The fight over one of the largest developments in El Paso produced an unexpected political dividing line between voters concerned about resources facing off against labor groups concerned about jobs in the city. In the middle are three city representatives who resisted calls to renegotiate the META datacenter agreement.
On one side of the issue are El Paso voters who argue that the datacenter deal is unacceptable because of the potentially enormous demands on the city’s electrical grid and water resources. On the other side are the city’s business community and construction workers along with the elected officials defending the project as an opportunity for El Paso to expand its tax base.
But on June 9, 193 El Pasoans packed the city council chambers demanding that the city representatives reopen negotiations with META over its tax incentives agreement.
Five city representatives, Cynthia Boyar Trejo, Alejandra Chávez, Art Fierro, Deanna Maldonado-Rocha and Ivan Niño voted against the measure to reconsider the agreement for the datacenter. Josh Acevedo, Chris Canales and Lily Limón voted to reconsider the agreement.
The three of the five city representatives voting to keep the incentives package – Chávez, Fierro and Niño – must now face the voters on November 3rd.
Voters may be asking the incumbents, what if anything, they could have done differently. Their answers could determine their reelection campaigns.
The Deal That Changed the Election
The December 2023 tax incentives package the county and the city offered META to build its datacenter reduced the development’s property taxes over several years. Government officials at the time described the tax agreement as creating long-term economic benefits. That was before concerns over water became part of the discussion about datacenters.
The city’s portion of the tax incentive agreement provides META with an 80% city property tax rebate for at least 15-years. The agreement includes additional tax rebates as the development grows.
In return for the tax rebates, city officials say that the datacenter development will create 1,800 construction jobs and at least 50 permanent high-tech jobs. According to city officials, the datacenter will generate $83.4 million.
But critics see it differently.
The META datacenter is permitted to use up to 2.5 million gallons of water per day, or about the equivalent of the daily consumption of 12,375 El Paso homes. Critics have pointed to a larger impact on water while META has said it won’t need as much water. Nonetheless, the official permit allows the datacenter to consume the equivalent amount of water each day that 12,375 homes use on average.
El Paso Electric is also seeking to build a 366-megawatt power plant to power the META datacenter. The impact on El Paso’s electric rate payers for the power plant remains an open question and a concern for El Pasoans.
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Concerns over water and electricity turned an obscure project into an election issue that many did not see coming, especially the incumbents.
The June 9 city council vote brought the issue to the forefront of the upcoming city elections. Chávez, Fierro and Niño voted to keep the agreement in place. Canales voted to reopen the negotiations. However, as the city council voted to keep the agreement, they also took steps to scrutinize, and possibly limit, future datacenters in El Paso.
Theus, the political question is not whether datacenters are good or bad for El Paso, but whether the META agreement was a mistake and whether it should be honored.
Chávez and Niño were not on city council when the 2023 vote was taken to offer the tax incentives to META. Fierro voted for the measure. However, Chávez and Niño voted to keep the agreement putting it at the forefront of the political controversy.
The City Council Election
Canales, Chávez, Fierro and Niño are running for reelection in November.
Chávez faces three challengers in November. They are Sam Armijo, Matthew Kozik and Daniela Garcia.
The incumbent, Chávez, voted to not reopen negotiations with META in June citing the potential litigation costs that reopening them could cost the city’s taxpayers. Chávez makes no mention of META or datacenters on her campaign website.
Armijo writes on his campaign website that he will use city council oversight to protect ratepayers from rate hikes and to ensure that El Paso’s resources are protected.
Kozik offers a 22-page plan where he argues that the city council made a mistake in not forcing META back to the negotiating table in their June 9 vote. According to Kozik, the agreement allows the city council to force the Texas Attorney General to decide whether META can enforce its confidentiality agreement against the city. Forcing META to allow the disclosure of information currently safeguarded by META would allow the city to force META to reopen negotiations to the agreement that can lead to an amendment to it protecting the ratepayers and community through impact fees and other tools like health-and-safety the city can use. According to Kozik, forcing the transparency clause would keep the city from breaching the agreement that could potentially lead to millions in legal fees while forcing META to negotiate an amendment to the agreement in public.
Garcia has not publicly posted a position on the META datacenter. However, according to an online dashboard managed by people opposed to the META datacenter, Garcia is listed in support of META.
The other member of city council facing a reelection campaign is Fierro. Fierro’s stance on the META datacenter is clear. Not only did he vote on the original tax incentive agreement, but he also voted not to reopen negotiations with the developer. Nonetheless, his website makes no mention of the datacenter.
Challenging Fierro are Hector Alva, Claudia Contreras Sillar, Pedro Fernandez, Jr., and Jesse Moreno. Fernandez states on his website that wants to protect El Paso “from external threats” to El Paso’s natural resources under the section of the META datacenter. Moreno does not mention META or datacenters on this website. Contreras Siller is opposed to the datacenter according to her social media posts. Alva has not made a public statement about them.
Ivan Niño, who faces two challengers also voted to not reopen negotiations with META. One of his challengers is Jacqueline Horn. She has not taken a public position on the El Paso datacenter controversy. Niño’s other challenger, Richard Genera, does not directly address whether he supports or opposes the META datacenter on his campaign website. Rather Genera writes that he will “ask tough questions,” and “demand accountability” to “prioritize the wellbeing of people.”
Canales is an outlier on the issue of datacenters and the November election. He voted for the 380 Agreement in 2023 but subsequently voted to reopen negotiations with META, citing rising concerns over resources. He faces Arturo Alluin, Johnny Gonzalez, Matthew Guzman and Laura Ochoa-Todd. Alluin does not address the datacenter on his campaign website. Like Alluin, Guzman also makes no mention of datacenters or META on his campaign website. The other challengers have not taken a public position on the issue.
Nationally, datacenters have become a significant feature of the upcoming elections. The Associated Press describes it as transforming the election landscape.
The Million-Dollar Question
El Paso voters don’t need to understand AI, servers or whether a tax incentive for 50 jobs is worth it. The question now before the voters is not whether the META datacenter can be stopped – the city has said it would be cost prohibitive.
Instead, the November election for El Paso’s voters is what comes next.
If Chávez, Fierro and Niño are reelected but Canales loses his reelection bid, it could signal that El Paso’s voters believe that keeping the META datacenter agreement in place is the correct thing.
If, however, the incumbents are reelected, including Canales, the voters would signal that the datacenters are not forefront in their concerns. If Canales wins and the other incumbents lose, the message to META would be that it may have to renegotiate its agreement with the city.
The other possibility is that the datacenters are not as important to the voters as the public controversy suggests. In this scenario, the election results could be a mixed bag of pro-META and candidates opposed to META as voters choose the candidates on the other issues facing El Paso.
The controversy over the El Paso datacenter is a measurable political dividing line. Will the voters resolve it remains the open question.
One way to look at a data center is that it is a hole in the biosphere that sucks up land, water, taxes and energy and returns GHG emissions, EMF emissions, 24X7 noise, nighttime light pollution, and pop up ads. Zero social benefit,