South Bend Mayor James Mueller on Wednesday issued an executive order prohibiting city staff from entering into non-disclosure agreements about data centers.
Mueller’s order came a week after common council members Oliver Davis Jr. and Sherry Bolden-Simpson filed a bill banning NDAs. That came after Bolden-Simpson learned that Mueller’s public works director, Eric Horvath, declined her invitation to speak to a council committee about the contents of wastewater that the Amazon data center is sending to the city’s sewage treatment plant.
Mueller said he didn’t know until recently that Horvath and city engineer Kara Boyles had signed the agreements with Amazon in 2023. But he said he wasn’t bothered because unlike St. Joseph County, the city has a limited role in the project and he says the agreement with Amazon has cleared the Board of Public Works process.
“People get ideas when they hear the term but in actuality nothing was prevented from being released by this agreement," Muller said.
Still, Davis says he’ll push the bill, which is set for first reading Sept. 28. If it passes, Mueller says he’ll veto it because the council, as city government’s legislative branch, would be exceeding its statutory power in trying to tell the mayor, the executive branch, how to execute contracts.
