To the editor:

As our local officials push forward with marketing the newly certified 478-acre Gateway Industrial Park, we as a community must ask a critical question: At what cost?

We are hearing quiet whispers about prospective Artificial Intelligence (AI) data centers eyeing our land. While “high tech investment” sounds appealing on paper, the reality of these projects is a bad deal for Webster City.

Our town learned a painful, permanent lesson when Electrolux closed in 2011. We cannot afford to make the same mistake by giving away massive Tax Increment Financing (TIF) agreements and property tax cuts to out-of-state, multi-billion-dollar tech giants.

AI data centers do not bring back the middle-class jobs we lost. Once built, these massive server warehouses require almost no local staff-typically generating fewer than 80 permanent jobs. Yet, they place an unprecedented, continuous strain on our regional power grid and our municipal water supply. Worse, under Iowa law, their high-value server equipment is completely exempt from property tax. If our local leaders grant them additional local tax breaks, our taxpayers will end up subsidizing the very corporations draining our resources.

If a multi-billion-dollar corporation wants to build in Webster City, they should pay their fair share of taxes and fund their own utility infrastructure. No handouts, no secret non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), and no lopsided TIF deals.

I have submitted a detailed 41 page investigative research packet to both the Hamilton County Board of Supervisors and our City Council today. I urge my fellow residents to join me in demanding total transparency before our grid and our tax dollars are given away.

Sincerely,

Paul A. Moberly

Webster City