The Winchester City Commission met on September 1, 2026, at an unspecified evening time. Commissioner Cox was excused for a family matter. The meeting included a presentation from Palmer Engineering regarding a project award, a discussion and vote on a one-year moratorium on data centers, several routine ordinances and orders, and public comments predominantly opposing data center development. All votes were unanimous.
Set me into place. One that please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be led by Rob Jeffries, our planning and zoning director. Rob, if you'll come forward, and following that we'll have our invitation led by Mike Flynn, our interim city manager. And so we're just nation under God. Thank you. Father, we come to you tonight. Thank you for the good day that you've given us now as we look at the business of the city. God direct us as we make decisions. We pray for those who provide protection to our community, those that provide services, may you bless them, bless the members of our community, those that are sick this evening, uh be with the elderly and those that uh are dealing with the extreme heat. May you watch over them and keep them safe during this time. We love you and we thank you for all it's in Jesus' name. I make my prayer. Amen. Please be seated. We'll officially call the meeting to order. I do want to excuse Commissioner Cox this evening. He is out on a family matter, and he will not be with us. Also, I would like to offer the city of Winchester's condolences to our grant writer, Alicia Martin, who just lost her father-in-law, um, Wayne Martin, and also to remember the family of Wes Harris. He's 49 years old, and uh he was the uh chair of our industrial development authority and he passed away suddenly this week. So uh just keep those folks in your prayers, please. Okay, we've got all the order, and the first item will be a presentation from Palmer Engineering, and I'm assuming that presentation is to the commission. Yes. Okay, Josh, you're up. Good evening. Uh I wanted to be here today to uh sort of form and present a an award that the high side project received. Um the American Society of Highway Engineers is an organization of professional engineers dealing with transportation specifically, and every year they have a project of the year uh award they do where you can apply into one of two categories, either ten million dollars in under construction costs or over ten million. Um I'm a part of the bluegrass section, which is based outside of the Lexington region, and I submitted the high side project thinking you know, it's great project, it's beautiful, and I think that our section members thought so as well. We had some competition. Uh but after our section members voted, they really enjoyed seeing the uh improvements to the uh the ADA facilities, the display facilities, uh the beautification, uh the ideas with the retaining wall and everything that we did down there, and we ended up winning. And we will now go on to compete at the Great Lakes region, which is for Ohio, Michigan, a lot of places where North here against other sections, and they're $10 million under winners. So of course, we are very thankful for the mayor and commissioners for the dedication uh to the project and for giving us the opportunity to help design and help do the construction process. Uh, but I wanted to bring a trophy that the section bestowed us uh down here to the city for you all to have. Thank you. Yeah, I didn't get a trophy in sports, so I'm gonna get a trophy in this map. So thank you all so much, Palmer Engineering Stephen, the president of Palmer is here this evening with us as well. And uh that means a whole lot. Thank you all very much. Now, before we go any further, I just want to say to you folks tonight, thanks for being here. Um we thank you for having opinions for heavy things for helping this community for looking out for expressing yourself, and it really is. You may not think it's appreciated, but it is, and I want you to know that before another word is said. So at this time I will ask Rob Jeffries, who is our planning and zoning director to come forward and talk about data center zoning. All right, okay. So there is two letters that were presented to the city commission. Uh the first letter was from the school council for the planning commissioner's name is Mr. Bobby Golett. And what that is in response of is at the September Planning Commission, I'm sorry, after the August planning commission meeting, um, it was briefly discussed that there's nothing in our zoning ordinance pertaining to data centers, and that has been on you know, numerous um you know it's it's been something that has been heard throughout the state of Kentucky and throughout the nation. And so um, we wanted to make sure that if anybody were to call our office and pursue an application for data centers that we would know what to do, what to say. Currently, our zoning ordinance is quiet. And um, so that is what was presented to the city commission as uh to quote Mr. Gold, he says in the letter.