BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah — A new lawsuit claims officials infringed on the civil rights of Box Elder County residents by not allowing a public vote or other public input before going ahead with the proposed Stratos Project data center.
The lawsuit was filed by the nonprofit Alliance for a Better Utah and five Box Elder County residents, and names the defendants as the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams, state Sen. Jerry Stevenson, and the Box Elder County Commission.
The Stratos data center, which is backed by celebrity investor Kevin O'Leary, originally was proposed to be a 40,000 acre A.I. data center. However, on Thursday, O'Leary agreed to reduce the size of the project by 19.430 acres, after Adams demanded that the facility be shrunk by 75%.
The lawsuit argues that at a public hearing at the State Capitol Building on April 24, the MIDA Board approved the Stratos Project Area Plan, even though there was allegedly inadequate evidence shown that landowner consents were given, and that there was inadequate evidence from feasibility and public health studies. Both of which are required under the MIDA statute.
The lawsuit also claims that MIDA itself is unconstitutional under Utah law. "Art. VI, § 1, gives the Utah state legislature a limited power to regulate the means by which citizens may exercise their rights of direct democracy, but it does not and cannot authorize that body, by means of a statute such as the MIDA act, to extinguish those pre-existing rights entirely," the lawsuit reads.
Given that the citizens of Box Elder County haven't waived their rights, the actions taken by MIDA were unconstitutional and void, the lawsuit claims.
Adams is also accused in the lawsuit of receiving $135,000 through a PAC controlled solely by himself, following the approval of the project.
According to the lawsuit, the Utah Supreme Court stated that payments of that sort, when given to a legislator like Adams, are not bribes but payments to facilitate access to and the lobbying of legislators. However, the Alliance for a Better Utah believes Adams shouldn't be able to collect the money.
"Adams received these monies so that he would give access and listen to whatever pitch was being made by these individuals and businesses," the lawsuit claims. "But giving access to and listening to individuals and businesses with policy concerns that they want to see fashioned into some kind of governmental action is part of a legislator’s job."
The lawsuit says that any payment given to a legislator must be paid by the state of Utah and cannot come from private parties.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are asking the court to render all actions taken by MIDA as null and void, given they are allegedly unconstitutional, prevention for MIDA or the Commission from making further attempts at the data center plan, removal of Adams and Stevenson as appointees to the MIDA board, and an order requiring Adams to disgorge any payments he received as the director of the Board of MIDA.
