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Resident warns council about Meta data‑center expansion, water use and tax exemptions
Summary
A resident asked the council to require more public oversight of a Fair Oaks tax‑increment district tied to a Meta data‑center project, raising concerns about an 85% tax exemption, potential water use and NDAs that limit transparency.
Nancy Moran told the Tulsa City Council she supports citizen oversight for a tax‑increment district in the Fair Oaks portion of East Tulsa amid proposals to rezone additional acreage for a second hyperscale data center she associated with Project Anthem and Meta.
Moran said the original data center is "projected to use up to 1,000,000,000 gallons of water once fully operational" and asked how much additional water a second campus would demand. She criticized what she described as an 85% property‑tax exemption for 25 years for the developer and warned the community might bear higher electric rates and other indirect costs: "The data center's gravy train comes in the form of government subsidies, abundant water, cheap electricity, and the lack of accountability due to NDAs," she said.
Moran urged the council to create a review committee for Fair Oaks that includes three public representatives, explicitly asked that a developer family not occupy the business representative slot because of a potential conflict of interest, and recommended adding an expert in environmental impacts of data centers.
The council did not take a separate vote on the points Moran raised at this meeting; related zoning and waiver items (8b–8d) were discussed in the same portion of the agenda and were approved later in the meeting.
