In Data Center Alley, you have large grey concrete building that can be over a hundred feet high and take up city blocks. The power demands alone are scales higher than typical business and consumer demand. As we enter this 5th industrial revolution, regulation is scarce and the federal administration is pushing for rapidly moving forward without properly thinking through consequences.

The presentation outlined how Loudon County was uniquely situated due to low latency rates and high fiber optic availability. 75% all of email traffic in the world flow through this corridor. Some fascinating background facts are that although these data centers have high redundancy, the critical points of failure are the power sub stations. This highlights as a whole our grid vulnerabilities. There is also an explosion in demand for electricity. Power demands in Loudon County went from 1 gigawatt in 2019 to 4 gigawatts in 2024 and expected to be greater than 11 gigawatts by 2029.

In addition to massive power demands, there are also demands for water for cooling that in closed loop systems. As this water passes through these systems, it picks up heavy metals and toxic chemicals like PFAS. The water is then discharged as it no longer becomes usable.

This is all alarming and calls for Counties and Municipalities to educate ourselves on what tools are available to protect our communities and natural resources. No sector of our economy will be immune from these devices and technology that are integral to our lives but we can not move forward unless we do so intentionally and with proper guardrails and regulations.

Here are some local best practices in Loudon County with a citation in the comments. Please note, I am not recommending or endorsing any of these points but this is going to my launching off point for my research.

* Make sure your Comprehensive Plan lists performance standards and your Zoning Ordinance aligns with the plan; make sure both are current.

• Never allow "by right" data center development; require local jurisdiction approval.

• Require Tier IV backup generators.

• Max of 55 Db at the sending property line.

• Conduct a pre- and post-construction professional noise study

• Include both perceived noise and low frequency noise.

• Long Duration Energy Storage backup using graphene rather than lithium.

• 500’ minimum setback from residential; 1,000’ preferred.

• Consider waste heat recapture (district energy) to heat nearby buildings.

• Require accommodation in site design to enable future incorporation of microgram elements (baseload power source, backup power source, BESS, demand response system, etc.).

• Talk to utilities about a separate, underground HVDC grid for data centers

• Incorporate Green Building Initiative “Green Globe” ratings into buildings

• Ensure utilities state, in writing, where power will come from and where substations will be located

I am planning to work with the Dane County Advisory Committee on Data Centers and will try to gather national experts to help guide us as we work through this issues in our own backyard.

Dane County is facing one of its most challenging budgets in recent memory, with a structural deficit of $31 million. In response, the County Executive directed every department to reduce the general revenue in their proposed budget requests by 4%. The Sheriff’s Office proposed a budget that did not reflect the 4% reduction.

To compensate, the Executive’s proposed budget disproportionately added an additional 4% cut to all human service providers—the very organizations that provide essential services like mental health crisis response, support for survivors of sexual violence, and assistance and rehabilitation for families facing acute trauma.

The Dane County Board has worked to achieve an equitable balance by offering a compromise that reverses some of the cuts to human service providers. One key proposal is to use the salary savings of 20 long-vacant positions in the Sheriff’s Office. We know dozens of vacancies will remain through 2026, given years of ongoing recruitment and retention challenges, with many retirements on the horizon.

This change does not defund nor remove a single deputy from patrolling the County, ensuring the safety of those in the jail, or serving rural communities like Cambridge or Black Earth as many of those municipalities already contract separately for law enforcement services.

The Sheriff confirmed before the Personnel and Finance Committee that this compromise was “something our membership and community would be happy with moving forward.” (timestamp 1:09:25)

By adopting these responsible one-year adjustments, the County Board’s budget amendments will:

• Restore over $1.6M in funding to human services partner contracts to support critical programs for youth and families, seniors, people with disabilities, and survivors of violence.
  

• Restore a vital Immigration Affairs Social Worker, ensuring our immigrant neighbors have support as their constitutional rights and basic human dignity come under direct attack.
  
  

• Support operations to open the new purpose-built men’s shelter at Bartillon Drive, an overflow shelter during the harshest months of winter, and hotel rooms for unsheltered families.
  

• Restore a countywide Regional Housing Strategy Coordinator to partner with municipalities to increase the supply of housing.
  

• Maintain essential detox services and provide new funding to support a long-term solution for involuntary commitment.

We are entering a crossroads in our community — one defined by widening gaps, shrinking safety nets, and the question of whether we’ll still look out for one another. Federal disinvestment is eroding SNAP benefits, stripping away health care coverage, and undermining the social safety nets that keep families afloat. At a moment like this, it’s more important than ever for Dane County to stand by our values, invest in our people, and lead by example for our nation in peril.

