Amazon data center

Democratic St. Joseph County Council President Bryan Tanner worries a data center ban could trigger lawsuits from developers that will increase the county's legal costs. But Republican Council Member Amy Drake says he's being too cautious on the issue.

Democratic St. Joseph County Council President Bryan Tanner says he sees how unpopular data centers are with his constituents but he says council members' first priority should be to follow Indiana laws.

South Bend Common Council members Oliver Davis Jr. and Sherry Bolden-Simpson have filed a bill barring city officials from entering into non-disclosure agreements, after a James Mueller administration official citing an NDA in declining to attend a recent council committee meeting.

While the Amazon and Microsoft data centers are coming, the St. Joseph County Council now seems to have majority support for a ban on new hyperscale data centers.

Republicans on the St. Joseph County Council are calling for a two-year data center moratorium, while Democrats and the business community say that would jeopardize local control on major land use projects and close the door to future economic growth.

St. Joseph County Council Republicans are asking Amazon to give back some property tax breaks but a leading Democrat accuses them of political posturing.

Four Republican St. Joseph County Council members are asking Amazon Web Services to voluntarily pay into a fund that would give homeowners property tax relief, despite the council granting the tech giant an abatement in August 2024.

Citizens Action Coalition Program Director Ben Inskeep says the violations, while not major, indicate a troubling pattern at Amazon's data center near New Carlisle, which is still growing.

Amazon on Wednesday invited the news media into its data center for the first time to talk about job creation, as many in the public worry about how the growing number of data centers will impact energy and the environment.

Amazon and New Prairie officials say the tech giant's school STEM labs will prepare students to work in their data centers and in a wide array of fields, some of which we don't even know about yet.