2026-11-09 - Regulatory Oversight Committee Meeting

Good afternoon everybody and welcome to

the Sioux Falls Regulatory Oversight

Committee meeting on Monday, November

9th, 2026. I'll note that we have of

members present. Ask one of the

committee members if they'd be willing

to make a motion to approve the minutes

of March 26, 2024.

>> Move approval.

>> Spellerberg.

>> Second, Oppenheimer.

>> Been moved and seconded. All in favor of

voice vote, say aye.

>> Aye.

>> Opposition, same sign. Those minutes are

approved.

Uh this evening our committee meeting uh

is broken down into some various topics

and then opportunity for public input uh

covering a variety of different things

that you want the committee to consider.

Our theme this evening is really in the

area of level setting, understanding

what the current regulation environment

is, and also listening and learning and

so what the concerns are as we enter

into a phase of looking at various

ordinance options and regulatory

opportunities in front of us. So we're

going to go ahead and get started this

evening. I want to welcome forward to

get us started uh the director of public

works, Mark Cotter.

>> Uh good evening, council chair and

council members. I'm Mark Cotter with

the public works team.

Um it was requested to put together a

fact sheet.

Um

and we have question we have additional

copies over by the

door and essentially we laid out the

fact sheet of what are the salient

points today of

of what is um provided with the recent

legislation legislate

what the recent legislature passed at

the state law

um

what the key components of the PUC are

and then what's the current ordinances

of the city of Sioux Falls. And so uh

with your permission, it's two pages. Um

I'll walk you through those key points

and and if we do run out, I know um

Thea will make additional copies.

All right. Um starting off with South

Dakota's codified law,

they first defined data center as a

central repository of electronic data

for information with peak demand of 10

megawatts

or greater.

Next section of the

legislation states that

a provider of electricity shall

establish and maintain separate terms

and conditions for electric service

applicable to a data center

requiring reimbursement for all costs

fairly attributed to the data center

for service

demand and utility consumption including

costs incurred to serve the data center

departs the system or materially reduces

its load.

The next section of that legislation

is requirements prior to commencing

operations in South Dakota.

The data center shall provide notice of

projected water consumption to the to

each local water provider in the area in

which the data center is proposed to be

located.

Each water provider receiving notice

shall provide written determination

whether the data center's projected

water consumption is compatible with the

local water supply.

The operator shall present a copy of

each notice and determination to the

Board of Water Management at the state.

Upon receipt of the water provider's

written determination

SD BWM's

acronym in

the handout

must issue to the operator and general

public a written statement that the

operator has satisfied the requirements

of this section.

Regardless of this

Board of Water Management's issuance of

written statement, the data center must

may not consume an amount

the local water supply exceeding limits

established by order of the board after

allocation to residential and essential

public services.

In establishing allocation limits under

this section, the board shall seek to

ensure water availability and prevent a

disproportionate use of water by data

centers.

So those are the key points in the

state statute. The the state statute is

at 49-50.

Uh, next section is South Dakota Public

Utilities Commission.

So South Dakota PUC, as it's uh acronym,

does not permit data centers. However,

transmission line siting is regulated by

the South Dakota PUC.

The permit trigger,

a new line design for more than 115 kV,

including associated facilities,

generally requires PUC approval before

construction.

An exception applies only if the line is

less than 2,640 ft in length,

crosses no public highway, and uses no

eminent domain for right of way. And the

South Dakota

codified law section is noted there in

the

fact sheet.

Next is general PUC process timeline.

Applicants are encouraged to file at

least 6 months before planned

construction and must notify landowners

within 1

1/2 mi within 30 days after filing.

The PUC schedules a public meeting

within 30 days. Formal formal party

applications are generally due within 60

days unless the order otherwise ordered.

The typical transmission decision

deadline is 12 months after the initial

application,

extendable at the applicant's request.

And there's a PUC siting guide that's

also noted on the fact sheet that's has

more helpful information.

All right, now for about a page and a

half of existing Sioux Falls ordinances

that are in place.

First with zoning. Data centers are

currently allowed in I-1, which is light

industrial,

and I-2 heavy industrial districts.

Lighting.

All building and parking lot lighting is

regulated by Ordinance 160

.491 of the shape places zoning

ordinance.

This section regulates the height of

fixtures as well as the light trespass

maximum at the property line.

Noise.

Industrial normal noise maximum are 75

decibels at all times

with impulsive sound limits set at one

peak of 95 decibels or less

per hour. And then the ordinance is

cited.

Noise is measured by the city at the

nearest edge of the closest adjacent

property line.

Setbacks.

Setbacks are regulated by the Shape

Places zoning ordinance chapter 160.

Generally industrial uses are required a

25-ft front yard setback and further

additional buffer yard setbacks are

required if adjacent to residential.

The zoning ordinance allows conditions

increasing setbacks to be placed on any

rezoning approval.

All right.

Those of you that are following along,

it's on the

uh back sheet of the fact sheet.

Electric rates just in uh general data

centers shall reimburse any provider of

electricity for all costs

fairly attributed to the service demand

and the utility consumption. And the

South Dakota

codified law 49-50-2

is noted. Investor-owned public

utilities are regulated by the South

Dakota PUC.

Uh that state statute is uh noted. And

then we've also if um if by chance one

was located in the city's uh power

territory that um our rates are found at

that uh ordinance in chapter 51.

Height restrictions.

Maximum height for property zoned light

industrial I-1

if it's habitable is 45 ft.

And property zoned heavy industrial I-2

habitable is 55 ft.

For uninhabitable structures under I-1

and I-2 there is no maximum height

requirement and those ordinances noted

are 160.346

and 160.354.

Uh domestic water. The city reviews the

projects requested water demand to

determine whether sufficient system

capacity is available and establishes

the amount of potable water that can be

provided to the proposed development and

what it may be used for. Proposed

developments must comply with the

engineering design standards chapter 10

water mains and all other applicable

ordinances.

Wastewater. Wastewater is regulated by

ordinance

in chapter 53 publicly owned treatment

works.

The proposed development must comply

with the engineering design standards

chapter nine sanitary sewers and all

other applicable ordinances.

Proposed development standard reviews

shall be completed by the city including

the review of existing system capacity

and anticipated wastewater constituents.

Review may include a developer

completing a hydraulic flow study to

ensure sufficient capacity is available

in industrial pre-treatment

questionnaire.

Industrial wastewater. The city

maintains local authority over

wastewater discharge from industrial

facilities to the city's sanitary

system.

This authority is granted through the US

protection

US Environmental Protection Agency the

EPA an industrial pre-treatment program

IPP

administered through the South Dakota

Department of Agriculture and Natural

Resources with local authority granted

to the city to regulate industrial

discharges and to ensure compliance with

local state and federal requirements.

This program establishes the cities

to monitor manage and when necessary

restrict discharges that could

negatively impact the wastewater

collection system treatment processes

public health or the environment.

Next is city of Sioux Falls private

utility permitting process pursuant to

ordinance 96.235

right-of-way and construction

right-of-way construction and

administration. Applicant would be

required to register with the City of

Sioux Falls the right-of-way contractor

meeting and bonding the

meeting the bonding and insurance

requirements.

Once registered

the applicant applies for a private

utility permit which requires a

description of the work to be completed,

what is to be installed and the location

of installation and include a map of the

installation route.

The city reviews the application

including the following, current city

infrastructure and location proposed,

any existing easements in the proposed

location

and potential future development or

right-of-way projects in the proposed

location.

Applicant shall comply with the

conditions of the utility permit and

also comply with the state and federal

laws including but not limited to the

South Dakota PUC and and DANR.

I've noted and put a disclaimer on the

bottom of this information that you can

read and we can also advance this to the

committee

and this fact sheet was prepared for the

City of Sioux Falls Regulatory Oversight

Committee that's updated in November of

2026.

Do you have any questions? I'd be happy

to entertain them.

>> Thank you, Director. Committee members,

questions for Director Cotter on what

he's laid out here of existing

ordinances and so forth.

Councilor Pinkelman.

>> Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was curious on the industrial

pretreatment questionnaire. I was

wondering what questions are on the

industrial pretreatment questionnaire

that apply to the discharge and disposal

of cooling fluids.

>> I

in in

I'm not an expert on the industrial

pretreatment questionnaire

but essentially that goes through a a

list of questions for any industrial

waste

um and and allows us to

um really start to engage that

uh applicant on

on

anything that they document that goes on

there. So for the next meeting I can

certainly bring what that industrial

pre-treatment questionnaire is and we

can go through that in greater detail.

>> Thank you.

>> Councilor Spellenberg.

>> Thank you Mr. Chair.

Mark thanks for the detail here. You've

done a ton of work on this and we

appreciate it. Um so we're using

interesting terms light trespass. That

means how bright is it going to be if

I'm a neighbor, correct?

>> Yes.

>> So what does the city currently do?

Um I know we have quite a few large

projects out there. How do we do that?

>> Um since that's in the zoning piece I'm

going to bring up Jason Bieber if that's

okay with you and um have him speak to

that piece. Thank you.

>> you.

Uh good evening council. Jason Bieber

representing Planning and Development

Services. Uh great question council

member. We currently have as Mark

indicated a light trespass ordinance.

Uh we

regulate the height of the outdoor

fixtures and then also the amount of

candle lights at the property line.

Uh the ordinance allows a maximum of

what we call three-foot candle lights at

the property line. So we have a meter.

Um I get probably six to 10 complaints a

year then I would go out obviously when

it's dark out, walk the property line

with the meter and make sure that it's

under that three-foot candle light.

>> Please.

>> What happens if it's not? What do we

>> Uh then we would work with the property

owner. It'd obviously be a violation.

Typically most of the the one I just had

worked on it was an apartment complex. I

simply called the property owner and

said hey you have a couple of wall

lights here that are a little bright.

Can you put some shields on them? Um

they obviously complied and put the

shields on and then we make sure that it

does meet the ordinance.

Obviously if it was a property owner

that wasn't so easy to work with we

would go down the uh process of

citations and then obviously going

through the code enforcement through

court and all that stuff.

>> Please continue.

>> Okay, second question 95 decibels for

sound.

How loud is that? Can you give us an

example right now?

>> I wouldn't be able to do that cuz that's

a health

health

department requirement, but we could

probably get you something for that at

the next meeting of what those decibels

sound like. They have a pretty good list

of kind of

what what those would be as part of it.

>> Got it. I think it would be helpful just

to understand how loud it is.

Thank you.

>> Councilor Oppenheimer.

>> Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Couple of questions.

One is

Sorry, I'm looking at multiple

One is a more general question. When

we're talking about the applicant, would

that be I'm going to use Gemini as an

example, but obviously this is we're

looking at moving forward with anyone

anyone particular. Would that be

the end user as the applicant or is that

the group that is preparing

everything? As in would that be Gemini

or would that be who is

who is purchasing the data center?

>> From a planning perspective, going

through the process of the rezonings and

future land use annexations,

we would have the applicant would be

whoever is getting the property ready to

go. That could be the end user. In this

case, it was Gemini. We obviously needed

the property owners

sign off on the application as well.

Those

are those next steps as we talked a

little bit about would be whoever

applies for the building permit

and then builds the facility. That's who

then from lighting aspect, we would come

back on it whoever the property owner

is.

>> And that's the same with water

consumption and

the various other

>> Yep, whoever the current owner is is

kind of who we have the

right to go through the enforcement

process on.

>> Thank you. And I did didn't say at the

beginning, thank you for putting this

together and giving us this information.

I know know, a lot of work.

The next question I had regarding height

restrictions is a is a data center, is

that habitable or uninhabitable?

>> Uh great question. So typically what we

do with height restrictions is as Mark

had indicated is 45 ft in light

industrial, 55 ft in heavy industrial

for uh habitable and structures. So we

would coordinate with our building

permit team.

Um they would look at this and and

classify from a building code

perspective if it's habitable or

uninhabitable. Typically most industrial

uses are uninhabitable. Most people

don't live in there, but we would go

through the building code definition of

habitable.

>> Okay.

So it wouldn't have a height restriction

in this case as it would more like more

than likely be uninhabitable. Is that

correct?

>> Typically that's the case, yes. However,

we do still have to look at other things

like airport fly zones and things like

that. So there could be some other

restrictions that aren't in the zoning

ordinance.

>> Okay.

And

I believe those were all the questions I

had. Thank you. You asked about the

decibels already. That was my next

question. How loud is 95 decibels?

But we had that question, so I'm good.

Thank you.

>> We can get that information, so.

>> Thank you, Councilor.

Councilor Pinkerton, back to you.

>> Thank you, Mr. Chair. This one may take

a a few weeks to answer as well, but um

I was looking at that second the South

Dakota codified law and so I'm not sure

if somebody from the city can answer it

or not, but I'm curious if the city has

a role in carrying out that um South

Dakota codified law 4950-2,

the one that states that

the the provider of electricity shall

establish and maintain separate terms

and conditions for electrical service

and and even gets into including costs

incurred to serve if the data center

departs the system.

So

>> Can I turn to the Director Cotter or the

City Attorney on that?

>> Um I would expect that that would be an

agreement that's

between the

um end user and the electric company.

