A special joint meeting of the City Council of Hooks and the Board of Directors of the Hooks IDC last week ended with no action other than two Hooks council members being added to the IDC Board of Directors.
The meeting agenda included items that had the council conferring with their city attorney to consider the IDC Board’s possible failure to report business transactions to the city in a timely manner, the IDC’s failure to obtain the council’s approval prior to executing contracts and its possible unauthorized purchasing and selling of real property.
The agenda also included possible action in regards to the employment, evaluation, reassignment, discipline and dismissal of members of the Hooks IDC. (Industrial Development Corporation) After conferring in an executive session, the only action taken was to add councilmembers Eddie Estell and Gunner Davis to the IDC Board of Directors.
Hooks Mayor Jimmy Cochran told those gathered at the meeting that the goal of the council’s action was to gain better communication between the Council and the IDC.
The meeting was in connection to the recent sale of a tract of land along Interstate 30 in Hooks for the construction of a data center. The sale of the property was recently approved with joint actions of the Hooks IDC, the New Boston SIDC and the Bowie County Commissioners.
Opposition to that data center, and others planned for Bowie County, has been organized and well attended with a grass roots effort to stop their construction.
Cara Craig, who lives adjacent to the land in Hooks told the West Bowie Post that the main concern she has had with the sale of the property has been the lack of transparency.
She states, “How is there a data center being built without any information out there about it. I still know people who don’t know about the data center. I am concerned about what it means to my family. We moved here to escape noise pollution and to sit on our front porch and hear the crickets and the frogs and the sounds of country life, and now we are facing the unknown and the possible long-term side effects. We have four small kids, and we don’t know what the possible negative health impacts a data center will have on them.”
Opposition to the construction of the Bowie County data centers gained some support last week from Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The Texas governor directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to halt all permits sought by data centers until the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) completes its audit.
With his directive Abbott stated, “Simply put, Texans must come first.
Data centers must pay their own way, protect our grid and water, and complete the ERCOT and TWDB audits. Until they do, TCEQ will issue no permits sought by data center projects.”
