URGENT UPDATE: I just heard this – HORRIFIC NEWS! I want you all to call City Hall and come to the City Council Meeting Tonight-
Careful- Opinions and Statements of Research-based facts offered from this point on.
Censored? TV Interview With Oregon Data Center Moratorium Candidates Pulled
To my fellow neighbors, voters, and taxpayers,
Yesterday, a “Question & Answer” email from the City of Hillsboro landed in your inbox about Data Centers. It was polished, professional, and—if you look at the facts—profoundly misleading. As your City and County leaders scramble toward the May 19th election, they are desperate to change the narrative. Strong candidates are threatening the status quo, bringing serious political change with them, opposing the Data Center giveaway and its devastating effects on our power grid, environment, and communities. Current City leaders and management suddenly want you to believe that the data center gold rush is a “utility” for your benefit. The City itself has refused to engage or discuss Data Centers for the past 5 years, preferring to let the current build-out continue. Now, with all of us talking about what is happening and ballots out for voting, the City is trying to sell us on the idea that Data Centers = Good things! Between a new updated Data Center 411 page at the City website, the City View Magazine being sent to every home with a Data Center puff piece, and direct city emails being sent yesterday to many of us, the City seems totally invested in selling Data Center benefits to gain trust and votes for the political machine that has brought them here.
But they aren’t telling you the whole story. Here is the reality they are trying to hide:
The Power Crisis: “Coordination” or Collapse?
The City’s FAQ claims they “coordinate closely” with PGE. But when I spoke directly to City Manager Robby Hammond, he admitted he wouldn’t be surprised if people were saying we are out of power. Our grid is at a breaking point. The “North of Pearl” bottleneck is real. While the City promises power to global tech giants, your household utility rates have skyrocketed to help pay for the infrastructure these corporations require. They are building a “Silicon Forest” that is outgrowing its own roots, leaving residents to foot the bill for a grid that can no longer guarantee our future.
Hillsboro May Be Out Of Power: The High Cost of the Data Center “Gold Rush”
The Sustainability Sham: Violating the 2035 Plan
The City’s Hillsboro 2035 Community Plan is filled with lofty goals: “Minimize greenhouse gas emissions,” “Environmental Stewardship,” and “Zero toxic emissions.”
“Hillsboro is an environmentally sustainable community…” — The Hillsboro 2035 Goal Statement (Currently being ignored by City Hall)
Understanding the Impact of Data Centers on Our Community
How does inviting 30+ massive data centers align with “Environmental Stewardship”?
Energy Intensity: The 2035 Plan calls for a 20% reduction in energy intensity. Data centers are the most energy-intensive buildings on earth.
Heat Islands: The Plan talks about “Urban Forestry” and “Native Trees,” yet the City has approved 430+ acres of concrete and industrial chillers that create massive heat islands, killing the very habitat they claim to protect in the beautiful Tualatin Plains with struggling Waibel Creek and its wetlands and creatures trying to survive.
Noise and Air: Where is the mention of deafening fans and the massive diesel backup generators—the “toxic emissions” the 2035 Plan promises to eliminate?
The City cannot claim to be a leader in sustainability while simultaneously becoming the data-processing exhaust pipe for the Pacific Rim.
The Water Pipe and the $635 Million Debt
The City frames data center water use as “minimal” by comparing it to a defunct company from 20 years ago. This is a distraction. The reality is that the Willamette Water Supply Program is a massive $ 1.6 billion pipe project that brings Hillsboro unprecedented water for the future. To pay for it, the City needs “customers” and System Development Charges (SDCs). They have tethered our city’s financial health to industrial consumption. If these data centers stop flowing, who do you think will cover the debt? Look at your last water bill for the answer. It is clear to anyone watching that Hillsboro’s massive commitment to water for our future now needs new growth to pay the debts we are burdened with. Much of that growth and revenue is slated to come from Data Centers and AI Computing facilities.
The Election-Season Scramble
Why this sudden flood of “Fact Sheets” and “FAQs”? Because for the first time in decades, the status quo is being challenged. Voices like Myrna Muñoz and Kipperlyn Sinclair, both strong candidates running on a Data Center moratorium platform, are rising up to demand a moratorium—a pause to breathe, to think, and to protect our land for real jobs, not just server racks.
