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McLennan County approves 25‑license AI pilot; public commenter urges scrutiny of data centers
Summary
The court approved a pilot agreement with Logically for 25 county AI licenses pending legal review. Public commenter Amy Gage warned commissioners about environmental and public‑health risks tied to hyperscale data centers and urged independent review.
McLennan County Commissioner’s Court voted June 2 to approve a pilot master‑services agreement with Wixnet LLC, doing business as Logically, that would make 25 county licenses available to staff to access multiple large language models through a third‑party content provider. The motion passed pending final approval from the county attorney.
John, a county IT staff member, told the court the pilot would let licensed users query any large‑language model through a single platform and that a third‑party content provider would hold the county’s queries and data rather than each model vendor. “With these licenses, you could use any model you want basically…and you could feed it a large amount of data,” he said, adding the arrangement aims to reduce the risk of vendors training their models on county data.
Public comments earlier in the meeting underscored local concern about technology and land use. Amy Gage of Lacy Lake View, who identified herself during public comment, said she does not oppose technology or economic development but urged officials to weigh environmental and health impacts tied to proposed hyperscale data centers. “However, they’re now overshadowed by the sustainability of our natural resources and the potential destruction of the only planet we know to be capable of sustaining human life,” Gage said.
Commissioners discussed security, model capabilities and the limits of free consumer tools; one commissioner noted free versions of some services restrict query size and may retain data. The court decided to proceed with the Logically pilot but attached legal review as a condition before final execution.
County staff said the pilot is intended to replace an existing ChatGPT trial that ends in July and to centralize access and governance while staff draft additional budget items and policy considerations related to AI. The court’s action authorizes the pilot to move forward pending the county attorney’s final sign‑off and subsequent implementation steps.
