PALMER — A Mat-Su Assembly plan to help a private company find investors and developers to build a large data center or other high-tech facility on borough-owned land is on hold after a resolution supporting it was vetoed last week by Matanuska-Susitna Borough Mayor Edna DeVries.
The plan can only go forward if at least five Assembly members vote to override the veto during a regular Assembly meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
The resolution supporting the plan was sponsored by Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly members Ron Bernier and Dmitri Fonov. It was approved 5-2 during a regular meeting March 2, with Assembly members Michael Bowles and Stephanie Nowers voting no.
Bernier has not decided whether he will move to override the veto, he said in an interview Tuesday. Fonov did not immediately return a request for comment.
The resolution directs borough staff to work with Terra Energy Center Corp. to locate companies that might want to build and operate a data center, energy infrastructure, robotics manufacturing or other industrial development on borough property near Big Lake, Port MacKenzie, or the not-yet-constructed West Susitna Access Road.
The marketing partnership would last for two years and start in April, according to the resolution. It would use borough staff time and resources to help Terra Energy sell the project to potential clients but would not lock the borough into selling or leasing any land, according to a memo included with the measure.
The resolution pairs with an official borough Request for Interest seeking companies that want to bring “data centers or other large power users,” published by the borough on its contracting portal last month and requested by the Assembly earlier this year.
DeVries said she vetoed the resolution because she believes the borough will put itself at risk by entering a marketing agreement with a private company or by allowing the company to speak on the borough’s behalf without full vetting, because the proposed locations for the data center or tech hub have not been vetted by the Assembly, and because the Assembly did not discuss or vote on whether a data center would need a conditional use permit.
“I am not a big fan of non-elected officials or even appointed officials on boards and commissions representing the Mat-Su Borough, and that’s what we’re giving that company, in my opinion,” she said in an interview Tuesday.
About a dozen members of the public testified against the measure March 2, with none speaking in support. Data centers are disruptive to residents who live near them, use a lot of water and could harm the environment on the chosen parcels, including salmon streams, they said.
Helping Terra market the data center or industrial center plan could benefit the borough by bringing new high-tech jobs to the area while providing a new source of property tax income, according to the resolution memo.
The borough’s partnership with Terra Energy included in the resolution is part of a larger effort by the company and its owner to build power infrastructure in Mat-Su.
Terra wants to bring a large power consumer, such as a data center, to land near Port MacKenzie that will pair with a new coal plant envisioned near Skwentna owned by its parent corporation, Flatlands Energy, company officials said during a presentation to the borough Assembly last year. The additional landed flagged in the resolution are alternative construction areas for that project.
If constructed, the Flatlands Energy plant would use a technology known as carbon capture that allows carbon dioxide emissions to be stored underground. A Mat-Su Assembly resolution approved in 2024 gives official borough support to new coal-powered energy projects.
A data center or other major industrial development would provide a large customer for that new power source, Terra officials told the borough, making it more attractive to the investors needed to fund it. Officials said they also hope to use federal subsidies.
Terra Energy holds a temporary, five-year permit for about 1,000 borough-owned acres near the port, borough port director Dave Griffin said in an interview Tuesday. The permit gives the company a hold on the land ahead of any long-term leasing decision that allows them to build, Griffin said, but can be revoked at any time.
Officials with Flatlands Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mat-Su law allows the borough mayor to veto an Assembly action so long as they do so before the next regular Assembly meeting.
DeVries’ veto of the Terra marketing and data center resolution is her first in more than two years and her third since taking office in 2021.
In June 2023, DeVries vetoed a hotly contested ordinance that would have increased the amount of gravel private companies can extract without a permit or public notice because it was bad public policy, she said. An Assembly veto override vote failed 5-2, with Fonov and then-Assembly member Mokie Tew voting in support.
In September 2023, DeVries vetoed a resolution supporting a radiology treatment company’s plan to finance facility construction through bond sales because the borough lacks health powers under Alaska state law, she said. The Assembly voted 6-1 to override that veto, with Nowers voting no.
This story originally appeared in the Mat-Su Sentinel and is republished here with permission.