That's the way I read that, Councilor.

>> Other questions, Councilors?

>> Director Kotter, I've just got a couple

couple questions.

Underneath SDCL 49-54 talking about

water, is the Board of Water Management

an executive branch appointed group or

is that a

that's not an elected body, is it?

>> I need to confirm on that if it's

appointed or if it's elected. I believe

it's appointed, but I'll I'll double

check.

>> Kind of embarrassing, but if it's

elected, I never recall voting for any

of them.

>> Exactly.

I will double check.

>> Just clarifying, we understand your

role, director of public works,

wastewater treatment, the responsibility

of the city over wastewater treatment

from my perspective is pretty clear at

the end of the day. That's your

responsibility, your team's

responsibility. I think we've got a long

track record of that. But walk us

through outside of the wastewater, we've

got groundwater.

So something happens that not just

impacts the wastewater, but impacts the

groundwater. What falls under your

jurisdiction of groundwater impact

versus the South Dakota Department of

Natural Resources, their oversight of

that area? Can Is there a clear divide

of who's responsible something gets into

the groundwater versus the wastewater?

>> I I do think it's very specific for

wastewater and

and just

as it'll start with the industrial

pre-treatment questionnaire,

we do have very specific experts that

work with the industries in town and so

we'll come back and and speak to that.

When you

try to separate the two, whether it is

wastewater or groundwater, these are,

you know, all modern buildings have to

basically be designed so they prevent

that

that happening with any

anything with groundwater. And but that

would fall into the state's role and we

would be certainly there to assist.

Can't think of anything offhand that um

would cause that. And so um but I, you

know, if if a building today is built to

today's building standards

internal collection system, I don't see

um

I don't see how that would actually

um deviate from any other building

that's built. But um we can certainly do

some more research on that as well.

>> I appreciate that, director. And just

following up on that and with Councilor

Panken, and I think between now and the

next one as well, I think a lot of us

have received

phone calls, emails, articles on the

situation in Gillette, Wyoming. And

there's legal activity that's taking

place there, a fine that's been issued

there. I think it'd be helpful for

someone from our team just to kind of

level set on what happened there of what

if that was a construction issue, if

that was a clean out issue, if just so

we're at least talking about the same

things, not opinion on what was right or

wrong, but just level setting on what

took place in Gillette. I think it would

be really helpful as it's used as an

example a lot of what's happening.

>> We'll personally reach out to them and

talk to their uh city officials so we

can come back and

and share with what we've learned.

>> Thank you. And then my final question

would be for either you or Jason. Have

Has there been any project in the city

of Sioux Falls history that's required a

performance bond?

>> Not Not that I am aware of, Jason. Um

when when we hire contractors to do

public improvements in the public's

right of way um and or build a um a um a

public building, that's very common

practice for us inside right of way. But

that's those are performance and payment

bonds, not necessarily on the on the

private side.

>> Thank you. Any final Councilor

Stellerburg.

>> One more question, Mark. When we're

talking about water, I think it's just

helpful if you kind of go through again

what we decided we would allow in this

kind of a project. Can you

reaffirm what we have?

>> I'm sorry. Would you restate

>> question?

>> Yeah. So I think it's important just to

kind of cover what we are allowing. So I

think the pipe size to the location,

wastewater,

just hit those highlights again.

>> Uh certainly. So

when when this applicant initially came

in,

this area was zoned in what we call tier

three. We worked with them

to move it to tier one. We had made it

clear that this was in our master plan.

We had already laid out the water mains

and the sanitary sewer collection mains,

but the fact that

it was in a

it required a change to the future land

use that we said we would support this

provided that they would extend the

public utilities at no reimbursement.

And that means the wastewater collection

system and the water system. And so

they've they've retained local

engineering

support to make those designs that are

very familiar with our standards. And so

that was the first thing.

And then as it comes to water, we've I

think there's been a lot of discussion

about water and we know the value of

water. And so we said from the very

beginning we didn't want water to be

used drinking water to be used for

cooling.

And so that's when we started to talk to

them just about their domestic uses.

And and fortunately

from what we see and read and also have

heard from Gemini in this case is that

they intend to work with an end user

that uses a closed loop

system technology that essentially

you know doesn't rely on

you know a

much water at all except for their

domestic use. And so that would be very

common in any

light industrial

and or commercial application.

And so we've said that from the very

beginning.

We know that from talking with other end

users is very little wastewater that

comes from these facilities.

And so having first said you need to

advance the public utilities, future

public utilities with no reimbursement.

Um, they've agreed to do that and

they've designed those and and their

some of their initial site plans have

laid out those respective easements and

and pipe routings and there's a

wastewater pump station that's required

here.

And then just the very good discussion

on the use of water in the facility. So

does that answer your question?

>> Yeah, mostly. I think just hearing out

loud that I think from our standpoint

we've said it that they only get the

same amount of water as a single family

house or a a small industrial use

facility, correct? To run their

bathrooms, their sinks,

things like that. Yep, thank you.

>> Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you.

>> Thank you, Director.

At this time I'll invite forward the

city attorney, David Pfeifley. The

committee has asked the city attorney to

prepare for us an overview of what's

taking place across the country. We

Director Cotter level set for us on what

some of the existing ordinances

regulations are in our state and our

community. They've asked the attorney to

lay out for us what's taking place

across the country. Good afternoon,

attorney.

>> Thank you, counselor.

City Council, on behalf of the city

attorney's office, I'm David Pfeifley

here to talk with you this evening

about just an overview of data center

regulation that we are seeing across the

country.

You will note that the first slide is

dated and there that is on purpose. This

changes by the day. It's the most fluid

topic I've seen in some time in my 32

career, 32 year career.

Data center, as Director Cotter had told

you, it's defined under state law.

I think this is kind of where the

discussion for us begins. Data center

demand is growing.

A review of national sources is showing

that there are almost 1,400 data centers

already operating in the United States

of various sizes.

And as of October 2nd, they believe

there's going to be about 2,800 more

data centers are planned.

And you can see the megawatt additional

capacities.

AI ready data center capacity is

expected to grow by 33% annually from 25

to 2030

driving a surge in local data center

proposals. I think what you need to

think about with that 33% is

as counselor Spellerberg knows in his in

his industry you're compounding. That's

not a 33% over that time. I took it to

mean 33% each year is growing.

Now

the last one is kind of where

the conversation has moved from

the coasts into the south and the

Midwest where of those 2800 proposed

data centers 39% of them are planned in

the south and in the Midwest.

So looking at the National Conference of

State Legislatures I kept looking at

their site in terms of what's going on

in all the legislatures across the

country.

Over this recent history 16 state

legislatures have recently attempted

moratoriums on data centers

and or bans on data centers.

A moratorium was passed by the state of

New York. I believe that was a one year

moratorium.

Six measures had failed. One was vetoed

I believe by the governor of Maine

while the rest of those proposals are

still in various levels of progress.

As we all know and have discussed in

this last legislative session the state

of South Dakota's legislature adopted

the data center Bill of Rights

but note that that data center Bill of

Rights did not adopt a proposed plan ban

excuse me that was also introduced or a

proposed moratorium.

I also looked this weekend at the city's

16 peer cities.

Of those cities only Lincoln Nebraska so

far has adopted in their city ordinances

a definition for data center.

Madison Wisconsin has adopted a one year

moratorium

that took effect on January 23 of 2026

so that one year moratorium will soon

expire.

The governing body for the city of Fort

Wayne Indiana considered a moratorium

this year, but they did not approve it.

So that is kind of what is going on both

uh on the state side as well as our 16

peer cities.

Now, uh this is a statute uh that is

ga- garnering a lot of attention.

It is specifically saying that the state

will not preempt or otherwise limit the

authority of the governing body of

either a county or municipality.

And it uses the words limiting,

prohibiting, or otherwise regulating.

And some people are taking the statute

to mean that it uh allows free reign of

a county or a municipal government to do

whatever they will with data center

regulation. And I can tell you that that

is

not necessarily the case. Um and I'll

explain in a moment.

Now, under uh

the police powers that you enjoy as an

elected uh local governing body, you

have the power to protect the public

health, safety, and general welfare.

And certainly one of the main mechanisms

that you do that is through your zoning

ordinances, through your zoning power.

As all of you know, that's almost one

half of any

of all the items on your agenda on any

given council meeting. And you make an

incredible amount of influence on how

land use is governed within our city.

So in this case,

uh

you have to look at whether

a uh

any zoning regulation is subject to

change. And the Tillo case, which

happened to come out of Sioux Falls, it

was where

uh the Hy-Vee grocery store is now on

39th and Minnesota Avenue.

Uh at that point it was a proposed

Kmart. Uh at in that instance that

parcel I believe was zoned residential.

Uh the residential properties around it

tried to claim that well we have a

vested interest in that

adjoining parcel remaining residential

rather than commercial. Our state

Supreme Court came back and said you

don't have a vested interest in any

particular zoning classification.

Now zoning authority, even though you

have the power to change a zoning

classification, it doesn't exist in a

vacuum.

Uh your zoning authority is not

unlimited.

Uh probably the most famous case in

South Dakota is SDDS Incorporated versus

the State of South Dakota.

This happened about 25 you know actually

it's 32 years ago it went through the

state legislature.

It was a municipal solid waste facility

proposed for out near Edge Mont in Fall

River County.

Uh the state's board of Minerals and

Environment initially granted them a

five-year

permit for operating that facility.

Uh there was uh

an an initiative enacted thereafter

where the voters said they wanted the

state legislature to actually vote on

whether to approve that permit.

I was working for the State House of

Representatives when this bill came up

and I saw the debate and saw

the the emotions and concerns that were

generated by that bill and it's

remindful of what's going on with data

centers. But the point is the

legislature ultimately approved that

permit.

After that the citizens then did a

referendum

where they where the they undid they

they undone what the legislature had

done. So the permit was revoked.

So what happened was the State Supreme

Court through a series of cases held

that once a permit had been issued that

the landowner had a protected property

interest in using that property so you

couldn't

withdraw or remand that permit.

And here's the the real takeaway of that

case. While property may be regulated to

a certain extent if regulation goes too

far pardon pardon my typo there it will

be recognized as an

impermissible regulatory taking. The

problem of course is to know what is too

far in any given case.

That is where the legal principle of how

far can you regulate any specific type

of business.

You can't

You can place reasonable restrictions on

them through the zoning ordinances and

regulations, but you can't regulate them

out of business.

A real easy example to understand is uh

adult-oriented businesses in terms of

you'll note they are severely restricted

in terms of where they can operate, but

it is not outright banned anywhere

within the state of South Dakota.

There's been quite a bit of litigation

on that.

So in terms of Excuse me. In terms of

how the courts review it, they review it

on a case-by-case basis. So as this

regulatory committee is going through

the process of thinking about proposals,

what would you like to do in terms of a

regulatory response to uh data centers

possibly being in the city of Sioux

Falls?

Uh we would ask that you that you share

your proposals with us first and and our

office can assist you in terms of Is

this something that would comply with

all the legal

uh principles that we've talked about in

terms of Is it going too far or not? As

you can imagine, that is a gray area. It

is not easy to answer and it'll it'll

take a a

good in-depth analysis of your

particular uh proposal.

So uh you had tasked me with uh

explaining what's going on around the

country in terms of regulation, what's

going on.

Uh these

five regulatory focus points are

certainly not my own. They're based on a

toolkit uh provided

in October by the University of

Minnesota, both the Hubert Humphrey

School of Government and their law

school did a joint uh data center

toolkit

that also is based on the National

Association of Counties where they have

uh advising their membership, which is

all the counties across our

What are some considerations for you?

And I want to thank publicly [name redacted], who's a legal intern in our

office. [name redacted] watched hundreds of

hours

of regulatory hearings on data centers

from across the country.

We frankly would have been We just

appreciate his invaluable help with all

this effort. And certainly these focus

points match the hundreds of hours that

he's spent reviewing proposed

regulations across the country.

I think even more importantly

is these five regulatory focus points

match

a national Gallup poll that was done in

May of this year.

And that was entitled reasons Americans

oppose data centers in their local area

by the Gallup foundation. It was dated

May 13th of 2026.

In terms of the opponent side, here's

the main reasons.

Reasons Americans oppose data centers

affect on water and energy resources.

Number two was quality of life concerns

like water and energy resource impacts.

Number three was noise pollution,

air water pollution, light, heat

generated by the facility.

Number four was any economic effects and

number five

reason was negative views of artificial

intelligence.

On the proponent side

the top reasons were again in a national

poll, local economic benefits such as

jobs, tax revenue,

improve the infrastructure of the

community such as new roads, new

business.

Number two was technology benefits for

the community,

AI, inevitable, faster internet service.

Actually number three reason was people

who are already working in the industry

were responding favorably.

And number four other reasons were such

as US competitive

US competitiveness, excuse me, on a

global scale.

Now the local regulatory framework for

zoning, electrical and water have been

discussed by director Cotter already.

I'm going to talk more about kind of

what some other regulatory proposals

we're seeing across the country.

