Arrowhead Road that does not have sidewalk and they would like to extend that because it's a municipal state aid road or county state aid road, they need municipal consent. **[1:02:20] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Any comments or questions from council? I believe this would be on the north side as it was designed. That's correct. Any other questions or comments? No one has signed up to speak on this subject. Uh so we'll move to a roll call. **[1:02:39] Alissa McClure (City Clerk):** Councilor LeBlanc. Aye. Councilor Peterson. Aye. Councilor Geissler. Aye. Councilor Hjelle. Aye. Mayor Boucher. Aye. **[1:02:39] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Next is resolution 2026-43. Resolution approving change order numbers 36 and 37 for the Northstar Ford Arena as a reduction in the amount of $246,238.91. Do we have a motion? **[1:03:15] Councilor Joe Peterson:** I'll make a motion to approve. **[1:03:17] Councilor John Geissler:** I'll second. **[1:03:19] John Mulder (City Administrator):** So as you recall, we had a contract with KA to build the arena. Um as they went through the process, they did have some money in uh contingency and various things like that. And so we were under budget by $246,000. This change order reflects that. **[1:03:28] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. Any questions or comments from council? And uh no one has signed up to speak on this resolution. So we'll move to a roll call vote. **[1:03:46] Alissa McClure (City Clerk):** Councilor Peterson. Aye. Councilor Geissler. Aye. Councilor Hjelle. Aye. Councilor LeBlanc. Aye. Mayor Boucher. Aye. **[1:03:46] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Next is resolution 2026-44. Resolution approving pay request number 22 for the Northstar Ford Arena to Kraus-Anderson Construction Company in the amount of $267,072.77. Do we have a motion? **[1:04:15] Councilor Brian LeBlanc:** Move to approve. **[1:04:17] Councilor John Geissler:** Second. **[1:04:19] John Mulder (City Administrator):** This is the last pay application for the arena. Um this is for um material and labor since the last pay application. **[1:04:31] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** Thank you. Any questions or comments from council? Uh no one has signed up to speak on this resolution. So we'll move to a roll call vote. **[1:04:47] Alissa McClure (City Clerk):** Councilor Geissler. Aye. Councilor Hjelle. Aye. Councilor LeBlanc. Aye. Councilor Peterson. Aye. Mayor Boucher. Aye. **[1:04:47] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** We're almost done, folks. Next is a motion to recess. **[1:05:04] Councilor Brian LeBlanc:** Move to recess. **[1:05:06] Councilor Joe Peterson:** I'll second. **[1:05:08] Mayor Wayne Boucher:** All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Thank you all. Thanks everyone for being here.