Central Texans address concerns over data centers at city council meetings
The short version: Two small Central Texas towns show how data-center deals get done: quiet annexations, fast approvals, and residents finding out mostly after the fact.
Our Take
Credit to KCEN News for actually showing up to these meetings, because this is where the real data-center story gets written — not in glossy press releases, but in a Lacy Lakeview annexation vote and a Ross city council grasping for "limited options." Annexation is the quiet lever that turns farmland into a zoning-friendly parcel for a hyperscale campus, and once it's pulled, residents are often negotiating from the back foot.
What's missing from most of these local meetings is the full cost accounting: what substation upgrades ratepayers will subsidize, how much groundwater a cooling system will pull in a state that already fights over water rights, and whether the tax abatements being dangled actually pencil out for a town the size of Ross or Lacy Lakeview. Council members are making generational infrastructure decisions on compressed timelines, often before the public even knows a project is in play.
This is exactly the pattern we track — small-town councils becoming the front line for a national buildout with local consequences. Check our facility map to see what's proposed near you, and if you want to push for real transparency before the next annexation vote, our take-action page has a place to start.
This is GridWatch the USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KCENNews, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.