Two South Bend Common Council members are proposing a bill to bar city officials from entering into non-disclosure agreements about data center projects. The bill comes after a city leader reportedly admitted that he has signed such an agreement about Amazon’s data center.
Council member Sherry Bolden-Simpson says she recently invited Mayor James Mueller‘s public works director, Eric Horvath, to appear before an Aug. 20 council Utilities Committee that she chairs. The meeting covered issues with data centers and Bolden-Simpson wanted Horvath to discuss what is in the water that the Amazon data center is sending to the city's sewage treatment plant.
But Bolden-Simpson says Horvath declined.
“His statement was the water is clean but I can’t tell you what’s in it because of the NDA’s," Bolden-Simpson says. "Then we had a conversation about not being able to give specifics causes people to not trust.”
As a result, council member Oliver Davis Jr. and Bolden-Simpson have filed a bill with the city clerk, for first reading at the council’s Sept. 14 meeting, barring any city officials from entering into NDAs.
”We have to work with our fellow council members that really this is necessary so that we can serve our people,” she says.
A Mueller administration spokeswoman declined our interview request.
