Emails show Farmington leaders tried to ‘offset the opposition’ to controversial data center project

As residents began asking questions last May about a controversial data center campus proposed in rural Farmington, a city official reached out to the developer with a request: Did a company executive have advice on how to “offset the opposition but without talking about a project?”

“On it,” wrote Kevin Arrow, a high-level employee at Tract, a Colorado-based company hoping to prime several hundred acres in the south metro suburb for a dozen data center buildings.

“Will work with the team to draft some talking points,” Arrow told Deanna Kuennen, Farmington’s community and economic development director.

But the blowback had already begun. After railing against the energy-guzzling project’s proximity to homes for months, some neighbors sued the city in November over alleged issues with the development process.

Farmington leaders hosted multiple public hearings to field concerns. But nearly 5,000 pages of emails, documents and memos the Minnesota Star Tribune obtained through a public records request show city officials endeavored to avert backlash to the divisive project.

According to the correspondence:

The documents also show fractures within City Hall. One council member claimed voting on the “reckless” project made him “sick to my stomach.”

In an interview, Kuennen disagreed that city officials sought to clamp down on criticism. She pointed to the numerous public hearings Farmington held and the scores of residents who emailed elected officials their concerns.

“It just happens to be that this [project is] controversial from some neighbors' perspectives,” she said. “But we didn’t limit any discussion on this.”

Tract declined to make Arrow available for an interview, writing in a statement that providing FAQs to municipalities is common practice “to ensure that stakeholders have accurate information.”

“Our goal is always to support an informed discussion and help answer questions about our projects,” the statement continues.

Residents disagree. A group of neighbors recently sent two complaints to the city concerning the correspondence. One alleges Kuennen “privately strategized with a private company to shape public opinion and limit opposition.”

Another, lodged against Kuennen and building inspector Broc Haskamp, asserts the pair abused their positions when Haskamp “posed as a concerned citizen” and received private messages that he forwarded to Kuennen.

Haskamp didn’t respond to a request for comment. Kuennen, who declined to comment on the complaints' details, said she has hewed to the normal development process. The city, she added, will investigate the allegations.

Before the controversy over the data center project, there was celebration.

“Let’s GOOOOO!” Economic Development Coordinator Stephanie Aman wrote to Kuennen last March, about two months before news of the proposed data center campus spread.

“Data center dollars. … We should get statues,” continued Aman, who didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But the mood had shifted by May. Residents had begun calling Mayor Joshua Hoyt and council members with questions, prompting Kuennen to email elected officials the talking points from Tract.

One memo from the company indicated the data center wouldn’t strain the local power supply or emit an aggravating hum; rather, the project would invigorate Farmington’s economy, generating $50 million in annual tax revenue and hundreds of well-paying jobs.

But there was a catch. Kuennen and several other city officials had signed a nondisclosure agreement with Tract.

They could answer some questions from elected officials about the project. But “there is still a limit to what we can talk about,” Kuennen wrote.

A day later, Hoyt assured a neighbor opposed to the development that it was proceeding with transparency.

“The process … will provide multiple opportunities of public engagement,” Hoyt wrote in an email. “We will all learn more [at an upcoming meeting] and better understand what is being proposed.”

The mayor declined to comment for this story, citing ongoing litigation.

In the ensuing months, furious residents plotted their next steps in an email chain. The stakes were high: The City Council would decide in November whether or not to rezone the site — and potentially make way for the data center.

But unbeknownst to the neighbors, a city employee was among the recipients of their emails. For months, building inspector Haskamp received regular updates about petitions neighbors were circulating, agencies they had contacted and shorthand agendas from backyard meetings.

Then he forwarded those messages to Kuennen.

Kuennen said she didn’t ask Haskamp to send her the messages. As she tells it, he emailed a neighbor a question in his capacity as a “concerned citizen” using his personal account. He was subsequently added to an email chain and didn’t engage further, she said.

“I could have received the same kind of emails from anybody in the community that didn’t necessarily work for the city,” she said of the messages Haskamp sent her. “It just happened to be that he did work for the city.”

She also said it’s “common practice” for local governments to consult developers about possible opposition. The reason she asked Tract for guidance on averting criticism without talking about a project, she added, is because the city at that point was just publicizing the rezoning request. Details about the data center were still in flux.

“The project was evolving,” she said. “We wanted to talk about this type of development ... at the very fundamental level.”

Kuennen said the same logic guided officials' decision to “coach” a planning commissioner. At the time, the body was evaluating only the rezoning request; the process dictated that discussion of the plan itself would come later.

“We’re just following those planning laws that are on the books,” she added.

The records also show deepening fissures at City Hall — and between Farmington and its next-door neighbor.

Castle Rock Township had previously allowed Farmington to annex some land that’s now part of the proposed data center site. Months later, township attorney Andrew Tiede echoed residents’ fears about water consumption and noise in an email to a city employee.

Meanwhile, on the morning of the vote, the mayor emailed a representative from U.S. Rep. Angie Craig’s office: “I am confident that we will have an approval tonight” while also addressing resident concerns.

“I won’t speak for Castle Rock,” he continued, “but their ‘new’ attorney is ambulance chasing.”

Tiede declined to comment. Castle Rock filed a suit against Farmington in February, contending the city violated an annexation agreement with the township.

Hoyt’s confidence proved well-founded. The City Council approved the rezoning request in a 4-1 vote.

But hours before the closely watched vote, Council Member Nick Lien sent an email to the city administrator.

In his “Data Center Statement,” Lien wrote the upcoming vote would produce “winners and losers.”

“To pretend like people aren’t going to be impacted is to improperly invalidate those residents’ concerns,” continued Lien, who didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But supporting the project, he concluded in the email, meant embracing opportunities — helping “my children have a better education and future opportunities.”

Council Member Steve Wilson saw the moment differently.

“I have never in my nearly 20 years of serving our community [seen] such a reckless, lack of transparency project move forward,” Wilson wrote just over a week after casting the sole dissenting vote against the rezoning request.

“Farmington is completely allowing the developer to do what they want,” continued Wilson, who declined to comment.

After the rezoning vote, a group of neighbors appealed via email to the Minnesota chapter of the American Planning Association (APA). Could the organization help them fight a “town who is siding with a data center developer”?

An APA executive forwarded the plea to a Farmington official asking: What should she do?

Nothing, a planning coordinator said: “This project is going through the normal planning process as outlined in our ordinances and state law.”