(Editor's note: This is just one part of a series of stories about local candidates in the upcoming June 2 primary, municipal and school board election. Find more coverage here.)
Simplified: Data centers have been a hot topic in Sioux Falls and statewide as local leaders decide how these facilities might fit into zoning designations, qualify for economic incentives and more. Sioux Falls Simplified asked each candidate how they'd approach decisions about data centers in the city.
Here's what we asked:
Let's talk about data centers. How would you manage the tension between welcoming growth/new businesses to Sioux Falls with the concerns of residents about water usage, electricity rates and more?
Here's what candidates said (in alphabetical order):
Joe Batcheller said the community needs to decide if data centers are "the right kind" of development for Sioux Falls. He also said water usage is a primary concern, and that he's less concerned about electric rates because of South Dakota's system of relying on a Public Utilities commission to regulate prices.
"There’s a right way and a wrong way to do data centers, and I just want to make sure if we are gonna do data centers, we do them in the right way," Batcheller said.
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Christine Erickson said she's listening and hearing the concerns of residents. She also appreciates the way the existing council handled the most recent data center discussion by putting in guardrails limiting water usage.
- At the same time, we're not using less data as a community, she noted.
"I want to keep that close to home," she said. "I don't want to see that (data) go overseas. ... I do support the local control in making sure each of those municipalities have the decision of, 'does this work for your municipalities?' because it doesn't work everywhere, and I get that."
Greg Jamison said the benefit of South Dakota talking about data centers late in the game is that we get to see what all of the other states did wrong and learn from their mistakes. He also said limiting water usage for the proposed Gemini data center was the right call, as was the state legislature's decision to limit economic incentives for these businesses.
"We don't need to give away the farm for these guys to come," Jamison said. "If they really want to come, they can come. We’ve been trying to strike that balance of being the last one at the table and learn from those other states who probably gave away too much."
Jamie Smith said he's pro-business, but not at the expense of Sioux Falls citizens. He sees water and electricity usage as the main concern in these discussions, as well as noise concerns and overall being a good neighbor to surrounding communities.
"I think that, while data centers, I believe, will come to South Dakota, I don't know if the city in an urban area is the place for those to exist in a large scale," Smith said.
David Zokaites said economic incentives are best spent supporting small, local businesses, not "megaprojects ... that enrich distant billionaires at the expense of local employers."
- He also noted that data centers have several problems, from noise concern to high energy usage to water usage.
"If AI data centers can resolve all these problems, then they should be welcomed," Zokaites said. "Sioux Falls city government has not resolved these concerns and have failed the people by approving a large data center in spite of public resistance to these problems."
*Note: This story has been updated to include David Zokaites' answer, which was missed upon first publication because I forgot to ask him about it during our initial interview and had to follow up. Honestly, I'm impressed more topics weren't missed overall because there were so many candidates to juggle!
See more election coverage here
Megan Raposa
