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Residents raise health and transparency concerns about Google data-center plans during Fort Wayne public comment
Summary
At the Oct. 28 council session, public commenters urged the city to press state regulators and project proponents for greater transparency and safeguards related to a large data-center project, citing diesel-generator permits, underground fuel storage and potential air-quality impacts.
At the end of the Oct. 28 Fort Wayne Common Council meeting, two members of the public used the open-comment period to press the council on separate but related community concerns.
Reverend Kimberly Koczan (zip 46805) urged city officials to amplify transparency around a proposed large data-center and to press the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for strict permitting oversight. "Google already has a permit for 36 diesel generators and ... they're adding to that to total 174 diesel generators of large size and with over 1,000,000 gallons of underground storage," Koczan said in the public-comment period, and she asked the council to seek decommissioning bonds and clearer health-impact analyses.
Koczan asked the council to encourage residents to attend an upcoming town hall and to work with state regulators when the permit applications proceed. The council did not take immediate action in response to the comment, but her remarks were logged in the meeting minutes and flagged as an item for possible follow-up with regulatory authorities.
Another commenter, a downtown food-truck operator, highlighted ongoing downtown needs including building vacancy, the absence of a full-service grocery and retail gaps. He praised local festivals and events as economic drivers and urged continued investment in downtown activation.
What the meeting record shows - Public commenters raised specific permitting and health concerns about the data-center application; the transcript records numerical claims about generators and storage that may require verification with permit records. - Council members did not adopt immediate policy action in response to the public comment but did not dispute the need for greater transparency; next steps would generally include referring permitting questions to staff or notifying state regulators as appropriate.
Follow-up recommended The claims about generator counts and underground storage are testable against state permitting records at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and against local permitting filings. The council's administration was asked in prior discussion and in other contexts to track such permits and to coordinate with state agencies when projects have cross-jurisdictional environmental impacts.
