Athens-Clarke County Commission Extends Delay on Data Center Moratorium
The Athens-Clarke County mayor and commissioners voted Tuesday at the regular session commission meeting. They decided to extend a temporary pause on new data centers through June 5, keeping new project proposals on hold after residents expressed concerns about the increase in utility costs and strain on local water and power systems.
The vote came March 3 at City Hall during the regular voting meeting. The pause on new data centers started in December, and the March 3 vote pushed that deadline back to early June.
Tawana Mattox, who holds a doctorate in higher education leadership and is an Athens resident, urged county commissioners to reject new data centers in Athens.
“No more data centers in our Black and working-class neighborhoods,” Mattox said. “We cannot trade our health, our water, our air, our neighborhoods for corporate profit.”
In an interview, District 9 Commissioner Ovita Thornton said she initially saw the data center in her district as just a warehouse, but later grew concerned about what another facility could mean for nearby residents.
Why I Wrote The Story
I went into the meeting expecting a procedural vote and walked out with a notebook of utility bills, water concerns and a resident telling commissioners not to put another data center in her neighborhood. The reporting challenge was holding all of that on top of a long agenda and still finding the lede. Commissioner Ovita Thornton and resident Olivia Asher are the kind of follow-up sources I want to call before the June deadline.