Uh number one, currently the common

zoning categories for data centers from

across the country and again I want to

uh

thank [name redacted] for this. It's by

right approval. If you meet certain

requirements, you are given uh the right

to operate.

Uh

the city's shape places zoning ordinance

back in 2014 was adopted with the

normal or customary conditional use

permit conditions placed right in that

ordinance

and it cut down on the number of uh cup

applications we needed not because the

city was getting slacker on

requirements, but actually placed the

usual and customary conditional use

permit requirements within the ordinance

itself.

Uh number two is approval with a

conditional use permit. You see that

across the country

and number three was certainly special

exceptions.

Some emerging zoning categories are new

types of categories we're seeing through

uh [name redacted] and my research is overlay

districts are being established for data

centers where it can go in a certain

area, but also overlaying that is if you

are a data center, here are some

additional requirements

that are overlaid upon that.

Uh the second one is we're seeing some

communities proposing planned innovation

research technology area. They're trying

to leverage similar type businesses all

in one area, providing that same

infrastructure, being able to have all

of them operate more effectively from a

technology standpoint. And then the

third one is of course we're seeing

specific zoning areas for data centers.

Uh I'm not going to belabor the point on

this one, but it's just showing kind of

the zoning scheme again for the city of

Sioux Falls. It lists on there data

centers falling under the industrial or

I1 light industrial use

as Mark Cotter indicated to you. It's

also under the heavy industrial use.

Those would be allowed as well.

It's where warehouse manufacturing,

that's what the WM stands for. You went

through all these already.

So I'm going to just go through a few

slides in terms of what we're seeing

some other communities doing.

Uh

first one is Morton County, North

Dakota.

A lot of my counterparts in our part of

the world are looking to Morton County.

They have recently enacted quite an

extensive regulatory scheme on data

centers.

And for electrical concerns, they are

stating that the applicant

must show sufficient electrical service

either through onsite generation or

through an agreement with a serving

utility.

And as Mark had already indicated, that

would be an investor owned

utility in all likelihood.

And then the second one that they're

requiring is the utility must certify

electrical capacity has been committed

and that the data center will be built

under cost recovery structures.

Another example that some of you have

mentioned is Maricopa County, Arizona.

In looking at their draft ordinance as

of last week, it has not been adopted

yet to the best of my knowledge. I

didn't check it today. But again, this

topic is so fluid, you never know.

The data center applicant again, written

confirmation from the utility service

providers, availability, capacity.

And then the second one probably mirrors

what our state PUC statute is here.

Terms of the applicant bears the full

cost of any undergrounding any any

adjacent or onsite electrical

infrastructure.

Now

the next one is on noise

concerns, noise measurements.

The Virginia is kind of the state where

where more data centers are probably

located than anywhere in the country and

they're always good to look at in terms

of what what are they doing

regulatorily.

And the city of Chesapeake, Virginia had

has a very informative web page on data

center ordinance and policy.

And they talk about the different types

of decibels and what the sounds are

being measured.

And certainly a counselor Pankonin, I'll

defer to you cuz you've done this as

part of your engineering work, but

here's my lawyer's understanding of what

this page was saying that certainly the

DB decibels type A is a standard for

environmental noise,

but it doesn't always measure any low

frequency sounds that could be generated

at a facility.

DBC

uh is the standard for measuring or

capturing persistent low frequency

drone, whine, or buzz of a large data

center cooling fan. That's directly from

their website.

And then I talked about regulating for a

steady tonal sound as a continuous

unchanging sound and only uh DBC C could

measure that. These are sounds caused by

the data center's cooling systems,

mechanical equipment, electrical noise,

and onsite

backup power equipment.

Again, going back to Morton County on

their noise controls,

uh they require a noise impact study for

any applicant

uh including ambient noise study. Again,

that's ambient is the low frequency or

DBC.

Uh prohibits tonal noise from carrying

beyond the property boundary.

Uh regulates the timing of backup

generator testing to certain hours so

you're not disturbing any nearby

uh properties and then it regulates

noise vibration during

data center operations within set

limits.

Uh there's been some talk certainly and

we've certainly heard the concerns about

what if a data center ceases operations,

what do we do?

Uh the

the University of Minnesota, their

toolkit that just came out

is stating certainly that

decommissioned plans and agreements and

financial requirements are quote

becoming part of the conversation on

local state regulation of data centers.

Uh

and they're noting in their review of

proposed regulation from across the

country, you may require a certain time

frame for cleanup after ceasing

operations. I believe it was 12 months.

And

excuse me, Councilman MacQuarrie, this

is where your question was coming in on

a performance bond, etc.

Uh the University of Minnesota was

certainly noting that

uh local governments are discussing

maybe requiring some type of bond or

letter of credit to cover estimated

costs of decommissioning. So this

certainly would be

a uh a new wrinkle in terms of what's

going on.

But I think what you need to remember in

terms of your authority as a city

council to regulate data centers, they

are a unique use, both in terms of

electrical, in terms of water usage, in

terms of noise generation. All those are

unique elements that require unique

responses and unique regulation. So it's

not singling out data centers simply

because that's who they are. They have

very unique issues attached to the way

they use their property.

The final couple slides I want to point

out is

this Pennsylvania guide is I want to

tell you what the sources were. These

are two counties, Chester and Montgomery

County, but they were using various

models by some unique organizations.

The Pennsylvania Municipal League,

uh

the uh

Pennsylvania Physicians Association,

kind of like our Medical Association

here,

and also PJM Future, which is a leading

environmental

uh group within their state,

came together

and devised these are guides that they

are recommending for local governments

within the state of Pennsylvania.

And it lists eight different

considerations in terms of what uh

potential data center regulations should

address. And I think it does it in a

very succinct way and summarizes up

quite a bit of our research that we've

seen across the country. I'm not going

to read it to you. You can read it for

yourself, but certainly zoning and

placement, power and energy plans, water

usage, wastewater disposal plans.

Uh one that 's not been talked about yet

is the thermal impact mitigation plan as

these places generate heat. How are you

going to

minimize heat impacts?

Excuse me.

And then number five is the noise and

vibration.

This was a suggestion

for these Pennsylvania groups, both

local governments, uh, physicians, and

also an environmental group in terms of

what

types of suggested levels they would

recommend.

Uh, number six was an electronic waste

plan.

Again, similar to the decommissioning

issues in terms of how are we going to

uh, any disposal of server server

infrastructure, hazardous materials,

batteries, electronic waste, etc.

And then also the last one being the

decommissioning plan again. So

terms of those types of things. Finally,

what's going on in South Dakota? Uh,

again, we're seeing Sully County has a

large data center for crypto mining up

uh,

up in their county.

It's generating enough tax revenue where

they are going to fund their schools

100% through that taxation.

They have required environmental impact

reviews on energy demand, water usage,

and possible emissions.

Uh, the city of Vermillion is adding

data centers as an overlay district

with requirements specific uh, for data

centers for noise, water, and cooling

systems. And then finally, the city of

Aberdeen

uh, adopted a six-month uh, moratorium.

They went through a series of uh,

hearings with their city council.

They've just

extended that moratorium another six

months and they're working on

an ordinance right now.

And I want to thank you for your public

service and I always have to put the

caveat at the end. While I'm an

attorney, this is for informational

purposes. I'm not giving you a specific

piece of advice on any specific

proposal. We'll need to see them. So I

appreciate your time and your public

service

and uh open for the questions.

>> Thank you, Attorney Pfeifle. Councilors,

questions?

Councilor Pinkerton.

>> Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you,

Attorney Pfeifle.

On the example in Morton County, North

Dakota, um you mentioned that a data

center built under cost recovery

structures, could you just explain that

a little bit more if

um what that might mean in Morton County

with the term cost recovery structures?

>> I wish I could explain that far better,

but it's my understanding that whatever

rates they're paying is paying for

whatever added infrastructure is needed

for that data center, rather than

spreading the cost of that

infrastructure across all the

ratepayers. That's my understanding of

what that would mean.

>> Thanks.

>> Other questions, committee members?

Anything, Councilor Oppenheimer,

anything?

>> Thank you for putting this together.

It's a lot of lot of good information. I

appreciate the examples of what's been

done in

Pennsylvania and in Morton County, and I

think that will be

I think it's going to take us some time

to process this and

uh use it, but thank you so much for

doing this.

>> Thank you.

Uh Attorney Pfeifle, I've got a couple.

First, we're seeing a lot of interplay

here between state and city, and

sometimes there's not the greatest of

communication between different

government bodies.

Um so for example, I mean, I think the

state legislature has made their intent

very clear regarding electric utility

rates. What authority does the city

have? For example, have you seen any

ordinances on a local level that that

require basically the city the state on

two fronts? One is we look at SDCL

49-52.

Before a building permit is issued, the

city needs to see that agreement that's

in place between them and the PUC.

Secondly, uh under the banner what I'm

going to call pay your own way, the city

has adopted uh regarding sales tax that

data centers do not qualify for a sales

tax exemption in Sioux Falls. However,

the sales tax collection power that we

have is vested to us by the state.

The state could take that power away on

January 15th and nullify the work that

we did. Is there an option locally where

we can say if the state does X

it

I'm I'm just trying to think this

through to help us think that through of

how we say this is our principle locally

of pay your own way. And if you can't

pay your own way and the and the rules,

the regulations change that

pulls the permit or something like that.

Am I making sense at all of what I'm

saying?

>> I'd want to unpack that a little more,

Councilor. And certainly on electrical

in particular, I mean, there's such an

overwhelming state presence, regulatory

presence versus the city.

We're very limited in what we really can

do on the electrical side of things. So

certainly we would want to reach out to

the Public Utilities Commission and and

go through some of those scenarios and

see what they would find acceptable

in terms of

various scenarios, this for that type of

situation. We'd be happy to work work

with you on that.

>> Second question I would have is a lot of

times a lot of the concern we're hearing

is the word accountability.

Somebody breaks the rules.

For the [name redacted] family, if I break the

rules and I don't I build within 3 ft of

my shed of the property line, I got to

pay $1,500 bucks. That's not going to go

over well with the [name redacted] household,

the $1,500 thing hitting the pocket.

$1,500 fine for

group X because they go over the

property line,

they're probably going to be like, just

write the check for $1,500 bucks. Is

there an example where the

accountability can be industry specific

or do we get ourselves in trouble where

we've got certain via code violations

for the rest of the community are only a

$500 fine, code violations for this

industry are

$50,000 I'm being exaggerative. But how

do how do we do that with our code

enforcement where a code violation, for

example,

the [name redacted] is very different than the

code violation of another situation.

Walk us through how we make sure there's

appropriate accountability for the size

of organization or entity that we're

talking about.

>> Well, as

you know, as Jason Bieber mentioned on

the citation process, but beyond that,

in terms of code enforcement, the city

goes through a process where we try and

get voluntary compliance with whomever

is violating the code.

And certainly our city team has been

able to get 96% voluntary compliance.

Usually

the moment you tell them, hey, you're

violating the ordinance here, can you

can you remediate? Can you fix it? Get

back on track?

Certainly as you go through the court

process, one possibility is an

injunction, and that's probably our best

and most

heavy hammer that we have where you

can't continue operations if you're

violating

certain types of ordinances. And

certainly based on the type of

violation, we could seek that in the

courts.

And also you'll note that the regulatory

scheme doesn't just involve the city. It

involves

the state. It involves also the federal

EPA, which is granted its

enforcement authority to the the South

Dakota Department of Ag and Natural

Resources. So there's a lot of

regulatory

arsenal behind just the city going after

say one of our ordinance violations, but

there's certainly far more at in our

toolbox.

>> Thank you, sir.

Committee members, any final questions

for the attorney?

All right, seeing none, thank you for

your time this evening.

Committee members wanted to move on to

our next topic of upcoming committee

schedule. Our goal here was to really

quickly just recap for us and for the

community what's coming next. I just

wanted to walk through our next steps as

a committee, see if there's any

clarifying questions that you have or

anything we need to adjust, but go

ahead, Councilor Spellerberg.

>> Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to

actually take this time to

bring up the developer on this project

to maybe have a conversation where

they're at, what what we're looking at

today. I I think they're here today,

correct?

>> Can we hold that just one second till we

get through the committee schedule? And

then we'll get that in open committee

discussions. Is that okay?

So let's just go through the committee

schedule coming up. Coming up, I think

of this Thursday, committee members

along with some other committee members

are going to be taking a trip to tour

some places down in Nebraska to kind of

have a first site visit, not a first

site visit, a firsthand visit of some

different places and listen to some

community members down there. So that's

happening this coming Thursday. Our next

committee meeting is on Monday, November

30th. At that committee meeting, we're

going to have four different

presentations. One on electrical power

usage, understanding that. One on water

usage. One on the PUC process. Just walk

us through. So for example tonight,

Director Cotter laid out for us of when

a PUC permit is needed on a transmission

line. And so that's just one element of

it, but then you have the rates as well.

So we'll have somebody here walking us

through that PUC process. And then

finally, environmental standards of how

that works. So four different

presentations that night for learning.

November 27th is the final deadline that

we're asking community members to submit

things online to us. Community members

are more than welcome to attend on

November 30th and give public input at

that meeting and other future meetings

as well, but for us as we are writing

potential things, we're asking for

November November 27th. All of the

materials that are received by November

27th will be officially put into the

record at the meeting on November 30th.

