The Butte Silver Bow Council of Commissioners convened a meeting of the whole on December 10, 2025, addressing public hearings regarding accessibility compliance, data center taxation inquiries, and land sales, alongside routine administrative items. The meeting featured significant debate regarding the proposed Data Center communications, resulting in a tie vote that was ultimately resolved by placing the item in the suspense file until January 14, 2026, to allow for further public engagement and digesting of information.
ADA Self-Evaluation and Transition Plan (Communication 2025-576):
Data Center Taxation & Energy (Communication 2025-546):
I'll bring the Butte Silver Bow Council of Commissioners Committee of the whole meeting to order for Tuesday, December 10th, 2025. Can we please have a roll call? One presiding, nine present, one absent. Okay, please let the record reflect that Commissioner Anderson and Commissioner Boyle are excused. Two absent. Can you can you restate that just for the record? There's one presiding, nine present, two absent. Okay. Commissioner Anderson and Commissioner Boyle are excused. Commissioner Walker, would you please lead us in the prayer and the pledge? So that we're on our seasons. Amen. Next item on tonight's agenda is any public comment on any items that's on tonight's agenda. If you are here to speak on the public hearing for communication 2025-576, I would ask that you just hold off until the actual public hearing so that we can make it an official part of the record. So this public comment on any items on the agenda would really pertain to Section 2 communications one through one through five. So if there's any member of the public that would like to speak on any of those items, now would be your opportunity to come to the podium. Mr. Barrett, please state your name and address for the record after pressing the button on the bottom. There you go. Welcome. Mr. Chair Evan Barrett, 807 West Silver. Frankly, I would I wondered if you were going to be uh taking uh any uh input or allowing any discussion, brief brief discussion when item three comes up on the agenda. If you I'd rather speak at that time than this time. Now's your opportunity, Mr. Barrett, as a as a member of the public to speak on anything on tonight's agenda. I'm asking, is three going to come up for at the you know later in the meeting. Yes, it will, but you're not you didn't that's not your communication. Uh I was uh asked to be here to make some comment on that. Well, okay. Thank you. The uh comment I want to make on the whole concept of the data center as I continue to uh research. I'm finding there's still a lot of unanswered questions. Uh there's a lot of assertions and hypotheticals. Well, maybe this, maybe that. Uh somebody could do this and might do this. Uh, but it's uh very hard to see what the commitments are other than the commitment that Butte made to sell to sell land, which I think was a premature decision in the first place. And we've uh discussed that at least uh twice before. Uh that we weren't ready for that movement of selling 600 acres. Uh and now we're gonna wait till February. And uh I personally hope that uh they can't they have reasons not to meet the February thing, so Butte could again uh see that it has its input now. Uh what I do want to recommend is uh increased public process. Uh there the land was purchased with with virtually no public process. Uh and uh as we move forward, uh we should make sure we should have uh public hearings probably by uh the TED board out at uh Montana Connections so they can get adequate input so they can make a proper recommendation to you, and some hearing process here that allows the public to be the proper processes. And as we move forward, we should make sure we should have public hearings probably by the TED board out at uh Montana Connections so they can get adequate input so they can make a proper recommendation to you and some hearing process here that allows the public to be the proper processes, you know, notice of the meetings, plenty of publicity and notice of the meetings, a specific agenda for the meeting, and then of course ultimately uh minutes and and and and full discussion at the meetings. Uh I think saying that the council makes the final decision, so any comment before the council uh represents adequate uh public input, uh does not do justice to the provisions of the Montana Constitution that say that the citizenry has the right to participate in uh the uh in the public process prior to the decisions being made. And then you wait till the last second to take public input, you go 98% down the road and expect some uh the everybody to turn around and go back to the beginning of the road. We need to have adequate public process as we go down the road to make sure we don't make mistakes. I remain intrigued with the concept of uh of a data center and the benefits it might bring to butte. I still remain have many, many questions about whether the potential negatives of it have been adequately explored to the satisfaction of the citizenry, and I must say the reaction I get on the streets of Butte will say keep that up.