{"id":374907,"date":"2026-06-25T21:09:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T21:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/374907\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T21:09:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T21:09:34","slug":"oakland-town-officials-interested-in-recruiting-a-data-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/374907\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland town officials interested in recruiting a data center"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\tThe entrance to FirstPark in 2020, off Kennedy Memorial Drive in Oakland. (Michael G. Seamans\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n

OAKLAND \u2014 Town councilors say they do not want to pursue a moratorium on data centers. <\/p>\n

Instead, when they met Wednesday, they said they would like to bring a data center to town.<\/p>\n

Councilor Bob Nutting said Maine being a wet state makes it a great candidate for data centers, and Nutting and Councilor Dana Wrigley said utility companies would be able to handle any changes to electricity consumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d hate to see us drive away any interest in industry coming in here that\u2019s going to pay big taxes,\u201d Wrigley said. \u201cWe love taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Gov. Janet Mills vetoed a bill to temporarily restrict permitting for new data centers of 20 megawatts or more in April, cities and towns began crafting their own moratoriums<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Advancements in artificial intelligence technology have turned data centers, which contain computers that run online applications and services and store their associated data, into a controversial topic. As AI has increased demand for data centers exponentially, the centers themselves have become much more cumbersome.<\/p>\n

Those who oppose data centers worry that they harm communities by using massive amounts of water and electricity, polluting the environment and inflating utility bills. But in Oakland, some city councilors said these threats are likely overblown. <\/p>\n

Nutting, Wrigley and Town Manager Kelly Pinney-Michaud said First Park, a business park in Oakland established by the Kennebec Regional Development Authority, could be a great location for a data center. <\/p>\n

Oakland is one of 24 member towns that supports First Park, so Oakland receives just over 4% of the tax revenue it generates, Pinney-Michaud said.<\/p>\n

Council Chair Mike Perkins asked Pinney-Michaud to invite First Park Executive Director Kristine Logan to a council meeting in July to discuss bringing a data center to Oakland.<\/p>\n

Logan said in an email Thursday that she would be open to a data center at First Park if the project is a good fit. She noted that data centers vary in size, type, power and water needs, and said she expects more discussion to understand Oakland\u2019s options.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is a great thing for First Park to look into,\u201d Wrigley said at Wednesday\u2019s Town Council meeting. \u201cMaybe we don\u2019t want it, but we\u2019re a long ways from deciding we don\u2019t want it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A plan to convert a former mill in Jay into a data center was recently put on hold. The project was Mills\u2019 key reason for vetoing the statewide moratorium on data centers \u2014 she wanted the law to include an exception for Jay.<\/p>\n

Limestone officials did not attempt to a block data centers after a proposal for one at the former Air Force base. But Town Manager Walt Elliott said he and town residents have concerns about energy usage, water usage and noise pollution. Elliott said plans haven\u2019t moved forward, and he\u2019s waiting for guidance from the state.<\/p>\n

In many other Maine towns, including Wiscasset, Lewiston, Sanford and Scarborough, officials voted to pause discussions, reject project proposals or place a temporary ban on data centers altogether. Other towns, like Brunswick and Westbrook, began working on moratoriums preventatively.<\/p>\n

Since vetoing the statewide bill, Mills established the Maine Data Center Advisory Council <\/a>to balance the benefits of data centers with the risks they pose to communities, and signed a law barring data center projects from being eligible for certain tax exemption programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The entrance to FirstPark in 2020, off Kennedy Memorial Drive in Oakland. (Michael G. Seamans\/Staff Photographer) OAKLAND \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-374907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}