We're not going to read every element of

it, but it'll be published

electronically. It'll be here physically

in some sort of format. So everything

we've received will be put in the record

that night. So that's what's coming up

over the next month. Committee members,

any questions on our schedule or what

we've got coming up next?

All right. Now we'll move into our next

topic, which is open committee

discussion on what we've heard or what

we're thinking about during our open

committee discussion. Our goals are

really twofold. One is opportunity for

us to ask questions. Our number two is

we want to finish this section with just

giving our staff, the city council

staff, anything specific we've heard

tonight that we want them to further

research, do fact finding on, as we ask

them to go and confirm things, affirm

things, whatever it might, whatever be.

So let's just open it up for open

committee discussion for a few moments.

Councilor Spellerberg, we'll let you get

started.

>> Well, what I just said. How about that?

Would you guys like to come up and have

a conversation about where you're at in

the project?

Thank you.

>> Okay.

Want to introduce yourself and then

Councilor Spellerberg can get us

started.

>> So

good evening, council members. Thank you

for the opportunity to be here tonight.

I'm [name redacted] with Gemini.

And we own the land on the southeast

corner of East Rice Street and Veterans

Parkway

that's

designated for the future Sioux Falls

Technology Park.

Then that sits right across from Excel

substation.

I know our our project has come up in in

various comments and you know, we're

here

to

help clarify some of those questions as

as much as we can.

Some might find it a bit challenging and

to come and speak here tonight, but it

actually pales in comparison

to a parent-teacher conference I have

tomorrow for my twin boys. So

I'm

on on that topic, I just wanted to

clarify something too. I know in some of

the comments I've seen there's been

connections between Google and Gemini.

Gemini has nothing to do with Google.

Actually the the word Gemini means twins

and the name it was named after my boys.

So that's where the name come from. So

we have nothing to do with Google

completely separate from them.

So moving forward, we wanted to discuss,

you know, topics that already have been

brought up, such things as water,

electrics, electricity, noise,

environmental impacts, and other key

points.

Our goal is to provide answers grounded

in facts, which is why we've also

brought with us, you know, a technical

expert that's been working on the

project and has worked with the city

through the

land use amendment, annexation, and even

the zoning process.

We've never suggested the development

shouldn't happen without oversight. In

fact, we spent much of 2025 going

through that

extensive process with the city and we

incorporated and many recommendations

that came out of that.

We believe Sioux Falls can protect its

residents and remain attractive for

substantial and private investment.

Those objectives are not mutually

exclusive.

The area where our property sits,

as mentioned earlier, was already under

consideration for future light

industrial development, although it was,

you know, considered tier three. And

that was prior to our purchase. With the

rail line across the street, Excel

substation and power plant,

as well as numerous transmission lines

crossing the property,

a data center didn't seem so

far-fetched.

In 20 January 2026,

when the city approved the land use

entitlements for our property,

including the zone change,

relying on that approval, Gemini went

ahead and made significant investments

to advance the project with Excel

and other important service providers.

We've also spent considerable dollars

working with South Dakota firms like HR

Green and Infrastructure Design Group

before the construction has even begun.

Some of those groups are here in the

audience today

and may share some comments. We want the

people and the companies already in

Sioux Falls to share in the

opportunities this development can

create. Recently, we've been speaking to

various contractors,

electrical worker unions, other trade

unions, and a lot of that work has been

going to North Dakota, they've shared,

for example, and we want to try and keep

that as much local as possible.

Uh, regarding transparency,

we've always been dedicated to follow

the public process laid out by the city

that all development projects go

through.

Our project was discussed at public

meetings with the planning commission

and city council through every step.

Um,

the future land use amendment,

annexation, and zoning.

We have been discussing the this

opportunity with prospective end users.

That's correct, but do we have any

finalized agreement with an end user

today? No.

There is a big difference between

withholding information and decisions

that simply have not yet been made where

we simply cannot provide that

information.

Our role as the developer is to bring an

experienced operator to this site where

there is a signed agreement we're able

to announce you'll be the first to hear

from us.

Uh, the conditions on this site apply to

whoever builds and runs this campus um,

based on the agreements we are making

and we will make sure that those

commitments are carried through.

Over the past few months, we've spent

considerable hours working with various

consultants to analyze the economic

impact of the project.

We've also reviewed our assumptions with

the Minnehaha County Director of

Equalization's Office and other

stakeholders. From this work, we

prepared a preliminary estimate of what

a fully developed 500 megawatt campus

would generate in tax revenue.

These are scenarios, not guaranteed

revenues, and they depend on what

ultimately gets built.

Uh, we also welcome an independent

review of them. For the city of Sioux

Falls, with respect to just the

electricity taxes, at full operation,

our models show the project would

generate roughly $5 million a year in

municipal electricity taxes for the city

with another $10.6 million in annual

revenue to the state.

This is also additional tax revenue that

would be coming in at a time where

certain

tax potential cuts are being considered.

Our early projections also show that the

project can generate

millions of dollars in property taxes

shared among the city of Minnehaha

and the local school districts.

We'd love the opportunity to work with

the council over the course of the next

few weeks to actually

narrow down on how how much those

dollars will be uh based on what our

consultants are sharing and what

the the county has also provided

information to us. Ultimately,

it's the council's call what to spend

these dollars on, but much of that can

go to for

essential services, schools, parks,

recreation, affordable child care and

housing, and even potentially

lowering the need to raise taxes or the

the burden of taxes for residents.

Uh

one point I know to our neighbors in

Brandon,

from what we've learned from the county,

a big portion of those property taxes

actually would go to the Brandon Valley

School District.

Uh the state aid formula does offset

part of that, so that net benefit needs

to be confirmed with the district and

the state, but that is also a big part

of where taxes go.

The economic potential does not remove

our responsibility. We take

being stewards of this land seriously,

and several safeguards are already

conditions of our approval.

Water is the issue residents have raised

and has come up over in these

conversations just minutes ago.

Our general our January approval already

limits water use strictly to domestic

use, not industrial use. And that is

based on us utilizing a closed loop

cooling system, which will be a crucial

factor and requirement for this project.

So domestic water use being kitchen,

bathrooms, drinking water, and so forth.

We've also incorporated significant

setbacks and berms in our design in

addition to have in addition to having

two major streets on each side of our

project with each Rice East Rice Street

Veterans Parkway as our borders.

With respect to upgrades to the grid, I

know that's come up and definitely

something to further look into with the

PUC, but all along Gemini has been

covering the costs of all these upgrades

so that the cost does not fall on

residents. That is something that has

been

in place with Excel, the main utility

working with us

so that Gemini, although we don't

control the process, we do foot the bill

for the work that Excel will be doing.

We've also voluntarily incorporated the

future expansion of Rice Street into our

design

as part of the development of our site.

We would be potentially offering the

city some of the land we own to widen

East Rice Street for that that future

plan.

There's also another important principle

I just wanted to touch base on which has

come up in some of the conversation

which is just regulatory certainty.

Gemini began this process under the

city's established rules. We engaged

city departments, obtained land use

approvals,

hired local professionals, and invested

in reliance on that process. We then

made significant investments based on

those approvals.

Changing requirements midway through the

development can affect engineering,

financing, infrastructure commitments,

and other negotiations. That is not an

argument against reasonable oversight.

We're prepared to adopt reasonable

standards and work with the city. What

we ask is that the city recognize the

existing approvals and consider

clear communication on those.

What that kind of fairness we believe

matters to every landowner and business

in Sioux Falls that plans ahead.

We follow the process in good faith and

we're here to continue

to earn the community's trust by

answering questions and providing as

much information as possible.

At the same time,

we're not We know that there there

questions that remain. We're not asking

the city to ignore them. We're offering

to help to answer them.

We believe Sioux Falls can protect its

residents, attract future investments,

and establish clear

expectations for every developer that

comes after us. We're committed to

working with the city to make that

happen.

Thank you for your time. We appreciate

the opportunity to continue the

conversation and answer any questions

you may have.

>> Thank you, sir. Councilor Stenberg, I'll

turn it over to you.

>> Thank you for the detail. And from our

standpoint, as you had said, you do not

have an end user.

Correct?

>> Correct.

>> So

time frame wise,

I think the term moratorium has come up

quite often.

What is a realistic time frame from the

day you get an end user until you start

moving dirt to get through the PUC and

everything along with that? Because

obviously we're trying to put good

standards in place here. And it sounds

like you're agreeable to that. But how

much time do we have from the day you

get that contract in place?

>> So

so kind of just to point out two things,

somewhat of two separate paths or

working in in tandem is we are moving

towards submitting a PUC application.

Excel is actually the one that would be

submitting that, not Gemini.

And that is something that

we have covered the cost for. And we've

spent a lot of 2026 working with Excel

on the design of connecting their

substation to our substation. Although

it's just half a mile and we're just

crossing the street, we are going

underground. There is quite a bit of

engineering and a lot of different

reports that need to be put together to

submit an application to the PUC. So

we're going through that process or

preparing for that

right now.

At the same time, we are, you know,

speaking to end users and looking for

that end user during this process as

well.

We would anticipate

right now at the earliest, you know,

even if we do have an end user in place,

let's say

today, for example,

the earliest we would potentially see a

building, a a data center hall

energized, and most of that is

goes through the path of when Excel can

deliver power

would be

late 2028

with the majority of the power most

likely at this point the schedule is for

late 2029.

So between now and then, of course, a

lot of work would be done. For instance,

in 2027

grading could begin and certain work can

start being done. There's also utilities

as

Mr. Cotter has, you know, explained we

need to extend sewer lines, water, and

so forth. So that could also begin in

2027 as well. But our goal is to try and

have that happen in the next

few months. We don't have full control

as far as, you know, securing an end

user and bringing that information to

the city.

But if we could do that in the next few

months and share that with you,

hopefully we'd be able to move forward,

you know, in in 2027 with some of that

initial site work

and moving forward to submitting

a comprehensive complete set of plans

for the city to begin reviewing.

>> Continue. One more.

>> One more question from my standpoint

just would be

you know, obviously once the building is

up, it's too late. So we have to make

sure that we're

getting all these protections in place

for the citizens of Sioux Falls from a

design standpoint cuz that's really what

it's going to come down to is making

sure that we have the design correct

from the sound, light,

water usage.

Realistic time frame on that. What would

you say to that question?

>> As far as

the design of the actual buildings and

when those those would need to be

approved

and we permits would need to be issued

if those were to be submitted

I mean, at the very I mean,

most optimistic, maybe

uh plans could be submitted in in 6 to 9

months, and I mean probably overly

optimistic cuz if you can imagine these

are complicated projects,

uh it would take many months to prepare

plans. Then it would be going to the

city for review, comments, and so forth.

They'd come back with all sorts of

recommendations. A new set of revisions

would have to happen. That in itself

would take many months before actual

uh

plans would be in a position to issue a

permit.

Um so nothing is, you know, imminent at

this time. It It would be,

you know, many months

even after we were to have a end user in

place.

>> Got it. Thank you. That just gives me a

better idea on time frames from this

kind of a project cuz this is obviously

new to us as well.

>> Right.

>> Thank you.

>> All right.

If you're willing, Councilor Councilor

Penkamen.

>> Yeah, thank you. Thank you for being

here, and thank you, Mr. Chair. And And

I just to confirm I think what I was

just hearing is that it's after uh an

end user is in place that that's when

the design gets complete then for that

end user.

>> Correct.

>> And then I have another question that

might be hard to answer if you if you

don't know who the end user is, but

with, you know, I'm not an expert in

um data center and in data center

technology. You know, I I'm a water

engineer by trade, but um not not in any

way the electrical parts and the data

storage and whatnot. That's not where So

but I am interested in this uh

this topic of um

low

frequency and um this, you know, volume

of the the D the C in parentheses that

we just saw on on our attorney's slide.

And I'm curious which part of a data

center creates that if it's like if just

every every chip that's getting cooled

or if it's just the generator or just

kind of which part creates that

that little hum or or that low frequency

noise.

>> Yeah, I I'm not an engineer either. I'm

not I don't want to give you an answer

right off

the cuff without making sure it's

correct. We can get you that

information. I believe that's the one

that's just from the consistent

lower level sound that's that's

happening.

I don't know if maybe you know we have

someone here who is an engineer and

works on data centers maybe she wants to

answer yet if you guys are okay if she

can

>> Please come forward. Yep.

>> She can introduce herself as well.

>> Good evening. Good evening council

members. My name is [name redacted] I'm a civil

engineer with Kimley-Horn.

I've been in the data center space since

2012 working on projects, seeing the

evolution of the industry.

Worked on a lot of different types in in

different parts of the country.

So that's a little bit of background,

but in regards to the

the noise question

it's all very correct what has been

shared today. There's DBA, DBC which

puts a heavier emphasis on the low

frequency noises.

There's also DBG, DBC. They're different

ways to look at the spectrum of noises,

you know, vibrations essentially that

are put out.