My own family came to this country with little more than hope and determination. We were able to build our lives because of the kind of support these human service programs provide today. This budget compromise reflects the best of Dane County: compassion, fairness, and unity.

I strongly encourage everyone to review this presentation which goes into detail. I summarize many of the key points below.

We are about to enter a Public Comment period of the revised NCP. Here are the key dates where you can attend and make your voice heard.

Here is the background of how we got here:
Background

• NEM Update Submitted: December 2022 (for 2022 and 2027 conditions).

• FAA Accepted NEM: December 21, 2023.

• NCP Submitted: November 2024 — included abatement and land-use recommendations.

• NCP Withdrawn: Because it wasn’t published in the Federal Register and needed better alignment with:

  • Airport Master Plan & Layout Plan,

  • City, County, and Wisconsin Air National Guard,

  • Public and stakeholder input.

Next Steps / Amended NCP

• Reorganize measures into short-, medium-, and long-term actions.

• Reevaluate:

  • Residential Sound Insulation and Avigation Easement programs. It is critical to get remediation but we need to also ensure that any easement payments are invested into an actual remediation projects.

  • Offering a “clean slate” of new easements.

• Reengage Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and public.

• Integrate updates with current Airport Master Plan (1993) and Layout Plan (2018).

• I also think it is critically important to have the Air National Guard work with the community to limit flights, constrain flight times to a defined schedule and avoid flying over schools. I will be working on this.

Key Dates Going Forward:

The key here is to try to apply for grants in 2026 by expediting this process and completing our work by next summer.

Health and Human Services programs that protect our most vulnerable residents—faced disproportionate cuts, while the Sheriff’s budget remained largely untouched and the guidance for a 4% reduction was not followed.

I am working to reallocate unfilled Sheriff’s deputy positions to fund the Men’s Shelter and overflow shelter, as the new facility reduces the number of available beds, and to reverse an additional 4% cut to our Human Service Providers.

Additionally, I’ve introduced an amendment to reduce the Land Conservation Fund from $10 million to $5 million, aligning it with the department’s own request. The department is carrying over $11 million from last year and has not yet spent any of its 2025 budget.

At the same time, I’m supporting an increase of $10 million for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and $2 million for land acquisition to provide lawful camping space for our unsheltered neighbors.

Finally, I’m working to restore the Immigration Affairs Specialist position by reallocating open positions. If there was ever a time for this role, it is now.

Budgets are an expression of our values—and these amendments reflect not only my values, but those of our district and of Dane County as a whole.

Please consider showing up at our Budget hearings to make your voice heard or contact me with your feedback.

HHN Agenda:
https://dane.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=1270400&GUID=1E48C032-8538-459E-A25E-EB575373A7A9

PPJ Agenda:
https://dane.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=1332252&GUID=1C91BBF8-A400-49F3-AE4A-4065F9A92E55&fbclid=IwY2xjawNeWQlleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETE5MkN4YjRzS0J2NHcwRWlNAR7jI8Xqd814EhIx3hKVTL9e-v4hH9Z0MZF4cOt1GpqxF9fOnrDHRcpW10KAWQ_aem_T6c3QNSFRfs7z1EyvOGkcA

After seeing the devastating flooding that so many of our friends in Milwaukee have been impacted by, it was an uncomfortable reminder of the flooding in the summer of 2018. Although we can't say this specific event was the result of climate change, the data overwhelmingly shows that the probability of these extreme flooding and climate events is increasing at an alarming pace while our federal government doubles down on all the climate denial and fossil fuels that got us here in the first place.

Since the 2019 budget, we have been focusing on a number of initiatives in Dane County and we have been giving quarterly updates on our progress. Those initiatives include:

* A multi-phases program of sediment removal and dredging to move 1 inch of rain the through the Yahara Chain of Lakes in 4 days rather 7 days.

* Investing heavily in land purchases, wetlands revival and conservation practices to keep rain where it falls.

* Partnering with local municipalities in Dane County through the Madison Area Municipal Stormwater Partnership (MAMSWaP) to reduce adverse impacts to water quality and better manage stormwater.

* Using what levers we have to balance lake levels in the chain of lakes by managing outflows from Lake Mendota through the Tenney Dam. 1 inch of water released from Lake Mendota causes a 3 inch rise on Lake Monona

* Publicly reporting progress on all these initiatives in joint meetings with the Lakes and Watershed Commission and Land Conservation Committee. I have had the honor of chairing many of these joint meetings.

