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Coldwater council says it won’t back data centers as residents press about Clemens incident
Summary
City leaders said they do not support allowing large data centers and directed the planning commission to draft size and operational limits. Public commenters tied a recent Clemens employee stabbing to immigration and urged transparency and oversight.
The City Council of Coldwater on July 13 said it does not support allowing large data centers within city limits and that the planning commission will work over the coming months on regulations that would limit size and operations to deter such facilities. "There is no support on city council to allow data centers," the meeting moderator said, adding the commission will "impose some restrictions, some rules, some regulations, some size constraints to deter or defer data centers from coming." (Moderator, speaker 1).
The comment period drew a string of emotional remarks tying local concerns about the Clemens plant to broader questions about immigration and public safety. A longtime resident who addressed the council said news reports identified the person who stabbed and killed another local man as an "illegal immigrant" employed at Clemens and urged officials to explain how that occurred. "This city...the township, and the state of Michigan invested $60,000,000 into Clemens," the resident said, warning of reputational and economic fallout and urging transparency and possible legal exposure for the company (Resident, speaker 4).
Doctor Ken Klein, a resident who spoke later, raised public-health context, noting that immigrants historically have undergone medical clearances: "When we brought Henry to the United States...he had to have a chest x-ray before he left The Philippines," he said while urging attention to screening and infectious-disease controls (Dr. Klein, speaker 7).
Business and housing interests also weighed in on the data-center question. Paul Linsley, vice president of Richcraft Homes, told the council Coldwater is currently a target without zoning protections and urged the council to consider limits such as banning open-loop cooling systems that consume large volumes of water. "They consume massive amounts of water...they would drain our natural resources," Linsley said, urging careful review of grid and water impacts and caution about tax abatements (Paul Linsley, speaker 6).
City Manager Keith Baker noted the planning commission is taking this up and that staff will return with recommended zoning language. No ordinance was adopted at the meeting; councilmembers signaled support for pursuit of regulations that would give the city local controls while recognizing that outright prohibition is legally limited.
Next steps: the planning commission will draft proposed restrictions and return to the council in the coming months for further action and public input.