It is getting more common. There's not

anything currently in the US that

officially from a state or a national

level that regulates anything but DBA,

which is the most typical. It's what you

can hear to the human ear.

But we are seeing some more local

requests or requirements around DBC or

DBZ.

And it's so what comes from it is some

of the cooling equipment,

some of the the fans in the coolers

um and or chillers.

Um the equipment is very, as you can

imagine, very specific to different

manufacturers and what's selected from

the specifics of the design.

Um but generally to answer your

question, it's the it's the fans from

the coolers.

>> Did that answer your question,

Councilor?

Other questions?

Councilor Oppenheimer.

>> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh thank you guys

for being here. Um

it's

good to have Gemini here as we're

talking about uh where we're going to

regulate. I got a lot of real specific

questions which I know you're not going

to be uh able to answer or going to be

end user questions. I'm going to ask

something just very general uh to give

you an opportunity. Outside of the

financial aspect, what are the benefits

to Sioux Falls of a data center being

built uh in this area?

>> So

I I guess to

clarify one point, I think those the

financial from the tax revenue does then

lead to other tangible benefits that

could come, whether it is reinvesting in

the community and that would be

something for the city to decide as far

as

uh being able to lower the tax burden on

the the community. There have been many

areas where I'm sure you've potentially

seen some of these stories where

it could be teachers receiving

significant bonuses because of these

types of projects. Um it could be

schools expanding and having much better

resources than they had before.

And you know, aside from that, I guess

sphere of tax revenue and what could be

done with the tax revenue, you know,

from just speaking to a lot of

businesses, a lot of stakeholders,

residents, I think one thing that's

happened from a lot of projects,

even

you know, it could be wind projects

where power is not necessarily being is

going out of the state and it's not

staying in the state. This is an

opportunity, I think, where

the state can benefit from the power

and from the data.

There are no borders to necessarily

electricity or data. They crosses

borders. So if

in in the case of Excel, if they were

not to use this power here, they could

easily

and move it to another state where it

would be used.

And here is an opportunity for the city

of Sioux Falls and the state to actually

benefit from the power from its own data

rather than allowing another state

because we'd still be utilizing those

resources. It's just another area would

be benefiting from them rather than the

the city and state itself.

>> Thank you.

One more? Go ahead, please. Yes.

>> The other question I had is can you give

us a an example of

a data center that has been built by

Gemini or that you have been involved in

that's been a big success that we can

look at as an example?

>> We don't have a fully operational data

center that we could point to right now

and

share with you. There's several projects

we're working on. A lot of our work

has been in the real estate space and

development, especially in the

industrial space.

And that's why we've also brought on a

lot of partners with data center

experience. But one thing to note, these

types of data centers, especially

probably the reason why we are having

this conversation are

are in some ways new. You know, data

centers that were built over the course

of the last 10 20 years aren't the same

as the ones that are being built now and

those are very unique. So there are a

lot of people on our team and a lot of

the individuals that we partner with who

have vast experience but under like the

Gemini name and

there is no one I could point to you and

share that info.

>> Thank you.

>> Committee members, any other questions?

I think the only question I have is

clarification.

Is it Is it fair to say that really the

next step in the process is a permit

application for a transmission line from

Excel to the PUC? That that that

That has That has to take place.

>> is That is definitely uh probably

the next major milestone

>> Okay.

>> would be to submit that.

>> And that is an Excel application. That

is not a Gemini application. Is that

correct?

>> That's correct.

>> Okay. Thank you.

>> Just so you're clear, they are asking us

for some information about our site

because it's connecting to us, but it's

completely driven by them.

>> Thank you so much. Thank you.

>> All right.

Thank you.

>> Committee members, we'll keep it here on

the topic of open committee discussion.

Anything that has come up tonight that

you want to ask our staff to dig into

deeper or anything you kind of want to

make sure to

uh get out on the table now as we

continue continue this process of

listening and learning.

Councilor Spelberg.

>> Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think one thing

that sticks out to me after the meeting

two weeks ago was just having

um security on the surety bond. And if

we've done that in a project in the city

in the past, this is obviously a larger

project than we've seen in the past. So

I think it's something important. I'm

glad the uh constituent brought that up.

So if we could look into that, that

would be great.

>> Great. Thank you.

Councilor Penkunan.

>> Yeah, I was sort of wondering the same

thing um and maybe just more general,

but on the along a similar topic is, you

know, what could be passed that would

run with the land, so to speak, if if we

know that um that we're you know, who

who gets this permit has a different end

user, what could be what would be tied

more with the parcel, so to speak?

Um is what I'm getting at because

if if um

if

a lot of requirements are are met by

the applicant, but then the applicant

isn't our long-term user here. I just

want to take that into consideration.

>> Okay, I just want to make sure I'm

understanding so that we can give

clarity to the staff and the attorney's

office on what we're looking for.

Attorney's office, feel like you got

clarity on understanding regulation, how

it passes from one ownership to the

next? Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Thank you.

Councilor, anything else?

Go ahead, Councilor Oppenheimer.

>> Think it'll be useful to look at in some

detail at some of the examples that were

given

by Attorney Pfeifle, including Morton

County, Maricopa County, and

Pennsylvania, because seeing what

regulations were put in place there and

seeing what their effect was, because if

there's

solid regulations in other states and

other cities, rather than reinventing

the wheel, are there things that we can

learn from there? Were they too loose or

too tight in some areas? I think

doing some deeper diving into that would

be extreme.

And I love to give our attorney more

work to do.

>> Great. Any other questions?

Think for me, you know, two things that

really stand out. One is I

I think we got to make sure that we got

some sort of teeth in place. I think the

state has spoken clearly about this

utility issue and electricity issue, but

we've got to have some mechanism locally

that when a building permit is applied

for, that that utility agreement isn't

is in place. That that's not a Hey,

we'll discuss that later, because the

moment a building permit is issued, it

that's just we can't we can't be

changing rules after building permits

are issued. That's just more of a matter

of principle piece. So before that

permit's issued, we've got to make sure

that we get utility agreements in place,

and we got to determine what locally we

can require when requesting a building

permit on that on that front.

And so second thing, I mean, the noise

the noise piece is a

I think as I've been trying to I've been

trying to in my my work through like

what am I hearing the most from

constituents and things like that. I

think water and electricity's been

talked about a lot and we've seen

examples of that everywhere. The noise

peace has risen up of what I'm listening

to more frequently and just trying to

reach out to some communities and get

some more specific examples on the

things that the engineer over here

discussed cuz it's not something many of

us discuss every day just that we're

understanding that and we've got a

mechanism in place again. It all comes

down you can have a rule on the books

but what's our mechanism moving forward

of how we're watching that and managing

that moving forward. So that's a new

area that I plan on spending some time

on over the next month talking to

different communities specifically and

understanding kind of within that 3 mile

range what what takes place. Any other

final comments in the open discussion

period here?

At this time we'll turn it over to the

community members that are with us

tonight and have an opportunity for

public input. We thank you for being

here tonight and listening as well and

so this is opportunity for public input.

Speak to committee members you got 3

minutes each to come forward and speak

on any topic relating to the regulatory

oversight committee.

>> Thank you.

Okay.

[name redacted] if you can't hear me let

me know. My name is [name redacted] and I

live in Minnehaha County.

Okay there's some thoughts here mainly

for the public because I think you all

have pretty well made up your mind to do

this whether we like it or not.

So light industrial versus heavy

industrial

is this zone I last I heard this is zone

for light industrial. If that's the case

that's absolutely ridiculous.

My understanding is the low frequencies

that cause the health issues and

disturbance so that needs to be more

specifically studied

by experts outside experts.

Uh you quote the amount or somebody up

here quoted the amount of data centers

already in existence. I have not yet

heard the word once

hyper scale.

You talk about you, whoever's talked up

here, talks about yeah,

they have this data center there, they

have this data center there, but

which ones are hyper scale?

And that's what we're talking about,

hyper scale. That's very important to

keep that in mind.

Okay, Gemini da Gemini data center is

hyper scale.

Hyper scale data center does not bring

jobs in. They have their own specialized

crews that travel around and construct

these from beginning to end, very

specialized

project.

Then it takes a minimum crew, very

specialized, pre-trained crew to

maintain them, which they do not have

locally. I doubt it.

This doesn't only affect Sioux Falls, it

greatly affects the residents of Brandon

in Lincoln County.

They were not allowed to sign the

petition to get this on the ballot,

which we did, some of us did, out in

freezing weather where the ink was

freezing, etc. and given I think two

weeks, not very long to get it done.

Um one more thing, who's responsible? I

hear rumors. They're they're rumors, but

I hear rumors that some of these hyper

scale data centers last about five years

and then technology gets ahead and they

no longer are used. So if this happens,

who is responsible to completely

disassemble and restore that land to

what it was before that

hideous monster was built? Thank you for

your time.

>> Thank you.

Welcome.

>> Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the

City Council. [name redacted] with the

Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce.

At the chamber, we want to ensure that

we're keeping regulatory certainty for

all industries in our city and state. We

we to see that South Dakota remains open

for business to all industries and make

sure that we remain transparent and fair

to all industries when we are creating

policy, which is important to ensuring

that we are not closing the door on

opportunities that could come up today

or some other time down the road. So

with that we'd just uh like to see

certainty and regular regulatory policy.

Thank you.

>> Thank you.

Welcome.

>> Thank you.

Thank uh [name redacted], Sioux Falls.

Um this is going to be a little bit of

tough love.

Uh I grew up in New York City. I lived

in the Bay Area for 14 years.

I know a little bit

>> I'm sorry. Can you just talk Lift the

mics up.

>> Oh, sorry.

>> Crowd wants to hear you, so please.

>> I grew up in New York City and lived in

the Bay Area for 14 years.

I know a little bit about the people on

the coasts.

I know a little bit about Wall Street

and Silicon Valley.

They're laughing at you.

They look down on South Dakota

and have nothing but contempt for South

Dakotans.

They think we're a bunch of rednecks and

morons and white supremacists.

I know this firsthand.

They think that they can con us into

lining their pockets by telling us that

South Dakota will be part of the AI

revolution.

They think that they can hoodwink us

into believing that we're going to

benefit economically and partake in the

wealth.

The City Council and Mayor are swimming

with sharks

and they don't seem to know it.

They're being played

and they don't seem to know it.

They're confirming the stereotype that

South Dakotans are unsophisticated and

not particularly bright.

If anyone here thinks that Wall Street

and Silicon Valley aren't going to end

up with all the money, I have a bridge

to sell you.

Again, they are laughing at you.

Sioux Falls uh there's been turnover in

the state legislature. It's widely

expected that another 50-year tax break

will come up for vote,

and this time it will pass.

There are indications that there will be

efforts to expand the tax breaks to

include no property taxes and no sales

taxes on electricity.

This won't be a surprise given that the

new state legislators' campaigns

were heavily funded by pro data center

PACs,

and they will do the bidding of their

masters.

Sioux Falls has enjoyed rapid growth in

a thriving economy. Our unemployment is

at 2%.

We're doing just fine as is.

The proposed hyperscale data center

could put an abrupt end to this and send

the city into reverse.

Property values will certainly decline.

Conferences and conventions have been

coming to Sioux Falls because it's a

city on the rise.

Organizations tend not to choose

declining cities for their conferences.

Why take this risk when the economy here

is already prospering?

This isn't a situation of a depressed

city trying to do something to improve a

weak economy.

If the city council and mayor allow this

hyperscale data center to be built

and the city suffers as a result,

the history books will contain the names

of the people who presided over this and

flagrantly disregarded the will of the

people.

Thank you.

>> Thank you.

Welcome.

>> Good evening, council. My name is [name redacted].

I'm a professional engineer with HR

Green and here in Sioux Falls. I live in

Sioux Falls. I'd also like to briefly

clarify that I'm not related to our

city's public works director, Mark

Cotter.

HR Green regularly provides engineering

consulting services to the city of Sioux

Falls for utility projects involving

water, sewer, and roads.

And HR Green conducted a planning study

for sewer service in northeast Sioux

Falls, so we are familiar with the

proposed development area. And in the

interest of transparency, HR Green has

been retained by Gemini

to design the water and sewer

infrastructure for this site.

HR Green places a high value on a

relationship with the city of Sioux

Falls as well as our relationships with

local developers. Our employees pride

themselves in building and strengthening

the communities where we live and work.

I'm not here to tell you whether we

should or should not have data centers,

uh but our engineering role is to design

infrastructure in accordance with the

local requirements.

I am here to speak to my company's

experience working with Gemini on the

infrastructure planning for the site.

Gemini has been professional to work

with, engaged in the land use amendment

amendment process and responsive to

comments throughout the review process.

Gemini has funded the water and sewer

engineering as part of the approval

process seeking the future land use

amendment

and they provided information that we

asked for and worked through city staff

comments in that process.

Uh I think that future land use

amendment process has been described by

others in in more detail. Um I can speak

to the that Gemini has committed that

the water service planned to the site is

limited to domestic use and the sewer

and pump station are sized to serve

future growth to the south, not just

this property.

Easements were also established as part

of that land use amendment and in that

way the city or Gemini has followed the

development process.

The project does have local economic

impact.

