If you haven’t already heard from the Charlotte Observer…

🎉🎉Mayor Higdon has announced the developer, ELS, has officially WITHDRAWN their proposal for the data center in Matthews!! 🎉🎉

So.. what does that mean for us now?

✨Your voice continues to be important✨

From what I understand, if a developer withdrawals their proposal they can bring it back after 6 months (which will be April 2026). I encourage residents and community members to stay vigilant.

Our next steps:

📌 Keep your calendars marked for the next Town Hall meeting - Monday, Oct 13th at 7pm. Project Accelerate highlighted the disconnect between our local government and our residents. How can our elected officials rebuild trust & ensure the public is clearly informed on major issues happening in the Town of Matthews? While a small population of Matthews was aware of the proposed data center those residents seemed to represent the 60+ community and were already active in Matthews government. Our town is growing and diverse. There are young families consistently moving to Matthews, college students coming & going, retirees enjoying tight knit community + increased property value. Moving forward we need additional forms of communication between Town Hall and Matthews residents to ensure we are ALL equally informed. —— What could that look like? 🤔 A physical newsletter sent to every Matthews residence? A solid social media presence to reach more residents? Bring your questions & ideas!
 
✅ Make a voting plan. Early voting begins Thursday, Oct 23rd and goes until Saturday, Nov 1st. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov 4th. Voting locations & hours can be found here. This is our chance to elect individuals that align with our mission to protect & preserve our town of Matthews. We want our resources (air, water, health) to be priority! We want slow growth. We want intentional, community minded development. This election we will be voting for the Mayor, all six members of the Board of Commissioners & a countywide transit tax referendum. Please take some time to learn about the candidates. If you missed the Mayoral Debate that can be found here on John Higdon’s Facebook page, the debate is the third post down (I was able to attend 👀 & learned a lot about Higdon & Threatt.. It is long but very revealing. I’m going to see if I can create a written summary to make the debate feel more accessible). A list of all the candidates & their websites can be found here (each town in listed alphabetically so scroll down until you see: Mayor, Town of Matthews.

Thank you thank you to all the folks that signed, shared & showed up! I am thankful for your questions, I am thankful for your presence. I hope we can remain connected moving forward, I’m not sure what that could look like but I’ll be exploring ideas.

Appreciate ya’ll 💚

Emily M