Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

Howell Township Treasurer Jonathan Hohenstein confirms Monday’s planned meeting of a data center committee was cancelled “due to safety concerns,” but says officials “were not provided any more detail than that.”

Hoenstein’s email to WHMI News was in response to Trustee Bob Wilson’s claim he is being shut out of the committee he first proposed and was made chairman of.

“There was some guy that started threatening to do harm to me. I made a comment I would defend myself if need be. They didn’t like that. They said for safety concerns they cancelled the meeting,” Wilson said.

“Right off the bat, the committee decided to eliminate me as the chair, and assign other people. It makes me think the committee only wants anti-data center people on it, because they were refusing a few other people that have a lot of information.”

Hoenstein’s response went on to say “We understand that there has been a lot of activity on social media for the committee including comments made by Trustee Wilson. We hope that Trustee Wilson will use his leadership position to turn down the temperature online instead of inflaming it further. We are not currently aware of any changes to the membership of the data center committee.”

Wilson has publicly supported the data center project, but insists he wants to flush out opinions and information from both sides, pointing to his push for a committee to study the issue in depth and provide more transparency.

“It seems like the data center committee people who are working on it are coming up with demands they want to see. I looked at the new plan (posted to the township’s website), and I think the new plan is pretty good.”

For now, the rezoning proposal is scheduled to go before the Livingston County Planning Commission November 19.

The same rezoning request was rejected last month by Howell Township’s Planning Commission following a nearly seven-hour public hearing where scores of residents voiced opposition to the project.

While supporters, like Wilson, point to added tax revenue and construction jobs, those fighting the data center argue similar projects elsewhere have added stress on local electric grids and water supply, while causing harm to the environment.

"Even if it's five of these facilities, you're sucking gallons of water a day out of the ground across all of them. All of the electrical impact and environmental impact, it's scary and nobody has great answers,” resident Corey Alchin previously told WHMI News.

More than 2,100 people have joined a Facebook page dedicated to the $1 billion capital investment, called "Howell, MI Data Center Discussion," linked below.

Ryan Van Gilder, whose family owns most of the land up for rezoning, told the Livingston Post the project involves a "Fortune 100 technology firm that develops, owns and operates technology campuses globally as an end user and owner/operator," and is well-received wherever it goes.

"We actually chose this specific developer because of this reason,” Van Gilder told the Post. "We had our choice."