A Michiana group that feels Microsoft should do more than just build infrastructure around its Granger data center say the company has largely ignored their proposal. The group hopes to get their attention at a big event next week.
We Make Indiana, the faith-based nonprofit, says Microsoft should be doing much more than paying for things like water and sewer, since they’ll save hundreds of millions of dollars through Indiana’s 50-year sales tax exemption for data centers.
They want Microsoft to pay into a community-governed fund for growing needs like affordable housing and child care.
Organizer Andre Stoner and Penn High School senior Addison Singleton say Microsoft has largely ignored them for months, so on Tuesday they'll travel to San Francisco for Microsoft Ignite, the company’s big annual tech conference. They’ll hold a press conference urging Microsoft executives to meet with them.
“The hope being that us being here physically, presenting this physical letter to you, will finally be enough to have this tech giant that is benefitting so much from our communities, listen to those communities," Singleton says.
They’ll be joined by activists from Vineland, New Jersey and Kenosha, Wisconsin, who are still trying to stop Microsoft from building data centers there.
Stoner and Singleton say they know the county doesn’t have much leverage since it has already granted Microsoft the rezoning it needs, and Microsoft isn’t asking for county tax breaks. But Singleton says the effort is still worthwhile.
"People are going to see that this good neighbor framework that they’ve been pushing is not accurate," Singleton says. "Are you going to let the public hate you? Are you going to inspire fiercer and fiercer resistance to your data centers by not being who you say you are?”
A Microsoft spokesman declined our interview request.
