The 5 Demands — #45strong

Tenant disclosure

Public disclosure of the operator-tenant before any vote on tax abatement, road infrastructure, or water service.

Cloverleaf does not build, own, or operate data centers. They assemble land and power, then sell the package to a hyperscaler. The County Commission will be asked to approve commitments on behalf of a company that has not signed a lease and is not in the room. Lowndes residents are entitled to know who would actually own and run the facility before any irreversible vote.

Why Cloverleaf can't answer thisCloverleaf has not closed with a tenant. The hyperscaler will not bind itself until Cloverleaf has land, power, and water in hand. They cannot answer this question — and that is precisely why it has to be answered first.

For your letterI ask the Commission to make no vote on any abatement, road improvement, or water service agreement until the operator-tenant has been publicly identified and a representative of that company has testified in person at a public hearing.

Water disclosure

Public disclosure in gallons per day — peak and average — supported by a third-party engineering analysis paid for by the developer.

Cloverleaf says the facility uses water 'like a small office building.' That is an analogy, not a number. Hyperscale data centers run continuously and reject heat constantly. The Alabama River is the only realistic large-volume source. The Lowndes County Water and Sewer Authority cannot serve a 3-to-5-million-gallon-per-day load without a binding capacity agreement, and no such agreement should be considered before the actual demand is in writing.

Why Cloverleaf can't answer thisThe peak gallons-per-day figure depends on the unnamed tenant's chosen cooling architecture. Until the tenant is named, the water number is unknown — to Cloverleaf and to everyone else.

For your letterI ask that no service agreement of any kind be considered by the Lowndes County Water and Sewer Authority, the Pintlala Water System, or any municipal system until Cloverleaf provides peak and average daily water demand in gallons, supported by a third-party engineering analysis paid for by the developer.

Power & ratepayer protection

Public disclosure of the megawatt request and serving utility, with a ratepayer-protection escrow that prevents costs from shifting onto residential customers.

Alabama Power's parent company is forecasting unprecedented load growth driven by data centers. The Southern Environmental Law Center estimates that the projected demand has roughly a 0.2% probability of materializing as forecast. If Cloverleaf's tenant uses the grid and the forecasts miss, the build-out costs land on residential ratepayers. A voluntary commitment from the developer is not a tariff — only a Public Service Commission filing protects rate-payers, and the time to require that filing is before the abatement vote, not after.

Why Cloverleaf can't answer thisCloverleaf can promise it will pay for transmission upgrades, but the company will not be the operator. Once they sell the package, the next owner is bound only by what is on file at the PSC.

For your letterI ask the Commission to require, as a condition of any abatement, that the serving utility file a separate large-load tariff with the Alabama Public Service Commission and that the developer post a ratepayer-protection escrow before construction begins.

Education-tax carve-out

Carve-out of the education portion of property taxes from any abatement, by formal Commission resolution.

The education millage is the largest single component of Lowndes County property tax. The Lowndes school system cannot afford to forgive thirty years of education-tax revenue, and the Lowndes County School Board has independent authority to refuse consent on its own portion of the abatement. The County Commission can lead by carving out the education millage explicitly — a single resolution that protects classrooms regardless of how the rest of the abatement is structured.

Why Cloverleaf can't answer thisIf they accept the carve-out, the after-tax economics tighten — and the project becomes more sensitive to the other unanswered questions. They want a clean abatement, not a conditional one.

For your letterI ask the Commission to pass a resolution carving out the education portion of property taxes from any abatement granted to Project Red Clay or any successor entity.

Tenant-binding agreement

A tenant-binding community-benefits agreement that survives transfer of ownership, with automatic sunset of all incentives if the project is sold to an entity not bound by the same agreement.

Cloverleaf's $10 million pledge through the Central Alabama Community Foundation is structured around milestones Cloverleaf controls. Even if every dollar arrives, none of it binds the eventual operator. A real community-benefits agreement runs with the land, names the operator as a signatory, and snaps back if the asset changes hands. Without that, every commitment in the press release is a promise only Cloverleaf can keep — and Cloverleaf will not be there.

Why Cloverleaf can't answer thisTenant-binding terms reduce the value of the package Cloverleaf is assembling to sell. Their business model is to hand the buyer a clean asset; an asset encumbered by enforceable local commitments is, by definition, less clean.

For your letterI ask that any abatement, road improvement, or service agreement be conditioned on a binding community-benefits agreement signed by the eventual operator, with automatic sunset of all incentives if the project is sold to an entity not bound by the same agreement.

If Cloverleaf and the operator-tenant can meet these five demands, the conversation is different. The expectation, based on the structural facts of their business model, is that they cannot.

Send these demands to the commission →See Cloverleaf's record

Lowndes deserves a better deal — here is what that looks like.

Public disclosure of the operator-tenant before any vote on tax abatement, road infrastructure, or water service.

Public disclosure in gallons per day — peak and average — supported by a third-party engineering analysis paid for by the developer.

Public disclosure of the megawatt request and serving utility, with a ratepayer-protection escrow that prevents costs from shifting onto residential customers.

Carve-out of the education portion of property taxes from any abatement, by formal Commission resolution.

A tenant-binding community-benefits agreement that survives transfer of ownership, with automatic sunset of all incentives if the project is sold to an entity not bound by the same agreement.