SUNBURY — Sunbury Mayor Joe St. John saved the the biggest thing on people’s minds for last at Wednesday’s State of the City address.
Under Big Walnut High School’s auditorium spotlight, St. John called for city officials to consider a time-bound moratorium (a temporary prohibition of activity) on “data centers, hyperscalers and AI data centers.”
This consideration comes after residents at public meetings presented research and shared personal stories about the possible $2 billion Amazon data center coming to Sunbury.
“[We want to] weigh the facts, hear from experts, hold public forums, learn from the proposed state commission and make the most responsible decision possible,” St. John said.
“I was on the phone with lawyers, planners and city staff, and also AWS (Amazon Web Services) and The New Albany Company … I wanted to make sure that everybody was on board with [the moratorium] being proposed.”
St. John said AWS asked how long the pause would be, to which the mayor responded he didn’t know, since he was proposing the idea at the State of the City.
“[AWS then responded with], ‘OK, we’re not in a rush,'” St. John said. “I said, ‘That’s good.’ So that was a very encouraging first call.”
St. John said this will pause development agreements and zoning talks to allow city council and commissions to research the facts.
Response to public criticism
The mayor said that if anybody from the city had previously known the impacts data centers have on health and wellness, they would have stopped the process.
“That’s not what we knew at the time. This is new information that we need to get the facts about,” St. John said. “I deserve the right to consider new information as it becomes available. I hope you do too.
“And I know some people have been critical of the city for not knowing everything on the zoning code that was written three years ago,” he continued.
“We wouldn’t have permitted data centers [with] the assertion that data centers caused miscarriages or childhood asthma or any of that. We would not have done it.”
This is not about us reacting out of fear, and it’s not about us closing the door prematurely.
Sunbury mayor joe St. John
Future forums on data centers
St. John said he talked with Sunbury City Manager Daryl Hennessey about how a future public forum on data centers would work. He added that AWS, or a company like AWS, could be at the table.
However, the mayor said AWS wouldn’t be the objective voice saying whether or not a data center is good or bad for the community.
He added that environmental specialists, electric co-ops, water authorities and “other entities that do things in public parts of the regulation that Sunbury itself does not do” would be invited to a public forum.
The city has started calling these officials and is targeting a June public forum for session number one.
“We’re going to take time to get this right. That does not mean there will be no data center and further development,” St. John said.
“My hope is that we continue to show up for one another, as needed. There are going to be strong opinions. There have been some real concerns. And I imagine there’s going to be disagreement.
“But I want you to remember something simple and important: We literally live in the same community. My kids live in your community, too.
“And we care about the future. That’s it. We care about the future like you do, too.”
