Washington County Vice Chair Jerry Willey pulled a data center resolution from the Board of Commissioners' Tuesday, Oct. 6, agenda without public notice, preventing a vote on the proposal.
The resolution, titled "Consider Adoption of Data Center Resolution" (CDCA-004-26), had been published on the board's agenda the preceding Friday. Willey, acting as presiding officer alongside County Administrator Tanya Ange, removed it before the meeting, according to the Hillsboro Herald. Willey has served as presiding officer for the remainder of Chair Kathryn Harrington's term after Harrington stepped back from the role.
At the Oct. 6 meeting, Willey said he removed the item because he was not sure the board had read the resolution, KOIN 6 News reported. The item is now set for discussion on Oct. 20, with a tentative adoption vote on Oct. 27.
Commissioner Nafisa Fai responded with a press release calling for the resolution to be restored and proposing four amendments to strengthen the county's approach to large-scale data center development.
"The community has asked that this issue be addressed by us, residents deserve to hear their elected leaders discuss it openly," Fai said in the release.
Her four proposed amendments would:
- Establish a Washington County Data Center Workgroup to develop local recommendations and evaluate state guidance
- Review environmental and public health research, including the combined impacts of multiple data centers
- Prohibit county employees from signing nondisclosure agreements related to data center projects
- Pause specified county approvals and property transactions that facilitate large-scale standalone data center development while safeguards are considered
The resolution covers unincorporated Washington County, where more than 230,000 residents live and the county holds land use authority. As drafted by staff, the resolution declared that the board "does not support" large-scale data centers but did not define them, restrict them, or enact enforceable code changes, according to the Hillsboro Herald.
Under Oregon's "goalpost rule" (ORS 215.427), if a developer files a land-use application, county staff would be required to approve it under existing codes regardless of the resolution's language, the Herald reported.
The county-level dispute plays out alongside Hillsboro's own data center actions. The city adopted a 120-day moratorium on data centers and battery storage facilities on July 27, set to expire around Nov. 14. The Hillsboro City Council was also set to consider a data storage ordinance at its 7 p.m. meeting on Oct. 6, according to KOIN 6 News.
The agenda removal follows a Sept. 2 decision by the board not to pursue a formal data center moratorium. At that meeting, Willey said he was "not willing to invest staff time to look at putting a moratorium on something that has a very, very, very remote possibility of ever occurring," as The Oregonian reported on Sept. 3. County staff had identified only eight parcels meeting industrial criteria for data centers. All were already developed.
The dispute carries election-year weight. Fai and Commissioner Pam Treece face each other in a November runoff for county chair. Ballots go out Oct. 14. Willey contributed $500 to Treece's campaign on Sept. 15, according to campaign finance records cited by the Hillsboro Herald. The Washington County Chamber PAC made a $20,000 contribution to Treece's campaign on Sept. 17, described by the Herald as the largest single candidate outlay in the PAC's history.
No public response from Willey, Ange, or Treece regarding the agenda removal or Fai's amendments was available as of publication.