Gemini has employed local designers to

be involved with the project, not just

HR Green, my company.

Uh other local consultants have been

involved with survey, geotechnical and

utility planning

and additionally Gemini has been

discussing plans for the infrastructure

improvements with local contractors and

suppliers.

Finally, I'd encourage the committee to

consider what gives everyone confidence

over the long term.

Clear standards that protect residents

but also give anyone investing in Sioux

Falls a predictable set of rules. They

also guide the engineering process so we

know what to expect when designing

infrastructure to support developments.

At HR Green we are local consultants who

have been in Sioux Falls for years, and

we plan to be here for years to come.

Thank you.

>> Thank you.

Good evening.

>> Good evening. My name is [name redacted]. I

am the founder of [business name redacted]. Um

I just wanted to come up here and kind

of talk about some of the issues that

I've had um trying to to get [business name redacted]

brought into South Dakota and Sioux

Falls. And then we face a lot of similar

problems that data centers are having,

and it comes down to water, land, sound,

light,

uh pollution. And so we've been working

over the past three years to develop

solutions to those specific problems.

And it just so happens that the data

centers are facing these same problems.

And

so I'm just proposing that uh

you know, there are solutions to these

problems.

They might not be as publicly known as

the problems themselves, but

I think that uh

the solutions are there, and we would

like to be part of the conversation in

integrating controlled environment

agriculture farms to be consumers of the

waste product of the data centers

uh when it comes to

reallocating a lot of that heat, um

capitalizing on the heat generated from

the closed loop systems that were

discussed earlier, um and mitigating

some of the sound through ventilating

underground through these controlled

environment agriculture uh facilities

that would be connected to

the data centers um and have a symbiotic

relationship between the two,

solving the majority of the issues that

the public is having.

And that's all I have.

>> Thank you for being here.

Welcome.

>> Good evening, Council.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak

today.

My name is [name redacted].

I'm here with Century.

We do commercial and industrial

construction throughout the Midwest

with offices in Sioux Falls and

Watertown and and of 225 employees.

Over the last few years, we've been

forced to travel farther and farther

from home to keep everybody busy.

Our employees have spent more time on

the road and more nights away from their

families because that's where the work

has been.

We want to see more of that work come

here to Sioux Falls and to the state of

South Dakota.

Data center projects create

opportunities for businesses like ours

to keep our people working closer to

home,

hire and train new employees and buy

from local suppliers and subcontractors.

The impact reaches beyond the

construction site.

It supports restaurants, hotels, local

businesses,

and the families who depend on these

jobs.

When our people can work here, more of

those dollars stay in our communities.

I encourage this committee to recognize

what these projects mean for local

businesses and working families, help

create a path for them to move forward.

We have the people and the skills. We

want the opportunity to put them to work

here at home. Thank you.

>> Thank you.

Good evening.

>> Good evening, Chair and council members.

My name is [name redacted] and I'm a

resident of South Dakota. I am a

business agent for the Northern Midwest

Regional Council of Carpenters here in

Sioux Falls. We support future

responsible data center construction in

Sioux Falls

and must protect taxpayers and utility

ratepayers, respect neighboring

communities, create jobs, and delivering

lasting value

to the people who live here.

This should not be a choice between the

economic opportunity and community

protection.

Sioux Falls should insist on both

passing a

insist on both passing a moratorium is

easy. Developing responsible policy for

generational advancement in this

community for years to come.

We are confident that you that you as

elected officials will make that happen.

For our members, these projects

represent more than buildings. They

represent family, supporting paychecks

and opportunity to build careers close

to home.

We have over 250 members in our

organization and we have about 200 that

live right here in Sioux Falls.

A large multi-phase project could allow

apprentices

to work and learn at one location for

much of their apprenticeship.

That's opportunities for high school

students graduating in the upcoming

years to get into the trades and build

careers right here in Sioux Falls.

Combined with classroom instruction and

continually

could help prepare the next generation

of skilled workers. We urge the council

to remain committed to registered

apprenticeship, strong safety standards,

fair wages,

and benefits and opportunities for local

workers and qualified contractors.

The benefits should extend beyond the

job site.

Local hiring

local hiring and purchasing can help

construction dollars reach our

restaurants, stores, suppliers,

equipment providers, and other

businesses throughout the community.

Tax revenue must also be part of the

discussion.

Data centers pay applicable

taxes including taxes on energy

consumption.

Their investment could generate

substantial public revenue in the

millions of annual dollars.

Sustained revenue and responsible

management could help improve

infrastructure

and public services for generations of

Sioux Falls residents in the future.

We stand beside you welcoming developers

willing to invest in our workforce,

supporting local businesses,

and protecting our community.

Set high standards, enforce them, and

build a future that benefits the people

who who call Sioux Falls home. Thank

you.

>> Thank you.

Good evening.

>> Good evening, council members.

My name is [name redacted] and I'm the

business agent for UA Local 300

North and South Dakota.

Local 300 represents over 600 members

of highly trained

members in the plumbing, pipe fitting,

steam fitting, and HVACR service

industries.

I am here before you tonight to support

the proposed data center project

here in Sioux Falls.

Uh data center projects provide

thousands of work hours for our members

and family sustaining careers

with industry leading benefits.

Not only does the original construction

of a data center provide for this,

the maintenance, retrofitting of data

centers ensure consistent steady

employment

opportunities for us.

Uh we have the chance with this project

to create employment opportunities

and increase tax revenue for the

community.

Opposing this project only sends the

message that we're closed for business.

Stopping this project from moving

forward

does not stop other data centers from

being built.

All it does is ensure it's going to go

someplace else.

Thank you for your time and

consideration.

>> Thank you.

Welcome.

>> Hi.

Uh good evening council members. My name

is [name redacted].

Um I sent an email earlier today just

with some information about the East

River Developmental Organization who is

already um exploring planning on new

infrastructure for alternative domestic

water sources uh because the Big Sioux

aquifer is already near in capacity.

This is everyone's talking about right

now, jobs, opportunity. What about in 20

years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years? Is

there going to be water for anybody to

drink, to do ag with? This is a real

concern.

And just a reminder that District 2,

Southeast Sioux Falls and Brandon has

already voted with a two-third majority

for candidates who oppose data center

development next to their homes. We were

not consulted ever.

Uh my main concern is that all current

regulations discussed here tonight were

not created with hyperscale data centers

in mind. I would argue that all light,

noise, water, and sound pollution

standards are too low for this industry.

Bottom line, whatever the current

standards are, they need to be

strengthened to reduce limits through

mitigation by 75%

to protect the public within the 5-mile

impact zone, mainly District 2.

Fundamentally, we don't want to see it,

we don't want to hear it, we don't want

to feel it. I don't want to breathe it.

We don't want to breathe polluted air,

drink polluted water, or pay any

increases in water or utility or

property tax or health impact costs. Mr.

Cotter, you stated that Gemini stated

they intend to have a closed-loop water

system end user. The word intend is not

appropriate. The closed-loop system

needs to be mandated to any future user.

They need to be mandated in in code to

uh prevent all types of pollution,

which is again why we need a 1-year

moratorium to discover best practices in

all categories to create regulations

that mandate best practices that protect

South Dakota citizens first and

particularly District 2 residents. The

civil engineer who spoke earlier stated

that there is no

regulatory standard nationally or state

for DBCs. This is not acceptable.

Low-frequency noise is a real medical

concern. The regulation and the

mitigation needs to be robust and it

needs to be clear.

My understanding is that Brandon School

District will receive property taxes. It

was also uh

stated that if these tax breaks go

through, all the money that everyone's

talking about is just going to go poof.

It's going to disappear. No electrical

money uh on utility rates, no property

taxes for any school districts. That's

that's a real concern that needs to be

codified and I want to know if you have

a plan for that. I want to know if

there's a legal avenue to prevent that

from happening.

At the end of the day, no one looks for

hyperscale data centers.

Uh they don't look for a hyperscale data

center community to move to or to live

in. South Dakota is fantastic. We don't

need this type of industry if it's not

done right. And I oppose and I would say

we don't need it at all.

>> Thank you.

>> professional

engineer with

with Infrastructure Design Group in

Sioux Falls.

Uh we're a local civil engineering and

land surveying firm.

Our company has been involved with

numerous developments

uh

throughout the city and the region. And

we did assist Gemini with the

preliminary planning, engineering, and

surveying for their property.

We were just one of the many engineering

firms working on this project.

I wanted to share a few observations

just from my experience working on this

project, but also offering an

engineering perspective on responsible

development in general and the

importance of having clear and

consistent regulations. So these do not

only apply to data centers.

First, our experience working with

Gemini and their team has been very

positive. They started off being very

inquisitive as they reviewed and learned

our local requirements.

They've been responsive, professional,

and willing to work through the

requirements and challenges that come

with developing property.

When issues were identified, they have

been willing to address them and follow

through on their commitments.

One concern typically expressed by

council members and the and the public

is whether the developers will follow

through on what they promise.

That's a legitimate concern and one that

applies to all types of development, not

just data centers.

In my experience, the best way to

address that concern is through clear

requirements and consistent enforcement.

We can also all be thankful our city

already has ordinances, engineering

standards, and development processes in

place to do exactly that.

I want to recognize our city staff. I've

been working with the city for over 20

years and I've lived here my entire

life. City staff has clearly clearly

communicated their requirements to

Gemini and the entire design team,

while also holding the project

accountable to those requirements.

They've enforced their standard and

required Gemini to follow ordinances,

standards, and processes currently in

place.

Gemini worked diligently with the city

to fulfill these requirements and work

through the city's standard processes.

That's exactly how the development

process should work.

Developers make significant investments

in land, infrastructure, planning,

engineering, and permitting based on the

requirements in place when they begin.

When those requirements change midway

through the process, it can create

substantial additional costs, delays,

and uncertainty even for projects that

have done everything asked of them.

Designs get redone, studies repeated,

schedules slip, and costs rise.

That certainly doesn't mean regulations

should never change. As new types of

development emerge, it's appropriate to

evaluate whether additional safeguards

are needed, which is the reason for this

committee

and this very meeting. I encourage the

committee to recognize the protections

already in place and build upon them

where necessary, listen to the feedback,

study what other cities are doing, and

carefully consider the impacts of

changing requirements for projects

already underway.

Thank you.

>> Welcome.

>> Hi there. I'm [name redacted]. I've spoken

with you before and sent you emails

before. Um

First correction, the problem with the

closed-loop water system flushing and

poisoning the

city is not Gillette, it was Cheyenne.

So don't look for Gillette Gillette for

answers. Um we have received I won't

call it misinformation but misleading

information tonight by people who know

better.

I'm referring to noise. And let me

explain how DBA and DBC noise bands

work. Consider you have 100 students and

they take a test. Let's say most of

them, almost all, score from 40 to 65.

They're not high achievers, but one of

them scores 100. So somebody asked,

well, what was the average score? Oh,

61. Okay, does that tell you anything

about the guy that scored

No. Well, that's how

DBC and DBA work. They take a huge band

of noise from low to high frequencies,

average them all into one number. So if

you have really loud infra noise at a

certain frequency band, it's totally

missed because it's all watered down in

the big number.

So that's why the whole DBA system,

which they've been referring to is fine,

is not fine. What we need and what I

sent you earlier, which is that's why I

just use the student analogy because

it's kind of hard to explain, but octave

band measurements take small bytes of

information like um a range of

of 40 to 60 hertz and measure that. 60

to 80 hertz, measure that. So then you

get in individual bytes of noise levels

and that way you can tell where is your

loud noise coming from. And that is not

going to be captured in DBA or DBC or

DBG because and they're all going to

miss a certain in between amount between

the very low frequencies and your DBA

and DBC which don't go so low.

They're designed to help protect people

from noise they hear and the infra infra

noise may not even be audible. It is

more felt. I also want to address the 75

decibel um

level that's acceptable at the

property line. I don't know if houses

abut this property line or not, but

infra noise, the low frequency noise

causes problems, health effects below 75

decibels.

Um it's recommended at no more than at

more than 40 decibels at night and 55

decibels during the day cause adverse

health effects. So if you're relying on

75 your and the houses are close to that

property line, you are going to have

unhappy property owners because they are

going to be affected by that noise.

Sleep deprivation, cardiovascular

effects,

possibly affecting the cognition in

children and so forth. And again, I I

think it is misleading for some of the

people to come up here and not explain

that to you.

Um

I also have specific information I can

provide to Councilman Pankonin about

specific equipment at specific hertz,

and I will send that to you.

>> Thank you for your feedback, and thank

you for correcting my earlier error on

Cheyenne. Thank you.

Welcome.

>> Hello. I'm [name redacted], and I live in

Sioux Falls. And as the city attorney

mentioned, data centers are a unique

industry, and they require a unique

approach. It sounds as if Gemini is here

tonight setting the stage for really no

meaningful regulations.

I hope the city takes into consideration

that this property, this industry that's

planning to come to our great city is in

the midst of hundreds and hundreds of

homes.

Therefore, the attorney's statement that

the primary role of the city council is

to protect the health and well-being of

the people

I I have to say I'm astounded that none

of the ordinances that we've talked

about today actually cover that.

