HUBBARD — City council meetings over the past several months have been the center of attention and officials took another step toward easing residents’ concerns with a plan to discuss and become more informed on data centers.

As part of miscellaneous items for discussion at Monday’s meeting, Council President Mike Mogg expressed a desire to see city officials form a committee to discuss data centers in hopes of getting the matter under control.

Councilwomen Bonnie Viele, D-1st Ward, Robin Zambrini, D-2nd Ward, Lisha Pompilli-Baumiller, D-3rd Ward, and Councilman Jerome Crowe, D-At Large, all agreed to join.

“I guess you four can meet and decide who you want to run (the committee), what you guys want to do, and I will be glad to sit in on the meetings — I don’t have a vote,” Mogg said.

The proposed committee comes a month after officials approved by emergency measure a 12-month moratorium on the construction, placement or operation of a data center within the city.

Zambrini, who requested that Law Director Mark Villano draw up the necessary legislation for it at a May 18 meeting, said then that officials normally do three readings on most matters to allow everyone time to review resolutions, but noted it was a different situation.

PETITION

During public comments, Sarah Lee, a resident, said the community “rapidly came together” to respond to data centers beginning Thursday, expressing residents’ desire to have a say in what goes on with their community.

“In order to provide that, we came together with the goal of collecting a minimum of 370 verified signatures,” Lee said. “As we submitted that document this morning, I wanted to make it known and announce to the public we collected over 750 signatures.”

As for the significance of those petitions and signatures, Katie Matola-Costello explained Tuesday that it’s an initiative allowing Hubbard citizens to decide whether they want to keep or outright ban data centers in the city.

“We went to the board of elections, which gave us the number — you need a certain percentage of the citizens that voted in the last governor’s race — which is 10%,” Costello said. “That number equaled 320 signatures, we ended up with over 750 — I think our total number was 763.”