The Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners convened a regular meeting on January 21, 2026, to address urgent community matters, including the appointment of an interim Commissioner for District 10, infrastructure bidding, and significant public concerns regarding economic development and energy policy. The meeting featured robust public testimony focused on the potential impacts of a new data center, the noise and environmental concerns associated with the TranPAC Manufacturing project, and a strong public pushback against AI-powered surveillance cameras.
Note: A discrepancy exists in the transcript regarding the date of the meeting. The Clerk announced the date as January 21, 2026, multiple times, while the transcript header mentions January 22 in the system prompt and the discussion references the "January 7th" minutes of the "regular meeting" held the previous week, which is consistent with a January 21st meeting (Wednesday).
I'd like to call the Butte Silver Boat Council of Commissioners regular meeting for Wednesday, January twenty-first, twenty twenty-six. Clerk, could we please have roll call? Ten present, one absent. Ten present, one absence. Please note that Commissioner Mankins is absent from tonight's agenda. Uh Commissioner Walker, could you lead us in the prayer in the pledge? And to the Republic for which it stands. Next we'll move on to public comment on any item on tonight's agenda. So I think we have a pretty full house, and we're gonna have people that are gonna want to come up and speak. We're gonna stay really tight on the three minutes. So as the three minutes ends, you'll see the the lights on here. So please adhere to that. And once it's done, then we're gonna ask you to to wrap up and then we'll move on to the next one. Okay. So um if anyone would like to come forward, please come forward, state your name, your address, and the item that you'd like to speak about. Make will you will you please turn on the there you'll there's a spot right there, it'll turn on red. There you go. My name's Mick Ringshock. I live at 3310 Hannibal Street. And I would like to comment on item number 2026 41, uh council letter to the PSC, if I may as you all know we've got some interest in a data center coming forward, and the PSC is involved with that. But I want to just give you a few facts real quickly and a recommendation. We all know electrical prices across the country are uh just out of sight, they're surging. And there's an outfit called PJM, which is Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. It serves sixty-three million people. It's the largest transmitter of energy in the United States. They've sent a request to FERC to put a hold on development anymore data centers because of what's happened to electrical rates. And this is an example, and it's not here, but in that area for T in June of 2024, a megawatt day, which is twenty-four megawatts. Last year, a megawatt day cost 269.62 cents. Next year, a megawatt day is going to cost $329. There are still areas where the increase has been 17%. What's the difference? The difference is tariffs and rate classes and strong ordinances in states that have taken action to tighten up the rules and the sideboards for data centers because it's caused such an issue across the country on transmission. The PSC has the ability to make rate classifications, and they should separate out the rate for databases from the rate for residential units. But this letter from this council on current circumstances is gonna have an impact on that organization. And they're the ones that can affect this issue. The large load tariffs are critical to what's going on in the energies and the modern energy management. Without them, it's it's a you know wild horse race, basically. And it's the challenges all come from high demand customers. Residential customers will see the rising costs, but you can do a lot to hold them down. So specifically, you got to categorize the large energy facilities. You have to put them in their own category. And then secondly, you have to put a tariff on it. And what is the tariff? It's a set rate. It ensures that the large load customers will pay their share of all of the things that are going on. If you look at the data center they built in Washington, they talk about there's four substations around it. Just around that one little area. And you need to categorize those large energy. You have to ensure that the large load customers are addressed. So my last thing is we need to require long-term contracts to protect the residential customers from the rising costs, and you have the ability to do this.