So in relation to the characteristics of

this proposed project, I do believe that

an entire new body of ordinances and

management of them, as you know I've

said to you before, the monitoring and

the consequences need to be put in

place.

I think it's your primary primary role

to protect the health and well-being of

the people of Sioux Falls.

I appreciate all of the things that

they're talking about in terms of water

and power, but nobody has spoken today

about health. Nobody has spoken today

about environment. Nobody has spoken

today about the development of children.

Nobody has spoken today about

pollinators or about bird migration or

about

groundwater.

And as far as the dumping of chemicals,

um I'm astounded that that again, for

the second time in front of this

council, has been met with no answer.

And that happened in January as well.

Gemini was asked the same question. What

about dumping of the chemicals in the

closed loop? Well, we haven't thought

about that yet. And I heard the same

thing more or less again today. We are

not ready for this project.

Way way over our heads here. We are not

ready for this project. So I hope you

take that into consideration. I

appreciate all your time and effort for

these meetings and for inviting the

public. And I hope you take us into

consideration as we the people and what

our worries are with this. Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Good evening, ROC committee instead of

council.

Um my name is [name redacted]. I'm chair

of Let You Falls Vote and we back in

January collected 5,012

signatures during absolutely freezing

cold temperatures.

Um tonight we had heard a lot of

numbers, but what numbers we didn't hear

are the stats from regular citizens in

the community.

On November 3rd, voters across the

country weighed in on data center

development.

45 out of 47 data centers brought to the

ballot were voted out.

In May,

it was reported that 70% of Americans

opposed AI data centers being built in

their local area.

In August, University of Pennsylvania

survey found that 61%

opposed new data centers in their

communities, while only 14% had

supported them.

That that opposition has cross political

lines. Now while communities across the

country are raising concerns, Congress

is considering legislation that could

make it harder for

those same communities to challenge

major developments. It's called the

Bipartisan American Affordability and

Jobs Act, or BAHA.

This bill would speed up federal

permitting by changing environmental

review requirements. That means less

time spent reviewing potential

environmental impacts before certain

projects receive approval.

It'd also make some federal permits

harder to revoke or change once they're

issued. That means if problems are

discovered after approval, government

agencies could have less flexibility to

correct them.

And some provisions could limit when

courts can stop construction even after

finding problems with an environmental

review.

That means a project could potentially

continue moving forward while legal

challenges over environmental

protections are being resolved.

The bill also includes provisions

included to protect utility customers

from paying certain data center

infrastructure costs. Those protection

matter, too.

I want everyone to understand what's

happening. We're seeing widespread

public concern about the developments.

At the same time, lawmakers are

considering changes that could weaken

environmental oversight and legal

remedies.

So what does that mean for Sioux Falls?

We hear plenty about economic

development, private investment, keeping

our city attractive to businesses.

What we aren't hearing nearly enough

about

what people

Excuse me. What we aren't hearing nearly

enough about is what people who actually

live here want. You work for the people

of Sioux Falls, not for Gemini, not for

developers, and not for corporations.

Corporations have attorneys,

consultants, lobbyists, and entire teams

of experts representing their interests.

Ordinary residents don't have those

resources. They shouldn't have to become

experts in zoning, electrical

infrastructure, environmental science

just to have a meaningful voice in their

community. They certainly shouldn't be

expected to write the ordinances that

are supposed to protect them. That's the

responsibility of local government. I'm

not claiming national polling tells us

exactly how Sioux Falls residents feels

about Gemini.

That's why we should be asking them.

Economic development is supposed to be

benefit to the people who live here. The

people of Sioux Falls are not an

obstacle up to development. They are the

reason that local development

or local government exists in the first

place. Thank you.

>> Thank you.

Welcome.

>> Thank you.

My name is [name redacted]. I was born

and raised in Sioux Falls.

Thank you to the constituent who brought

up that it was Cheyenne, Wyoming instead

of Gillette, Wyoming. I also would like

to add that the research that I

did about that incident was that the

closed loop hyper-scale data center, the

construction of it um

caused

the developer, the the contractor,

excuse me, to dump over 800,000 gallons

of construction wastewater into

Cheyenne's public sewer system. Um the

average household in Sioux Falls uses

about 5,200 gallons of water per month.

I'm not a doctor, but it feels like

that's more than just a household use

for this data center.

Um while I'm grateful for the

opportunity to share my perspective, I'm

disappointed that we have to be here

tonight. I know that you know that

thousands of people throughout the

United States have reported negative

financial, environmental, and health

impacts as a result of living or working

near hyper-scale data centers. I know

that you're working to understand the

risks and how to mitigate them, and I

appreciate that. I know it's your job to

ensure that Sioux Falls area residents

are protected from reported effects such

as rising energy costs, water

contamination, noise, and air pollution,

everything we've talked about tonight.

I know that you know that this needs to

be done right so that future generations

don't bear the burden of your mistakes.

I am struggling to understand is why

we're scrambling to get this done so

quickly. It feels like I'm a student

again and we procrastinated and we just

have to cram to get things done

overnight.

From where I stand, it feels like Gemini

saw a blank slate and seized an

opportunity to take advantage of our

lack of preparedness. Um [name redacted]

from Gemini mentioned the investments

his company has made into the

infrastructure to support this project.

They got their foot in the door, but

that doesn't mean that we're required to

hold it open for them without putting

common sense protections in place. A

moratorium would be the most efficient

and logical way to proceed. This would

give the city time to establish adequate

protections and ensure that Gemini knows

the rules before investing more into the

area's infrastructure. A moratorium is

the only logical step forward. Thank

you.

>> Thank you.

Good evening.

>> Good evening, chairman and members of

the council. My name is [name redacted] and

I work for the South Dakota Chamber of

Commerce and Industry. I'd like to

extend the regrets of our CEO, [name redacted], who was unable to attend

tonight, but recognizes the importance

of this conversation.

While my professional life centers

around advocating for a strong business

climate in South Dakota, tonight I'm

here in a personal capacity as a proud

citizen of Sioux Falls who cares deeply

about our community's future.

I've been thinking about lately that

resentment grows from the things people

never tell us,

and assumptions grow from the questions

we never ask.

And when we leave those spaces empty,

human nature has a funny way of filling

them in with the worst possible

explanation.

They say that misery loves company.

Well, I have always much preferred the

company of possibility.

And I believe Sioux Falls has an

extraordinary amount of possibility

ahead of it.

Last week I heard the mayor of Lennox

say when you have a seat at the table,

remember the most important voice is

never your own.

It's the voice of the people you're

representing. So tonight I'd love for

you to hear these voices.

The voice of contractors who see crews

they can put to work, and entrepreneurs

whose dreams become more achievable when

our economy grows.

And the voice of the taxpayer who would

welcome new businesses

hoping helping to shoulder the costs of

the community we all enjoy.

And the voices of our schools, family,

and future workforce

who stand to benefit when responsible

economic development strengthens our tax

base and creates opportunity.

And the voice of the young person

deciding whether Sioux Falls is a place

to build a career, raise a family, and

dream big.

Asking hard questions about data centers

is not only reasonable, it's necessary.

Water, energy, infrastructure,

and long-term community benefits deserve

thoughtful answers. But there's a

difference between asking a question

asking questions to understand an

opportunity

and closing the door before the before

the questions can be answered. And

there's a difference between protecting

our community from what we don't know

and preventing our community from

discovering what it could be.

I believe Sioux Falls Sioux Falls do

both, protect what makes us special

while embrace what's makes us stronger.

Thank you for being willing to have

difficult conversations and make

difficult decisions. Leadership isn't

about finding the path with least

criticism.

It's about having the courage to

consider what serves a community's

future.

Sioux Falls didn't become the city we

love by assuming the worst of what's

next.

We became this city because generations

before us believed in what it could be.

And let's be worthy of that same

optimism. Thank you.

>> Thank you.

Good evening.

>> Good evening everybody.

My name is [name redacted] and I am one

of just over 350 residential homeowners

out in the bluffs of Brandon.

We house almost 1,000 residents. It's

booming and growing.

The Gemini Data Center is going to be

located less than 1 mile from my home.

In our own district, senators and city

council members left us out in the dark,

so we're sadly fighting this after what

feels like is really too late.

[passage omitted for privacy]

But I'm really coming here to

relay what my really what my

what my high school best friend [name redacted]

said to me over the past 6 months. She

lives in Smithfield, Missouri. She is

just over 2 miles from what started as

not one but is now three data centers.

It started as a rural neighborhood

similar to ours and is now considered a

heavy industrial neighborhood.

We've been in talks again over the last

6 months and she's given me these

talking points and really just said

whatever you can do, fight with all your

might. She said they had 6:00 a.m. wake

up calls 7 days a week for 2 to 3 years

straight.

There's been horrendous traffic,

multiple accidents due to the hundreds

of construction vehicles going in and

out of the sites.

The low frequency sound

goes through their windows and their

walls that you can't unhear.

She can no longer walk their dog outside

for long periods of time.

[passage omitted for privacy]

So my asks are, has a third party

traffic study been done on Rice Street?

Who would be financially responsible for

road damage, ongoing maintenance and

traffic control?

Has a low frequency noise study been

completed for homes within three

quarters of a mile away?

And then my asks when you go down to

Nebraska later this week, I would just

ask you to see if there are residents

that live within a mile and see how this

is impacted their daily lives. And then

ultimately, would you want this in your

own backyard?

And then finally, I'd ask that you just

take our small but mighty neighborhood

into account and implement a moratorium

to collect more scientific data. Thank

you.

>> Thank you.

Welcome.

>> Hi. Um, good evening. My name's [name redacted]. I live in Sioux Falls. Um, we

understand that data now is the new

currency and power for government

corporations like they can get all this

information off of us and use it against

us or convince us to buy things that we

don't really need to be spending our

money on. So I'm curious how much more

money, you know, data, even our privacy

that the government and corporations

need. What's another data center going

to do for us individual citizens? [name redacted] was asked what how is it going to

benefit the city of Sioux Falls? I'd

like to know how do each citizen get

benefited by having another data center

come in, a hyper scale one?

How do we benefit as citizens? So I

think we're being taken advantage of and

the government and corporations like

don't give a damn.

>> Thank Thank you.

Welcome.

>> Hello. My name is [name redacted] and I've

lived in Sioux Falls for 65 years.

Um,

and I want to thank everybody for the

information tonight. I mean, it's great

information. It's it's more than I've

heard in when I sit in all these

meetings.

So I appreciate all of that

However, I have like 16 pages of

additional concerns that I have never

heard addressed.

And you know it's down to the to the

level of

will Gemini be required to shut

slow down their electrical use if we

have some reason that you know like like

in the summer when there's an excess use

or what is the oversight going to be?

Once they're up and running is there

going to be oversight and how is that

going to be handled?

There's what happens to the water after

it leaves? I mean we've talked there's

been a little bit of talk about that but

there's so many things that haven't been

considered and I know you have all these

cuz [name redacted] sent it to you.

So I just I hope you're looking at all

the details

and thinking through all of those

things. The devil's in the details and I

don't know that

that all the details are being

considered.

They may be in some of the forms that

were linked in that document but I don't

know.

But it and it was mentioned that the tax

money would go to schools and that type

of thing or could

traditionally that doesn't happen. I

mean we're still the lowest paid

one of the lowest paid states for

teachers and so if you could promise

that maybe that would help but you know

I'm not I don't have any faith in that.

And I'm just going to mention that I

this isn't impact to me. I live in the

middle of town. In fact I live on the

same street as director Cotter so I'm

not going to be impacted at all.

However, a lot of my neighbors and I and

as I said

or a lot of the people I know and as I

said I love Sioux Falls. I've lived here

my whole life and I don't want to see us

take this path of destruction that we

don't even understand.

So I'm going to ask that you remember

that you work for us and that

you vote with the people and not the

corporations and the best way to do that

is to have a moratorium until you study

the devil in the details. Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Good evening.

>> How are you?

Um forgive me if I shake. My name is

[name redacted] and I live in Sioux Falls um

in the avenue.

Um I wanted to play something

that I hope can go into the record if I

can get it to play.

This is um from a

data center in Southwest Michigan.

It will come in a second.

>> local examples of what it's like when

they're up and running.

One of the most common areas of concern

I hear about is the noise that they

could admit.

But one community in Southwest Michigan

has been experiencing the reality of a

data center next door for a couple of

years now. And they say the sound has

changed their lives.

>> Here's the sound.

Can everybody hear that?

>> Can you face the microphone, please?

Talk into the mic.

>> Pardon?

>> Just talk into the microphone, please.

>> sorry.

Uh if everybody heard that, apparently

they're experiencing this all day.

Oh, I'm sorry. Let me see if I can

>> you Ma'am, ma'am.

>> a few other things. I wanted to talk

about e-waste especially and PFAs.

Nobody's talked about forever chemicals.

Um forever chemicals have been found

this year in the Big Sioux River. And

they've been found in some wells in the

state of South Dakota.

