CORRIN, Neb. — The Corrin Village Board voted 4-1 Monday night to adopt Ordinance 26-14, which bars the village from entering into any nondisclosure agreement with a company seeking a permit for a large data center, then voted 4-1 again, after a 22-minute recess, to enter into a nondisclosure agreement with the village regarding a proposed data center on County Road 9.
The second vote was taken in closed session. Village Clerk Hannah Stiles said the agreement was between the village and the village, with the village attorney acting for both sides. “The ordinance covers agreements with companies,” Stiles said. “This one is with us, so it doesn’t count.”
The ordinance follows an announcement on Oct. 2 by Amazon’s cloud division that it would stop using nondisclosure agreements with government agencies when negotiating data center projects, and would commit more than $1 billion over five years to host communities. Amazon said the change applies going forward. Village President Ray Dvorak, 63, said Corrin had “read the same news everyone read,” and that the village wanted to be “ahead of the curve, which is where we keep our curve.”
Dvorak voted for the ordinance and against the agreement’s posting on the village website, which he said was “a procedural no.” Trustee Gail Mercer, the lone dissent, said the agreement should be public because the board had just decided, in public, that secrecy was bad. “I was told I could not discuss the agreement, so I’m discussing the fact that I was told,” Mercer said. “I don’t know what it’s about. I know it’s about us.”
The agreement is three pages long, according to the clerk, who read the first page aloud and then said the rest was “in the closed session folder, which is also closed.” Its stated purpose is “to protect the confidential nature of the village’s deliberations regarding the village’s deliberations.” Asked what the village had agreed to keep from itself, Stiles said the village had agreed not to tell the village, “until the village is ready to hear it.”
Residents who attended the meeting said they were not sure what they were allowed to say. Dale Ruggles, 58, of the Corrin Community Garden, said he had come to ask about the data center and had been told the question had been “resolved in closed session.” Asked what the resolution was, Ruggles said, “Nobody will tell me, and I’m the one who was going to be told.”
Dr. Chad Brickhouse, a senior fellow at the Institute for Common Sense, said the village’s position was sound. “If you’re not allowed to hear about the deal, there’s no deal to hear about,” Brickhouse said by phone from a bowling alley. “It’s just common sense. The village has been very clear about what it will not do, which is tell you.”
The village attorney, who is also the village, did not respond to a request for comment, and the clerk said the request would be “forwarded to the closed session.” The board adjourned at 10:14 p.m., and voted to meet again in two weeks, in public, to discuss whether the next meeting should be in public. The motion passed 4-0, with Mercer abstaining on the grounds that she had not been briefed.