Columbus taxpayers are putting more than $8 million into a 25-court Uptown pickleball complex. One councilor says it begins to pay for itself fairly soon. The project's own economic study, other cities' experience and decades of research point to a different answer.
A promise that is not in the signed deal is not a promise. Part 2 covers jobs, power, water and what happens after the vote, and ends with the full Recommended Council Negotiating Playbook.
Whether a data center helps a town or hurts it comes down to the deal. This guide walks Columbus Council through the choices that come before anyone signs, with real examples of what went right and what went wrong. Part 1 of 2.
Jonathan Waters filed on deadline Monday and conceeded the legal point the city would have likely argued. Then he asked Judge Martin to seat a jury as a matter of discretion — one whose verdict, in Georgia, binds.
Columbus asked a judge to end the data center lawsuit on Wednesday. He spent the hearing planning discovery and a trial instead. The open question now is whether a jury hears any of it.
In 2014 the Downtown Development Authority lent its tax exemption to a $10.5 million rehabilitation of the Ralston. In August it agreed to do it again, larger, and to take the deed this time. Everything here comes from public records.
Jeremy Cummings resigned Tuesday after 27 years, effective immediately. The agenda for the meeting that handled it was three lines long, and a vote in open session was not one of them.
Part two: the price, the fuel shortage, the used fuel with nowhere to go, and why the Army is buying it anyway.
Part one: three nuclear reactors are coming to Fort Benning under a program with no NRC license and no public hearing. A plain-language guide to who approves them and what you can still ask for.
A public authority named this project, priced it, and told Columbus how many jobs it would bring. The city's own lawyers now tell a judge the data center is hypothetical. Both come from the same government. Here is everything that actually exists.
