I share many of the same concerns raised by Everett residents and members of the City Council, and I commend Planning Board member Stephanie McColaugh for her commitment and leadership on the issue.

At this time, I fear that there are no appropriate state or federal regulatory guardrails that can ensure data centers, if built in Everett, do not cause long-term harmful impacts to public health, the ecology, the local economy, and the potential for all Everett residents - current and future - to thrive. I am certain there are appropriate uses for artificial intelligence in limited and specialized fields like healthcare, biotech research, etc., but it appears that the overarching drive of data centers have been to power AI most involved in exacerbating significant environmental crises and consumer energy price increases with little economic or social value for the vast majority of people.

In my view, the most responsible thing we could do now would be to recommend the City Council add data centers to the list of banned uses in the City of Everett until appropriate regulatory standards are adopted by both the state and federal government. It would be far better to delay the construction of a good data center for a few years than to build a series of bad data centers quickly.

At the very least, I would ask for a continuance on this matter until the next scheduled April Planning Board meeting.

Best
Jim