WRIGHTSTOWN (NBC 26) — Internal emails between Wrightstown Village Administrator Travis Coenen and data center developer Cloverleaf reveal communication dating back to January.
In one exchange dated Jan. 23, Coenen said, "We will strategize on a better plan for Wrightstown as I see both Greenleaf and Kewanee have not gone well."
The email is one of nearly a dozen exchanged between Coenen and Cloverleaf managers over the past four months, verified through an open records request by neighbors.
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On Jan. 20, a Cloverleaf manager met with Coenen via Zoom to discuss zoning changes for a data center.
When asked about the nature of that meeting, Coenen said, "The nature of that meeting, again, was just they were trying to figure out our zoning."
Coenen says Cloverleaf approached Wrightstown to see if zoning allowed an industrial building as large as 2.5 million square feet. He also asked Cloverleaf for zoning examples from Port Washington to determine what changes would need to be made for a center to come to Wrightstown.
Coenen says that exploring options for the village is part of his job, and that the village is simply in an educational phase.
"There has been no formal proposal, or informal proposal brought before the board or staff at this point," Coenen said.
The emails surfaced after dozens of neighbors took their concerns to the village board last week, where they were told by city leaders there would be full transparency concerning any potential data centers.
At that meeting, Village Board Member Ryan Roebke said, "We're not doing anything behind people's back."
At no time did any member of the village board or Coenen mention their communications with Cloverleaf during the May 5 meeting.
Larry Bousey, a Wrightstown resident, was at the meeting and told NBC26 he found the board misleading: "That's quite disturbing that they were able to sit in a room full of forty people and blatantly just lie to our faces," Bousey said.
Another resident, Nick Sagal, who spoke against data centers and in favor of a moratorium at the May 5 meeting, felt frustrating reading the emails.
"What I heard was at any point our board may decide to rezone resident to industrial is willing to put an industrial facility within a half mile of our kids? That's scary to me," said Sagal.
Currently, zoning in Wrightstown does not allow a large-scale data center. The village is in the process of rezoning, a process Coenen says will be public.
Coenen has been seeking advice from a principal development manager for Cloverleaf Infrastructure about possible changes.
"Parin, can you send the zoning you used in other communities so I can get it on our zoning code rewrite," Coenen wrote.
The email was just one of many exchanged between Coenen and managers of Cloverleaf going back to at least January.
Cloverleaf has previously pursued building a data center in northeast Wisconsin. Most notably in Greenleaf, where neighbors rallied against the project earlier this year.
One email, dated Jan. 9, is from Coenen to two Cloverleaf managers.
"If possible, could you provide the general location where you anticipate the facility may be situated?" Coenen wrote. "This would allow me to develop my presentation strategy and contribute any insight that may be helpful."
Travis Armistead, from Cloverleaf responds: "We have a few leads which hopefully land us fairly close to the Village of Wrightstown’s border."
In another email, Armistead sends Coenen a white paper on data center development written by the Urban Land Institute. He says the paper is intended to "educate local stakeholders on the development process."
"I already read this and forwarded it to our board while the Greenleaf controversy was going on," Coenen responded. "We will strategize on a better plan for Wrightstown as I see both Greenleaf and Kewanee (sic) have not gone well."
Coenen was apparently referencing Cloverleaf's attempts to develop data centers in those locations before popular resistance shut the efforts down.
In a village meeting earlier this month, several Wrightstown neighbors pushed back against the idea of building a data center in the village.
In another email exchange, principal development manager at Cloverleaf, Parin Patel writes to Coenen "We aim to be transparent, cover evaluations costs so the process isn't a burden on the community, and remain open to ideas on different mechanism to help move the project forward."
The Village of Wrightstown held their first of four listening sessions on the topic on May 13 and they'll be hosting three more this month.
May 19 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
May 26 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
May 31 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Neighbors of Wrightstown are hosting an information session on data center impacts at Gnarly Cedar on Monday, May 18 and June 1, both at 6:30pm.
