Handwritten on pieces of cut-up poster paper, Amy Wright made her case that members of her city council have allegedly voted on issues they had a financial stake in and violated open meetings laws along the way.
Tensions are ratcheting up in Carroll County, where two different data center developers are planning hyperscale projects in the rural community of 11,000 people. One project in particular, pitched by Louisville-based Poe Companies and PowerHouse Data Centers, has drawn the ire of local residents after the project went public a year after Carrollton city officials signed land deals with the company.
Now, community members, including Wright, are filing ethics complaints saying several members of the city council who voted to move forward with that secret land deal should have abstained from the vote because they or an immediate family member works for Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities, which stands to profit from the energy-intensive data center.
KPR obtained financial disclosures filed by each city council member via open records request — they are sparse, but at least two members noted LG&E-KU as a source of income for themselves or their spouse.
Multiple Kentucky communities have been divided over hyperscale data center concerns, with opponents accusing officials of not keeping the community’s best interests in mind. Poe and PowerHouse are building a center in Louisville, where anti-data center activists have filed numerous complaints, including with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Civil Rights. In Mercer County, activists uncovered emails showing an LG&E-KU employee in public office pushing other officials to support a controversial data center project.
Proponents of data centers argue they would pay huge dividends to local governments through taxes to fund better schools, roads and more.
The Carroll County Ethics Commission heard one set of complaints on Sept. 17 — several anti-data center activists and representatives of council members accused of violating the ethics code attended the hearing.
After coming out of a lengthy closed discussion, Ethics Commission member Zach Spencer addressed the room of waiting community members. The commission voted to table the complaint over the financial conflicts, but moved forward with another complaint, and Spencer said they would open a formal investigation into “the alleged misconduct [and] required disclosure of withheld records.”
“I want to air this out. I don’t want to keep coming back in for more and more complaints,” Spencer said.
“I want everything. I want it out in the open.”
Community concerns to be aired out
Two days before the county ethics commissions met, the Carrollton City Council was scheduled to start the process of opting-out of those very ethics rules and “create its own ethics commission.” According to multiple people present at that public meeting, Mayor Robb Adams decided not to move forward with the reading and did not explain why it was on the agenda.
Anastasia Coots, who lives in Carrollton and has previously clashed with Adams during her stint on the city’s Planning and Zoning Board, said she believes the council has violated multiple state and local ethics laws.
“This is so much bigger than just a data center,” Coots said. “All of those people that voted and the mayor and the Carrollton Utilities Commission are beholden to the actual city to do anything in the best financial interest of the city, so when they went into executive session and signed an [agreement] with Poe, it actually only benefited Poe.”
She has submitted complaints to various law enforcement agencies, including the commonwealth attorney’s office. She and Wright allege that multiple members of the Carrollton City Council have conflicts with LG&E-KU — they say one is a current employee, one is retired with a KU pension, and another has a son working with KU. Another council member’s husband got a job with the company after voting in favor of the land deal.
Kentucky Public Radio asked for comment from the council’s lawyer, each council member allegedly tied to KU, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
In a statement to KPR, LG&E-KU spokesperson Drew Gardner said the company has not reviewed the complaint. He said the company “has an obligation” to serve businesses seeking to locate in the area and have established procedures for doing so.
“This project is no exception, and a connection to LG&E and KU gives no one special standing in that process,” Gardner said. “Because the review is ongoing, we won’t speculate about the allegations.”
The Carroll County code of ethics specifically calls on officers with a prohibited financial interest to submit the “precise nature and value of the interest, in writing.” The code says that officers are prohibited from participating in public duties that present a “substantial conflict” to the business interests of themselves or “any immediate family member.”
“The officer or employee shall refrain from taking any action with respect to the matter that is the subject of the disclosure,” the ethics code reads.
As Wright showed me her handwritten complaints in the Carrollton Public Library, she explained that she isn’t trying to wage war against the city council, but she also doesn’t want this data center coming to her community. She said she’s glad the ethics commission is taking her complaints seriously and is interested in a “fair and impartial review.”
“I'm glad that they're willing to just take a step back, look at all of the facts together, and make a determination on it,” Wright said.
The ethics commission’s chair recused himself from the committee hearing — he too is a retired employee of KU. Spencer, who took his place to lead the meeting, read a lengthy open records request he was making to the city. It’s the start of the group's investigation into how the council came to enter a contract with Poe to sell hundreds of acres of land, near residential properties, without residents knowing.
It included requests for the full timeline of the data center discussions and land sale, including all communications between Adams, city council members and developers ahead of the deals. It is not immediately clear if the city handed over all of the requested documents or if it asked for more time to comply, as is allowed under open records law.
“Everyone always says when we come into these meetings that we don't get anything done,” Spencer said. “I've asked for something to be done. Let's see what happens. If it doesn't happen, then I did my job.”
Laura Beth Austin, who attended the ethics hearing and has filed her own complaints with the commission, said she has spent hundreds of dollars to collect open records requests, but she believes some records are missing. Austin also said the complaints are not meant to villainize her local elected officials, but her concerns are based on the records she’s received and witnessing the process thus far.
Conflicts of interest a concern across Kentucky
Conflicts of interest have also been a major concern in other cities and counties where data center developers are hoping to set up. KPR previously reported that an anti-data center group in Mercer County obtained open records showing the Burgin Independent School District superintendent and board members advocating for the data center. One of those board members is also an employee of LG&E-KU; he shared talking points with his fellow board members arguing the data center would not raise electricity bills.
Coots believes data center development will soon start raising power bills for Carroll Countians, as LG&E-KU already received approval from state regulators to extend the life of a coal-fired power plant in Carroll and another in Louisville, alongside the needed upgrades, despite previous plans to retire the units.
According to Byron Gary, with the Kentucky Resource Council, that decision was based in part on projected data center demand. Gary said the company got permission to recover costs for the upgrades to the Louisville plant and will start recovering for the Carroll County upgrades once it comes online in another year or so.
Gary said the cost of the additional upgrades to keep the Ghent coal unit online is at least $152 million, plus more than $1 million to keep it in operation every year. Part of that expense will be covered by a new Department of Energy grant — and the rest recovered from ratepayers.
“But 100% will be paid for either by ratepayers or taxpayers,” Gary said.
LG&E-KU’s parent company told investors they expect earnings per share to grow 6 to 8% by 2029, thanks largely to data center growth. The company also continues to project massive new electric generation needs, far beyond what is currently approved by state regulators, in its second quarter investor update.