Like many parts of the world, we are hoping we are not hit with the severe weather that climate change has made more frequent. However, we are working continuously to mitigate the impacts of climate change through preparation, investment, and adaptive practices.

It will be a tech hub for young adults to learn, work on their resumes, and use the latest software and tools.

OFS used to be in my back yard and that building is now Atwood Music Hall. The new building of Milwaukee street is beautiful!

This report will be helpful not only for our committee as we prepare to make budget decisions but to the community as a whole to help understand the science of the watershed.

https://dane.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=14492614&GUID=95D50284-6CC4-46A8-AE4C-42CB9DA187B6

Melissa Hortman, Mark Hortman, and their Dog Gilbert. Murdered in a political assassination by a home grown domestic terrorist.

Tomorrow Melissa and Mark Hortman and their dog will lie dead in state in the Rotunda of the Minnesota Capital for visitation

Who was 61st speaker of the Minnesota House Melissa Hortman

* She served on the Brooklyn Park Citizen Long Range Improvement Committee

* She helped get funding for the Zanewood Recreation Center that provides art and recreation programming and Intervention and Prevention services to the kids who need it.

* She fought for decades for free lunch for hungry kids and a carbon free future

* Who was Melissa Hortman? She was one of us, doing the same things we do on the County Board and now she is dead. Murdered in a political assassination whose true impact still doesn't seem to have registered—reduced to nothing more than a blip in an unrelenting stream of chaos.

Let’s talk about their doofy golden lab Gilbert. He tried to be a dedicated service dog with Helping Paws, an organization that trains and places service dogs with veterans, first responders, and people with physical disabilities.

But poor Gilbert. He flunked out. Why? Because he was too damn Minnesota nice. He was a Hortman.

Gilbert was shot multiple times and so badly injured, mangled and disfigured that the adult children had to put him to sleep. Melissa Hortman’s children Sophie and Colin still tell us to honor their parents legacy by doing “something, whether big or small, to make our community just a little better for someone else.”

Those poor children with hearts bigger than the world deserves who probably spent more time away from their mom than they wanted to because she was in a meeting working for a better world.

The reason they probably responded that way is because they learned it from their mom.

Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman shot 8 and 9 times in front of their daughter. She likely saved their lives by slamming the door, calling 911, identifying her father Senator John Hoffman, while her parents bled out in front of her.

That call, that action. Who knows how many lives it saved, maybe even those of our friends here in Wisconsin who were on that assassin’s list, some of whom have shared this same floor with us. Their daughter who acted so quickly, decisively, under so much distress. Her name: Hope.

To compound their grief was the callous indifference shown by some nationally elected leaders. These traitors to human emotion and basic decency hold some of the highest positions in our country.

They laughed when it happened. Thought it was some kind of a joke. Could not understand his complete lack of humanity when it was slowly and carefully explained to him by his colleague. Who was not shunned and still sits in those seats in the senate reserved for the best of us who want to make the best for all of us.

To the narcissistic feckless leaders who couldn’t bother to pick up the phone because well that would be a “Waste of time”

who couldn’t offer a kind of word of grief or empathy

who couldn’t offer the full force and cooperation of all available federal resources

Who couldn’t offer protection against copy cat murders.

Who couldn’t offer a splinter of basic shared human emotion.

Who didn’t even have the basic decency in light of offering nothing to just keep their mouth shut.

Sometimes there is not a time for inspiration and hope but for grief. To sit there in silence at the barbarism of humanity. A few solemn quiet moments to realize that the world we all worked so hard for in so much peril.

And instead of moving anything forward, we are working to salvage what little we have left. And what little we have left might be so broken that it is beyond repair.

And to just sit there with the realization that those responsible, who are really responsible, will face no consequences.

I am not here to offer inspiration or hope. Because for me to do so would so wildly betray the pain I feel in my heart.

Instead I will look to those who are offering me hope.

* The muslim immigrant on the cusp of becoming the mayor of the greatest city in the world

* The transgender kids who wake up every morning to live another day of their lives in a world where so many people forget that they are just kids who just want our love and support.

* To the groups of people throwing themselves in front of moving vehicles to protect their neighbors from masked goons who are smashing their car windows trying to take away their rights that this country was founded on.

They are the ones who make me want to continue to pledge my allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. My country — no matter what they do to try to destroy it, with every bone in my body, I say no.

I invite you to sit in silence and meditation for our country and the victims of this horrific terrorism or to stand up and recite the pledge. Both are equally powerful expressions of your patriotism.