UPDATE:

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025, these resolutions are back in front of our council members of Michigan City, IN. We need to ask for a continued delay to stop the fast-tracking approach our city chose to take with this project.

It will impact all of us. NIPSCO bills are already rising and out of control. It will impact all of us from high NIPSCO bills while our city allowing 40 years of tax abatements for a bad deal. Look at the deal our city is getting compared to other communities. If this is a path our city insists on taking, I would demand answers on a poorly negotiated deal.

We deserve answers to how this process got this far while leaving the community in the dark. What has happened behind closed doors? Why did they use resolutions and not ordinances? How are they allowing data centers into M1 without it being mentioned in our city's codes and ordinances?

CLICK HERE to see our Industrial Codes

Where are the finalized plans for us to review? Why are they allowing words like "unlimited control" to the end user in their resolutions?

We should all demand more from our council as far as the simple task of opening and responding to emails.

Please consider joining us in telling our council to continue to delay the vote for this project. It is clear there is still a lot of information missing that our city is not sharing with us. Join me in telling our city a vote now is too soon!

The City Council of Michigan City is days away from a final vote on the proposed Data Center. The location is a t 402 Royal Road in Ward 6. However, we will ALL be affected by this project.

Please sign this petition to ask our City Council to DELAY their vote on the resolution on the Data Center. For some reason, they are attempting to fast track this last step and in the name of transparency we are asking them to slow-down the process to allow the community to vocalize their concerns. The city just received the final resolution. Allow the community time to look over these resolutions, investigate and ask the right questions. They can read the resolution and wait on the hearing and final vote as the COOPER ERA was read on June 3rd.

We also want to ask the city to host a proper city workshop presented to the community as the July 24th meeting failed to notify the public. In short, the only public notice to this meeting was given by Council Member Nelson only a few hours before it was scheduled to start.

The Short Story:

NDAs locked us out of this process. Transparency has been missing because of this process. The city is coming forward now, but as they are at the final phases. For some reason they are fast-tracking this and we need to slow this down and have a say in the process. We should also be asking the question of were they ever going to come forward with this information or would it all have been completed behind closed doors. The city only started coming out with information to the public after social media shared it to the community.

Why a Delay Helps us All:

A delay will benefit all of us in this process whether you are for this project or against it. We are just asking to slow down this final step and allow the community some time to express our concerns to the members.

If you are against data centers, it gives us time to stop it. I know many of us are hearing it is too late, but we have a few options on the table.

If it is in the final phases and keeping it out of the community is not an option, it gives us an option to make sure the city brings it here with enough safety measures and gets the best deal for all of us.

If you are for this project, it gives you time to look at the deal. Do you like what the city is getting and where the money is going? Have you looked at other deals and could our city be getting more? Can we have more definitions as to where the money is going?

A delay is something that benefits all sides to this that we can come together and request from our city.

For the council members that appear to be voting yes, this delay is just asking for time to make sure you are bringing this here the right way to protect our community. Although we hope this time allows you to reflect and change your vote, it doesn't cause any harm to your case of wanting it to come either. So, my question would be to anyone opposing a delay: why the urgency?

During the Delay:

During this delay, let's ask the city to host a proper City Workshop. The City Council held a workshop on this issue for the community to come and speak their concerns on July 24th. The only problem is they rushed this too. They filed for it on July 21st and only gave a few days warning. Furthermore, they FAILED to tell the city about the meeting. It was not added to the government events page, and it wasn't shared on their Facebook page where they place notices. It was shared by one council member only a few hours before the event. At the event they bragged about this being an event held for us. They also restricted it to only 10 speakers. Let's have an expert be allowed to give a presentation to the adverse effects on data centers. Let's ask for no restrictions and allow a real conversation on the data center. That seems odd if they forgot to tell us we were invited. Why even only 3-days' notice of a turnaround for this meeting by filed paperwork. They just asked for a workshop on another issue that was proposed and given the date in late August. Again, WHY are we only sneaking and rushing this issue. This workshop was rushed in days that didn't allow for 4 members of the council to attend. Could they have picked a better day to have more of their own members in attendance? Was this part of their larger goal to rush this through at the August 4th council meeting? This makes it appear this workshop was more to check a box, but not to allow our council to come together and truly learn new information and LISTEN to what their community wants. Plus, as they held this workshop with us on the 24th an executive session was held on July 23rd. I understand those are private, so we won't know if that had to do with the data center. I am not a legal expert but wondering if any of this violated the Open Door Law in Indiana.

The Long Story:

Our city made a choice to use NDAs and lock the community out of this process. This took place at the end of May. They will tell you this is a part of the process and believe that because they are stating this it is a true fact. It is FALSE. To shed some more information here: yes, this is a process most cities choose to take, however not all cities choose to do business this way. Our neighbors in Porter County have been fighting data centers and winning the fight a large part was community involvement because NDAs were not used. Our city could have even compromised and delayed using NDAs to allow the community to have a say in this matter before saying this is a done deal and talk about the money. This locked us out of the process and set us back months as we fast forward to a final vote on Monday.

As news started to break the internet that it appeared a Data Center was coming on Royal Road, our officials were forced to make a statement. On July 11th, the mayor calmed the community with a statement that made it appear this project was not supported by the city. This led a lot of people to believe the project was stopped, but only for a few days as events quickly turned.

10 Days later, on July 21st, the city filed for a City Workshop on July 24th to hear a presentation from the developer. This was never added to the events calendar nor posted on their official Facebook page they use.

On July 23rd, an executive session was held by our city council. We do not have the details of this, but looking at timing, I hope this wasn't a meeting before the public meeting.

On July 24th, council member Nelson shared the public notice on Facebook with only a few hours' notice to the community. The workshop was held led by the developer. I am not sure how these truly work, but if the point is to learn and gain as much information as possible, it would have been nice to have allowed an opposing presentation by experts to help educate our city council on all sides. This could even help them to understand what protections they should be placing in resolutions. They restricted the number of speakers. Plus, they thanked themselves for holding the meeting for the public, while they forgot to notify us.

July 31st, the city received 64 pages to review as the final resolution. From this, they scheduled the reading of these new resolutions and the hearings at the same meeting scheduled for Monday, August 4th. They did not do this with one of the resolutions in these documents. One of them was read at the council meeting on June 3rd and this meeting is the hearing for that one.

So, this is where questions about fast tracking must be asked. Can we hold the readings of these at this meeting, but delay the hearings? Can we delay the readings and hearings? A delay is what is being asked of all 9 members at this time with the request to a new and proper city workshop. Not something that was held to check a box and say we did it.

The public reading and final hearing on the data center at 402 Royal Road is scheduled at 6:30pm on August 4th, 2025. Please help us in asking for a delay in this process.

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