And um PFAs are also a part of data

centers um because they're used to coat

I don't know a whole lot about the

electronics, but I know they're used to

coat um

I don't know if it's the connectors, the

wires, something like that you know to

keep the heat down. Um 10 different PFA

manufacturers are increasing their

production because of all the data

centers that have been built.

Um and it's very dangerous for children

and babies especially.

[passage omitted for privacy]

this is all I and all the research I've

done for data centers I've not found

anything that feels positive to me about

this. It seems like it's power and money

and that really bothers me. And the

environmental damages all there are a

lot of harms that go beyond the property

lines of the data centers. Why isn't

anybody doing an environmental impact

study? I don't understand why that

hasn't happened. Um, we've had so many

experiences from uh, data centers that

have gone across the country that didn't

come right. There was one in New Jersey

had a $5,000

I'm sorry, 5,000 gallon diesel fuel

discharge into a tributary that went to

the Meadowlands.

Is that my time? Okay.

>> Thank you for your testimony.

>> welcome.

>> Good evening.

Good evening.

Uh, members of the committee, my

neighbors, I'm here to speaking as a

private citizen. I'm here speaking as my

for myself and my own personal views.

We all know the public debate happening

across Sioux Falls right now. Since they

are asking you all to go ahead and put a

moratorium of one or two years on

the you guys are been reluctant about

doing an outright freeze to stall

economic growth and that makes perfect

sense. I give [name redacted] a lot of credit

for bringing one of my major points to

the table today was that if we waited to

pass ordinance changes in 2027, they'll

just go ahead and grandfather the rights

in on 2026's bill and go ahead and use

those and then hold that situation up in

court to move on to and and go under

those rules.

I think there's another way. I think you

can go ahead and do what's something

called a a good neighbor development

agreement.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term,

it's this is not an anti-hurdle growth

or not a growth hurdle. It is a

collaborative binding contract where the

city and a developer sit down before a

single shovel hits the ground to put

mutual commitments in writing.

I think of it as informal handshake with

paper teeth.

The city grants access to municipal

infrastructure resource protections and

site approvals,

and in exchange the developer

voluntarily agrees to clear enforceable

guard rails.

Approvals are not given without that

agreement.

These handshakes have had success in

Lancaster P PA.

The agreement included water usage caps,

sound attenuated enclosures, and clean

energy contributions.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, it contained

water conservation baselines, strict

noise limits, and municipal

infrastructure guarantees.

When this developer of an uh of other

volun sorry, with this developer or any

other voluntarily puts its signature on

agreement,

it completely bypasses the legal

the legal fight over grandfather

loopholes

and gives the city council a clear,

defensible instrument to to approve it.

Some of the things that you could put in

that agreement would be a one uh point

one to two and a half million dollar

escrow account requiring to pay fees if

they were to go above the abilities that

they were or as [name redacted] was saying

earlier that he was concerned that there

was not going to be any enforcement

mechanisms.

Um you can also say with the city state

of South Dakota will

basically allow sales tax rebates on a

lot of the purchases. You can require

them to go back in and reinvest those

sales taxes back into the community

without just for the same dollar amount

as the rebate themselves.

Um we've made lots of talk about the

water and and uh power issues. I would

also argue that one of my biggest things

would be that every five years as

technology advances, the technology to

uh muddle the noise to take care of the

water will increase and every five years

we should look back and and force the

data center to make those changes if

they're required to and help it be safer

for this community moving forward.

Um

for a long time the story of the hype of

scale data centers and heavy industrial

builds.

>> Thank you for your testimony tonight.

Welcome.

>> [name redacted], uh Sioux Falls homeowner.

Uh

these data centers have concerned me for

some time. Um

they're talking about the decibel

rating. We know that sound is hideous

sound. If you had to listen to that all

the time it soon drive you away.

And I was looking at your sheet it talks

about uh

the sounds that levels that are

acceptable.

From what I understand 85 decibels can

cause hearing loss over extended periods

of time.

Uh it says here that it can go up to 95

decibels

and pulsive sound and that doesn't

really define what a pulsive sound is.

Is that like a gunshot or can that be 15

minutes of time every hour?

And um

and 85

decibel can cause hearing loss.

Since it's exponential

uh 95 decibels is 10 times as loud.

So you can imagine having to deal with

that even on an intermittent basis would

drive you crazy.

Um

they talked about end user. I'm not

exactly sure what they mean by that but

to me it seems like they're going to

build this facility and then turn around

and sell it to the highest bidder.

Whether that's Microsoft, Amazon,

Google, NVIDIA, or Oracle, or whoever.

Uh so they're just going to turn around

and sell. It's easier probably for a

small smaller company to put this in an

area.

It doesn't cause as much uh

uh reaction as a large company would.

Uh so I think that's what's in the

making and uh

and then the the thing that I'm

concerned about is is the data use. What

kind of data do they really collect and

how is it used?

I understand Sioux Falls has authorized

the use of these flock cameras.

And we know that

that Edwin Snowden, he revealed that

everything we do, where we go, what we

say

and

is always recorded.

And my concern, one of my concerns is at

these data centers are we going to

record that information basically

forever. They can go back to this

information. Who wants to be tracked at

every turn?

We do have those those uh like I said

flock cameras and other ways of

of every time you carry around a cell

phone, they have ways of tracking where

you are. And they need a huge amount of

data centers

to record all that information. And

basically

we become a prisoner in our own country

because we've lost our

our freedom of uh

uh uh

privacy. The

>> Thank you.

>> The the the Fourth Amendment is

something I hold dear.

>> Thank you for your testimony.

Welcome.

>> Hi, good good evening councilors. My

name is [name redacted]. I'm a principal

with Gemini and uh I just wanted to say

thank you for having us. I want to

reiterate that we are 100% committed to

responsible development. Development is

it's a long, arduous, complex, highly

technical process. I've been in the

industry for the in the industry for the

majority of my career. Um and I just

want to reiterate, there is a ton of

detail. We are committed to uncovering

that detail, working with the best of

the best experts. Really good developers

bring along teams that are really good

at what they do. Uh, council member

Oppenheimer, you asked earlier if we'd

committed a or if we have completed a

data center before. We have not, but

we've developed a lot of projects. And

what you learn when you develop a lot of

development projects is you're the

quarterback. You got to put a really

really good team in place, and we have

that. And part and parcel with that is

communicating with local leadership,

with hearing from stakeholders. And I

just want to say, you know, I'm a

father, I'm a husband, I have children

as well. I would never build anything

that I wouldn't put in my own backyard.

And so I just hopefully my words today

can give some comfort to some of the

citizens here. We're committed to

working with you all, and we uh thank

you for having us.

>> Thank you.

>> Welcome.

>> Hello, [name redacted] from Sioux Falls.

I can't help notice just uh handful of

people coming up here, and it seems like

there's probably a lot of people in

Sioux Falls that are either in some type

of construction business, own one, know

somebody,

brother's, cousin's, nephew of a

business, and

they come up here and

want this because it's, you know, it's

going to be a massive project. It's

biggest one probably ever.

And I can't help but wonder why there's

an assumption that a single dime of that

money is going to be used to hire

anybody in Sioux Falls to do it, like

why that assumption's there. So I'm kind

of speaking to everybody in the room on

this, but it's good for you guys to know

too that

it's all about the lowest bid.

I don't even have any experience in

anything like this, but there's a really

good chance there's going to be a giant

company that's at a national level

that possibly may already have the bid

to put every single last

worker on site, and none of them are in

Sioux Falls.

They're not they're possibly might not

be a single

worker from Sioux Falls doing anything

on that construction site. I don't know.

I just noticed what's his face's choice

of words at the beginning was is we hope

to work with

whoever in Sioux Falls.

You know, if we can do that, that's a

good choice of wording because that

means that

if the if the bid's not there to come in

the lower price than the next guy, then

it might not happen.

In terms of my thoughts for

just learning more about this, I think

one of you mentioned it earlier where I

think since none of us really know a

whole lot about what we need to know and

we're all asking questions including

everybody

up here,

I would probably spend more time

actually just reaching out to any city

council members of just any community

that's already has one.

They already have all the answers,

whether they're good or bad.

You know, he mentioned and I believe

when you said that data centers from,

you know, 10 years ago are obviously

going to be completely different in some

regards than ones now.

So I guess the best

thing that I can think of off the top of

my head is maybe find a community that

has a massive data center that's like a

year old or two years old

that's been fully operational that would

be most similar to

what this one's going to be.

And they already have all the answers of

what's good and what's bad.

And somebody's comment earlier about the

taxes too since that appears to be the

only guaranteed revenue, period,

is if some if somebody above your guys'

head can pull the plug on that where it

really doesn't matter anymore,

then it essentially won't benefit us at

all if that actually happened.

>> Thank you.

>> Welcome.

>> Thank you.

Can you guys hear me okay?

All right.

[name redacted] I live in Lincoln County

and I'm

retired.

Um, just a couple things. Uh, first of

all, I agree with what [name redacted] said. So

that's one thing that'll save a lot of

time.

Um, a couple things that are a little

disconcerting.

Uh, at the federal level, there are no

regulations for data centers, especially

hyper

data centers. If they are, they're

minimal. And why is that? Because right

now there's a lot of money to be made

because there's no regulations.

And probably the biggest one I would be

looking for is how many hyper data

centers do we need? Regardless of one if

one is in Sioux Falls, how many do we

really need?

Um, and then the other thing is uh

I appreciate Gemini being honest that

they've

had projects, but they don't have a

fully operational uh data center yet.

And it's just a little disconcerting.

Um, not to say that they're not trying

to do the right thing and trying to

trying to do it the right way, but

again, they don't have any fully

operational data centers for us to

compare to.

And then um

the other thing is I haven't heard any

discussions about uh the backup

generators that are typically diesel

generators. And so if you could please

include that in your

reviews.

Um,

and let's see. Oh, the other thing is

the information of the guidelines about

the uh Pennsylvania that Pennsylvania

put out. I think those guidelines look

like they're good, but my question is

have any of them been fully implemented

in any of the cities yet?

And then um also concerned about uh and

this has been brought up a little bit

and I don't have any specific examples.

Well, that's a lie. I'm thinking of one,

but I won't say it.

Um, but conflicts of interest. Um, there

was a lot of data center money put into

the uh recent um

uh whatever. And uh I guess that's just

disconcerting. And what does that mean

to us?

And um also there's just something I

will just stop over and say to the

Gemini people because I really don't

want to say that online either. So thank

you.

>> All right. Thank you.

Welcome.

>> Um thank you. My name is [name redacted] and

I've

>> Can you step forward?

>> I thought all the information we heard

today was really good um both about

Gemini and the opposing of it.

Um I just want to express my

disappointment.

I feel like

our city council got the cart before the

horse.

You approved

rezoning before you really knew

how you should zone

uh hyperscale data center.

You've

neglected to put

things in place before permitting

was already issued.

They talked already that they've had uh

meetings with our developing

uh

governing bodies in Sioux Falls.

Yet

none of you thought

maybe

we should get all of this stuff in place

first

instead of

just moving forward and now we're trying

to back pedal to figure out how to make

this work. On top of it

it's 140 acres.

You put it in people's backyard.

There's people that are have homes that

they've invested in

and

worked hard to build

and they're a half a mile away from this

place.

I mean of all the land in this

surrounding area

that was the best choice.

I just I'm really disappointed

that there wasn't more

thought before you went and gave a stamp

of approval.

>> Thank you.

Any following Nope, one more.

Welcome.

>> [name redacted], retired IBW Union electoral

worker.

I've worked on Amazon. I've worked on

data centers.

I've been in Kansas City.

Where are they?

You can go look.

How many houses are by those places?

Take a look.

There ain't nothing around.

What's Amazon got?

Swans.

A

Ain't nothing up there.

There's no homes there. You guys would

buy one?

>> Can we talk into the talk into the mic,

please?

>> will.

>> Thanks.

>> You guys would buy one?

I built ADP.

I was up there, 38 across from DOT.

What's up there?

Ain't nothing up there.

There's no residential.

It's my wife.

She spoke what should be. We're like

three quarters of a mile away from this

place.

Just bought it.

And many more houses on the bluffs.

This is what we got to put up with.

You guys sold us out.

She's right.

Should have had it set before these guys

came in.

All this is a dog and pony show.

>> Thank you for your feedback.

Welcome.

>> Thank you.

I just want to say 73%

of people don't want these in their

backyards.

You know, I could care what we might

gain out of this. We might get some

property tax reduction. What's that

going to do to my home value if my home

value goes down 25 to 50%? I could care

less about a reduction maybe in property

taxes. There's just all of these people

from the bluffs and Pine Lake Hills, all

of these people that are close to this

Gemini site. They can't even vote for a

mayor or a city council because they're

not within that area, not within the

right area of the city.

So, um I just want to say it's never too

late to do the right thing. You could

always do a moratorium, give it more

time, make sure we're doing the right

thing.

>> Thank you.

Oh.

Thank you for being here this evening

and attending the regulatory oversight

committee. Our next meeting will be on

Monday, November 30th, and you can reach

out to committee members or city

councilors by going to the

siouxfalls.gov regulatory oversight

committee page there, and I appreciate

your time tonight. And therefore, this

meeting is adjourned.

>> Yeah.