In an explosive Select Board meeting Tuesday night, Sutton residents expressed their disapproval for a proposed $16 billion data center campus being built in their town. The data center campus, pitched by the Kraft Group, would be one of the country’s largest centers and draw roughly 900 megawatts of power.
At the meeting, six residents were given the opportunity to share their thoughts on the project — all six of which used their time to denounce the data center.
“I don’t want to see this town sell its soul and get stuck as kind of the dumping ground of the AI industry,” Sutton resident Michael Galli said in the meeting. “It will never turn off. This is something that will be on all the time.”
The proposal comes at a deeply unpopular time for data centers. In dozens of local referendums across the country, voters have decided to restrict data centers or ban them all together.
“I think you’re going to see that this is a 70 or 80% ‘no’ issue, and at that point, you should do the will of the people of this town,” former Select Board member and Sutton resident Mario Giamei also said at the meeting. “It doesn’t matter what you think of the project if the people of this town say ‘no.’ The answer is ‘no.’”
Giamei’s sentiment is backed by the fact that, earlier this year, Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order that required state agencies to receive community approval before issuing permits to data center projects that exceed 25 megawatts.
Sheila Brady-Savard lives in Millbury, 0.4 miles from the address of the proposed data center campus, and works as a real estate agent in Sutton and its surrounding communities.
She is witnessing the fear that her community has about a data center in the area first hand. Over the past 24 hours, she said she’s received several panicked phone calls from residents wanting to sell their homes, should the data center campus come to fruition. If approved, the center would be completed by 2033.
“I will leave,” Brady-Savard said. “I love this community. I’ve put so much of my energy into really building relationships in the community. I love it here. I really don’t want to leave. But a lot of people are like, ‘I will leave if this happens.’”
One of the main incentives the Town of Sutton is offering its residents, according to a Nov. 9 memorandum, is lower tax bills if the data center is approved. However, Brady-Savard says tax cuts aren’t enough to justify the project.
“I don’t think that the residents of either of these communities are out for any type of tax benefit,” she said. “I would be more than happy to continue paying my taxes in the community where I chose to invest and raise my family, so I can see the stars at night.”
State Rep. Joseph McKenna, who represents Sutton, shares many of his residents’ concerns. However, he implores his constituents not to shut down the project simply because of a fear of the unknown.
“I think that until and unless we, as a community of Sutton, have really clear answers and satisfactory answers that are backed by enforceable guarantees that those issues will be mitigated appropriately, it’s a project that needs to be handled carefully,” McKenna said. “What I’m not willing to do, however, is just simply say no, because this is new technology, it’s scary, it’s in the news, there’s politics around it.”
It’s not only Sutton residents who were enraged by the prospect of a data center in the town. Julia Cuellar Martin, a Franklin resident, tuned in virtually to the Select Board meeting after seeing a Facebook promotion for it.
“My initial reaction was exhaustion, because it feels like, especially after last Tuesday, the American people and the citizens of Massachusetts, have been very clear about their stance on data centers,” Cuellar Martin said. “It just feels like, overall, we’re having a big problem with politicians, legislators, the people in power understanding that when the citizens say no, they mean no.”
Sutton Select Board Chair Jonathan Anderson said the board would not immediately vote on the center and will hold multiple public meetings to discuss the proposal with community members.
The Kraft Group could not be reached for comment.
This is also not the first time the Kraft Group has been mired in controversy. Earlier this year, the group faced a legal battle with Foxborough town officials over security costs for the World Cup. And in September, the group faced backlash for banning rapper Macklemore from performing at Gillette Stadium, over his support for Palestinians, during singer Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour.
