Residents urge Imperial County supervisors not to ratify Sen. Padilla letter, demand full CEQA review

Several residents told the Imperial County Board of Supervisors on Feb. 17 that a Feb. 11 county letter to U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla concerning communications about the proposed Imperial Data Center should not be ratified from the consent calendar and should instead trigger fuller public review.

"You're trusting the word of a developer with a precarious legal history," said Christopher Skure during public comment, urging supervisors to move the item from consent to action so the community can scrutinize correspondence and the project's environmental review. Skure and others criticized errors and omissions in the county letter and said those flaws undercut confidence in the county’s handling of the project.

Why it matters: Residents said the county's catalog of communications with the senator's office cannot substitute for independent environmental review. Several speakers raised public-health and resource concerns, including alleged water use and air-emissions impacts tied to a data center of the proposed scale.

Concerns expressed in public comment included an assertion that the project avoided CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act) review, that the developer (identified in public comment as Sebastian Ruchi) has overstated mitigation plans, and that written agreements the developer cited with local jurisdictions (for example, on reclaimed-water use) were either not in evidence or not complete. "Why the rush?" asked Reina Adame, who described the developer's public comments about speed and warned of the project's potential to strain water supplies.

Board response and scope: Chairwoman Peggy Price clarified that the Feb. 11 letter under consideration documents the county's timeline of meetings and correspondence with Sen. Padilla's office and "does not involve consideration of the merits, impacts, approval, or policy issues related to the proposed data center project." She told commenters that because this was a special meeting, public comment had to be limited to the letter's communication timeline rather than broader project merits.

What residents sought: Speakers including Jake Tyson, Kelli Jordan and Francisco Gal asked the board either to remove the item from consent so it could be fully debated or to add a separate agenda item that allows extended public comment and staff action to address outstanding questions. Peter Rodriguez, an alternate on the air-pollution-control board, framed the problem as a failure of interagency communication and suggested more direct outreach between regulators and the developer.

What the transcript shows: Commenters repeatedly requested clarity on who initiated contact with the developer and whether the county solicited the project; a board speaker (clarifying during public comment) stated that the IVDC entity is not a county organization and that "they came to us" rather than the county having solicited the developer.

Next steps: The board left the letter on the agenda for ratification (comments limited to communications), and public commenters asked the board to open fuller public hearings or workshops where the substantive merits — including CEQA compliance, water use estimates and air-quality impacts — could be addressed.

The meeting record does not show that the board amended the Feb. 11 letter, initiated a new independent environmental review, or otherwise decided on substantive policy changes during this session.