Former Mayor Steve Callaway and current Mayor Beach Pace, along with others, approved this “Gold Rush” on their watch. From policies approving a simple process to approve Data Centers, to the approval of all of the Enterprise Zone agreements to waive hundreds of millions in property taxes, these leaders were and are the face of what we now enjoy or are burdened with, depending on your lens. Now, with an election weeks away, the City is using its unlimited purse strings to send email, direct mail, and a wave of social media to convince all of us that what they did and are doing is GOOD for us. For those of us watching closely (guilty as charged), we see that they are using economic development director Dan Dias’s testimony to the Governor’s task force and “Fact Sheets” to gaslight a community that is tired of the noise, tired of the traffic, and tired of the soaring costs of “progress.” More on Dan, the presentation to the State, and what was not said in the next few days.
The Bottom Line- The Reality of The May 19th Election
The City is on its heels. Our leadership is choosing a “Cloud City” over a complete community. They are trading our top industrial sites, land meant for thousands of high-paying semiconductor jobs, for buildings that house computers instead of people. Land that was once affordable for real job creators and tech manufacturing, but is no longer. Data Centers alone have driven land costs up from $250K and acre to well over $1,000,000. They are terrified of the rising voices of Myrna Muñoz, Kipperlyn Sinclair, and the thousands of you who signed the moratorium petition; 3,400 and counting (sign the petition here). This sudden flood of “Fact Sheets” isn’t about education; it’s about survival and the continued onslaught of more.
Hillsboro leadership is trading our top industrial sites, land that should provide thousands of high-paying semiconductor and biotech jobs, for “Ghost Parcels” that house computers instead of people. They are sacrificing our 2035 vision for an $11 billion tax shell game that starves our schools and burdens our residents.
On May 19th, don’t just read their FAQs. Do we continue to follow a “2035 Plan” that is being ignored by the people who wrote it? Or do we demand a Hillsboro that puts its residents, its environment, and its actual workforce first? Look at your bills. Look at the landscape. And provide your own answer at the ballot box.
The “Questions” have been answered by the City. Now, it’s time for the voters to provide the final answer.
The Herald is officially endorsing this panel of candidates, who have all campaigned on and committed to stopping data centers moving ahead until the community can understand the costs, the impacts, and how these job-destroying non-employers can be good community members and be a part of our prosperity as residents. Learn more about them and support them in their campaigns and desire to lead us out of this current timeline we are in.
Dirk Knudsen
Editor, The Hillsboro Herald
From the PRINEVILLE NEWS MAY 1 –
PRINEVILLE, Ore. — Nearly 70 workers at a Prineville data center tied to Facebook parent company Meta are set to lose their jobs after IT contractor Milestone Technologies announced permanent layoffs. The terminations by the Fremont, Calif.-based company are happening because of an expiring contract.
The layoffs are expected to begin June 28, according to the WARN Notice filed with the state of Oregon.
OPINION: More layoffs equals more people in our neighborhoods unemployed. That will also cost us all in taxes and homelessness.
I’m sure you already saw that Hillsboro is rushing to give data center tax breaks into the 2050’s?
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2026/05/hillsboro-is-promising-data-center-tax-breaks-into-the-2050s.html
Why would any individual property owner in Washington County swap out a window, retire a wood stove, or quit using their burn piles after seeing Hillsboro blow through sustainability pledges left and right to chase bare-minimum jobs and tax revenue? Abdicating leadership on issues like these ends poorly for all involved.
After watching the council meeting on YouTube, it’s pretty clear that Beach Pace is going to be a one term mayor
Well, that would open her up to run for Janeen’s seat- by that time Janeen might be on the BlackRock Board or maybe CEO at PGE? ;)
That City Views email was laugh out loud absurd. Ridiculously and deliberately vague, when not misleading. Do they actually pay PR hacks to come up with this stuff or did Dias use Claude? What’s next, street teams astroturfing candidate signs on public streets to make it look like it’s actually in someone’s front yard? : /
It’s important to remind people that it’s not just about how much water or power AI data centers use per query, or in comparison to golf courses or solar panel makers (really, they went after a solar company?). It’s what the water and energy are being used for, and for who?
Most golf courses typically aren’t treated as exceptional, get tax breaks to 2050, or have a direct line to the White House. Golf courses and solar companies aren’t threatening to make millions of jobs redundant or turn North Hillsboro and acres of world class soil into an industrialized sprawl, that likely will be a ghost town long before any taxes will be due.
I’ve said it before here, now you can do a typical LM prompt client-side (e.g. locally) on your computer without a connection. This means large AI data centers are already obsolete.
Hopefully voters see through all of this and when change comes, people like Dias and the Johnny Come Lately city manager are working on their resume’.