"Now We Know. Don't Trust UofM" - The Ypsilanti Township Board Is Fighting Back
The June 16 Ypsilanti Township board meeting ran three hours, and for most of it, a photo from the Oracle and OpenAI data center groundbreaking in Saline Township loomed on the wall behind the board: Governor Whitmer grinning next to Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk, taken on June 1 at the groundbreaking a few miles away Even though this was a few weeks ago, residents still have it on their minds. "Having to stare at this picture during this meeting has my blood boiling," one resident said. "The complete lack of regard for humans and animals. And for what?"
That photo also adds an extra layer. During the groundbreaking, a videographer caught Whitmer telling Magouyrk what sounded like "we're used to people saying no, and doing it anyway." Her office has denied it. A lot of Ypsilanti residents don't believe them. The university and Los Alamos National Laboratory want to build a $1.2 billion data center in the township, one that will among other things run simulations supporting nuclear weapons research. Residents have been showing up to meetings and saying no for over a year. On June 16 the board finally said it too, loudly. "We will fight to our very last breath," board supervisor Brenda Stumbo said. "But we need help. And we need it from the people who have the power to stop things."
The meeting had the texture of a community that has fully run out of patience. One resident read long passages from John Hershey's Hiroshima, the 1946 account of the atomic bombing's survivors. Another suggested the board look up the OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual, a World War II document on bureaucratic resistance. "Slow things down," she said. "Block where you can. Use very slow agendas and response times." A third told the board to get creative. "Tear up the road. Block the road. Break the law. Do whatever you need to do for us. You will be remembered better in history."
Stumbo acknowledged that early on she and other board members didn't fully understand what they were dealing with. Residents educated them. "Now we know," she said. "Don't trust UofM."
The township has already acted on that. In April it voted to impose a 365-day moratorium on water hookups for data centers while it studied the impact on the local water supply. The university's response was to threaten a lawsuit, arguing that withholding water from a nuclear weapons research facility amounted to unlawful discrimination. Township lawyer Douglas Winters put it plainly at the meeting: "You have people in that photograph worth billions of dollars. Not just millions, trillions. Yet this state, in its zeal to become the data capital of the country, has extended unprecedented tax credits to the richest corporations in the world."