HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-09-02 Mitra Sticklen Support Testimony
From: mitra sticklen
To: Planning WPC Testimony
Subject: Testimony
Date: Wednesday, September 2, 2026 10:36:19 PM
My name is Mitra Sticklen and I live in Kailua Kona. I am writing in strong support of Bill
170 and asking the Windward Planning Commission to recommend one additional strengthening change before sending it back to the County Council.
...
The original Bill 170 language uses subjective phrases like "industrial-scale operation" and
"beyond that typically accessory or incidental to office, commercial, or public institutional uses" that a well-resourced developer's attorney can argue around. The definition below
replaces that subjectivity with objective physical criteria and a clear 20 megawatt threshold that cannot be disputed.
Cooling, power, and support infrastructure, including but not limited to servers, network
equipment and appliances, telecommunications equipment, data storage systems, systems for monitoring and managing infrastructure performance, environmental controls, fire protection
systems, security systems, electrical substations, generators, and redundant power supplies; and which requires or is designed to require 20 megawatts or more of electrical capacity at full
build-out. This definition includes a single facility and any campus of multiple facilities on contiguous or adjacent parcels under common ownership or control whose combined electrical
demand meets or exceeds 20 megawatts. This term includes facilities commonly described as large-scale, hyperscale, neocloud, and artificial intelligence data centers and colocation
campuses. This term does not include telecommunications facilities regulated under Section 25-4-12, hospital or government data systems, university educational and research facilities, or
business offices in which servers are incidental to the primary use.
I am an organic farmer and a mother and I have seen scary images of data centers around the world degrading the land, water and hurting human health to surrounding communities. We
cannot choose short-term financial profit over the health of our people, the land, and the water! We must make choices that our children and their children will be proud of .
Our island's closed water system, fossil-fuel dependent grid, and already strained
infrastructure cannot support hyperscale data centers. Please recommend the strongest possible version of this bill to the County Council.
Mahalo,
Mitra Sticklen
Kailua Kona