People ask good questions. Here are the ones that come up most, answered plainly.
Where do you stand on data centers?
Skeptical of hyperscale here. Not of data centers.
Eagan already has data centers. They run roughly 5 to 20 megawatts, and every one of them went into a building that already existed.3 The DataBank facility on Neil Armstrong Boulevard repurposed a commercial bakery. The Centra facility on Nasseff Way reused the old Thomson Reuters data center with no increase in water or electricity use at all. They’ve been fine neighbors.
What’s being courted across the metro now is a different animal: hyperscale campuses starting at 100 megawatts, with the largest running 500 to 700. One of those draws about the electricity of 80,000 homes. A proposed project in Farmington, in our own county, would use 900 million gallons of water a year, roughly doubling that city’s water consumption.
At that scale I have real reservations, and they’re specific.
Noise. Cooling a building that size runs constantly. That’s a permanent condition for whatever sits next to it, and a noise limit only works if someone is measuring against it.
Power headroom. This is the one I think about most. Capacity isn’t infinite. If we commit a large share of what’s available to a single customer, that’s capacity that isn’t there for the next employer, the next housing development, or the business already here that wants to expand. Before we spend it, I want to know how much is left and what we’re giving up.
Who pays, and for how long. Loads that size usually require substation and transmission work. Somebody funds that. If the answer is that Eagan residents and existing businesses carry it in their rates for twenty years or more, that’s a subsidy, and it should be called one before the vote rather than discovered after it.
None of that makes me a no on principle. It makes me someone who wants the numbers first. Before I’d vote yes on a project at that scale, I want answers on:
- What the city actually nets in tax revenue after abatements and fiscal disparities
- How much power capacity the project consumes, and what remains for future growth
- Who pays for the power and water infrastructure upgrades, and over what period
- How much water it uses, and where that water comes from
- Noise limits, setbacks, and who enforces them
- Who pays for cleanup and decommissioning when it closes
I support the moratorium. The Council passed it 4-0, and it buys time to write rules instead of reacting to an application. The real leverage is at the permit stage. It runs a year, so the council seated this November writes the permanent rules that replace it. That’s what this election decides.
What about the Flock cameras?
Reactive is a tool. Proactive is surveillance.
A stolen car. A missing person. A plate from a hit and run. You run the number, you get an answer, you close the case. That’s a camera doing a job, and Eagan PD has solved real cases that way. I’m for that.
Collecting everyone’s movements and holding them in case they turn out to be useful is a different thing. Same hardware, different purpose. The line between the two isn’t the camera. It’s how long the data is kept, and who can search it for what reason.
I’ve read the policy. Eagan has one, it’s Policy 426, and it’s posted publicly.2 It’s a good policy, better than a lot of cities have. Data not tied to an active investigation is destroyed in 60 days. Tracking an individual takes a warrant. Every query is logged by name, date, and time. Another agency wanting our data has to make a written request with a case number and their chief’s sign-off. Misuse can mean criminal prosecution.
The department also turned off statewide data sharing in March 2026 and removed civil immigration as a selectable search reason. That was the right call, and they made it on their own.1
I do have questions about how this works in practice, so I’ve asked Chief Omari and City Administrator Miller to sit down with me. Reading a document is not the same as understanding how a department actually operates. I’ll have more to say once I’ve heard from them, and not before.
What I’ll say now is forward looking. Cameras are just the first ask. Drones, facial recognition, and gunshot detection are landing on city councils right now. Before the city acquires any of it, I’d ask that the decision be made in public, by the Council. Good tools survive scrutiny.
Where do you stand on housing?
Nobody should have to leave Eagan to retire in Eagan.
Someone who raised their kids here should be able to find a single level home down the street, not in another city. Same goes for the young family buying their first place, and for the people who teach in our schools and staff our clinics.
There’s also a planning framework most residents haven’t heard about. Through Imagine 2050, the Metropolitan Council has given Eagan guidance and housing goals to plan toward by 2040.4 What the city is required to do is plan for them, by guiding enough land at sufficient density, and the comprehensive plan has to show it.
So the density question isn’t whether. It’s where, and who decides. I’d rather this council pick those sites deliberately, near transit and on land we’re already redeveloping, than have them chosen in a hurry against a plan deadline. Done well, that same land gives us the single level homes and co-ops that let people age in place here.
That’s a plan, not a slogan. It’s also the kind of decision that outlasts whoever is sitting in the chair when it gets made.
Eagan seems well run. Why change anything?
Some decisions outlast the budget that made them.
I’m running because the choices in front of this council don’t reset next year. A hyperscale data center, housing for people who want to stay, infrastructure that has to keep pace. Some of them are permanent, and we need someone looking far enough ahead to make sure these deals don’t tie down future generations with extra fees and hidden costs. I read deals like that for a living, and I’d rather help get them right the first time than write a letter afterward.
That’s easy to say. Here’s what it looks like in practice.
When residents started asking me about the Flock cameras, I went looking for the policy rather than a position. Eagan has one, Policy 426, and I read it.2 It’s a good policy, better than a lot of cities have. I also have questions about it, so I asked Chief Omari and Administrator Miller to sit down with me. Reading a document is not the same as understanding how a department actually operates.
I think there are things that could make it stronger. I’ll have more to say once I’ve heard from them, and not before.
The kind of question worth asking anyone on this ballot, including me
- How long does Eagan keep license plate data, and where is that written down?
- What’s the difference between the data centers Eagan already has and the ones being courted across the metro?
- When a large commercial development gets built here, how much of the new tax base does Eagan actually keep?
- What happens when the data center moratorium expires, and who writes the rules that replace it?
Have a question of your own?
Ask me. I’d rather hear it before a decision gets made than after. Email jason@voteforjason.org or use the form below.
