ELLSWORTH — The Ellsworth Plan Commission unanimously approved an interim zoning ordinance amendment that prevents the establishment of a data center in the village Monday.

“Our ordinance does not allow them or permit them as it’s currently written; however, we also recognize our ordinance was written long before data centers were ever a thing, so it was in our best interest to update our code to make sure our regulations are what we want,” Village Administrator/Clerk-Treasurer Brad Roy said. “What we’re proposing here is just an interim amendment that would explicitly make them not permitted or allowed, and that would give the Plan Commission and Village Board time to research the issue and put the appropriate controls in.”

Roy said he will look into whether the temporary ordinance could only take effect inside of village limits or if it could be extended to the extraterritorial zoning (ETZ). The commission also asked for tweaked wording so that the ordinance does not block businesses with an IT closet or something similar.

“The term ‘data centers’ includes any use involving processing, storage or generation of electronic data, including, but not limited to, data centers, AI data centers, AI factories, intelligence factories, GPU clusters, accelerated computing data centers, compute clusters/farms/hubs, server farms, colocation facilities, edge data centers, carrier hotels, tech hubs, cryptocurrency (including bitcoin) data centers, mining farms, hash centers, crypto mines and computer infrastructure facilities,” village documents state.

Multiple members of the commission mentioned power and water usage of data centers as items to look into. James Mennenga said the centers are often searching for sources of that power, so the village also needs to ensure it protects itself from the power being drawn from the ETZ to other areas.

The temporary ordinance can be in place for two years, with the village needing to finalize changes to the original ordinance in the meantime.

Special Village Board Meeting

Prior to the Plan Commission meeting, the Village Board gathered for a special meeting to discuss an alleged physical altercation at Cenex between Board Trustee Tony Hines and community member Sean Hall that resulted in Hall’s arrest July 2.

The board went into closed session for the entirety of the discussion, with the meeting agenda citing a pending injunction action against Hines. Upon reconvening, the following motion was made and approved, with Trustee Lance Austin being the lone vote in opposition.

“I will make a motion to provide defense for Trustee Hines due to the fact that it is clear that the incident causing [the case] would not have taken place if Tony Hines had not been an elected trustee of the Ellsworth Village Board,” Trustee Jarod Traynor said.

Hall requested a temporary restraining order against Hines July 13, which was denied by the Pierce County Court Commissioner. An injunction hearing for a harassment restraining order is scheduled for 2 p.m. July 30.