Before Carroll County residents could head into an informational meeting about the planned hyperscale data center on Greens Bottom Road, they had to show IDs proving residency. Non-resident journalists were not allowed inside.(Sylvia Goodman / AMSN)Dozens of Carroll County residents lined up outsid e a nondescript door at the fairgrounds in Carrollton, Kentucky on Aug. 18. Two people checked IDs at the door — only residents were allowed inside. Reporters and interested parties who didn’t live in the small Kentucky county of roughly 11,000 people were left outside.It was the informational meeting for the enormous data campus developers want to place on Greens Bottom Road near English, proposed by Louisville-based Poe Companies and Powerhouse Data Centers, the same duo responsible for the enormous center planned for west Louisville. As people left the private meeting, which several public officials attended, some said they appreciated the chance to hear more, while others said they still don’t have answers to essential questions and don’t trust the explanations they are getting.“I don't trust the jobs numbers. I don't trust the tax numbers,” said Amy Wright, who lives a few miles from Greens Bottom. “I feel like if they were being really transparent, there would be a board up there that said, ‘What are the risks of a project like this?’ You can't just put all the good stuff up there.”As with many data centers, key information that neighbors to the proposed centers seek remains elusive. How will the grid expand to accommodate the massive energy and water demands? In Carroll County’s case, the Greens Bottom center would reportedly use 800 megawatts, enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes. What happens if the facility, sitting on a 500-acre lot, gets decommissioned? How will the development affect their property value? How loud will those humming servers be, and will people be able to see lights 24-7 from their front porches?And one of the biggest questions: Who made these calls and when?Mike Wood, who owns land by the proposed data center, said he has had to argue his way into another meeting for residents, since his ID carries his primary address in another county. Wood said he’s skeptical of the way local officials carried out the land deal with the developers; he once served in local office himself.“I did tell [the city council] that I'm not making no threats to any of you up here, but I will promise you that I have 16 years being on a legislative body. I will hold you accountable for what you have done,” Wood said.Mike Wood (right) owns property on Greens Bottom Road, and said he fears the new proposed data center will ruin the land that once belonged to his great-grandfather.(Sylvia Goodman / AMSN)In Kentucky, hyperscale data center proposals have surged spectacularly since lawmakers expanded sales tax exemptions for the massive facilities. Several developments have sparked outrage when residents learn the deals have been months or years in the making, with public officials hiding them from public scrutiny with non-disclosure agreements and in executive sessions.Concerns in Carroll CountyThe Carrollton Industrial Campus on Greens Bottom Road has been in the works for well over a year, but the development team didn’t announce its plans until last month. Fury fomented online after a local real estate agent posted on Facebook that he had spent two years researching data centers and working to bring them to Carroll County — the post has more than 500 comments.In July 2025, the mayor of Carrollton signed an unrecorded real estate option contract to sell 340 acres of public land for the data center. On the city council’s official minutes that month, the council went into executive session for almost two hours before voting to sell or purchase several unnamed properties “located in Carroll County, as discussed in executive session.”Mayor Robb Adams did not answer requests for comment. But Gex Williams, the GOP state senator representing Carroll County, said the city’s lack of transparency has made rumors fly wild.“Did they make mistakes? Yeah, the city I think made some serious mistakes in terms of their [non-disclosure agreements] and extending it too long. But I think they've opened it up now,” Williams said.Chris Marsh, whose family members live near the proposed site, said he knows both people fighting the data centers and those who have sold land to them. He said he could have respected his public officials laying out the details, hearing opposition and still going ahead with the project — but that’s not how it unfolded.“Basically, we don't have any say at all now. It's a slap in the face to the community because number one, it betrays the trust,” Marsh said. “Who's to say he couldn't do it again tomorrow?”Angela Turner, who lives in Greens Bottom, left the meeting Wednesday still worried about the health consequences of a data center right next door, especially for the granddaughter she’s raising.“The biggest thing of the whole entire thing is that five people sat on a council and took our voice away.” Turner said. “I'm not against data centers. I just think there's a place for them — not in residential, not next door to me.”The use of non-disclosure agreements, officials argue, is standard in many real estate deals and major business deals, prohibiting the signee from revealing specific information. But in the case of data centers, residents say it has stripped them of their voice.By the time they find out about the deals, it's too late to push back. Carroll County, like many in Kentucky, does not have a county-wide planning and zoning commission. Laura Beth Austin, from Ghent, where the other smaller proposed data center is planned, said that residents would have had time to push for one before data centers started moving in if residents had been informed sooner.Carroll County Fiscal Court voted at their last meeting in August to begin the process of forming a county-wide planning and zoning commission, but it will take years.“It's a little too late now that we want to talk about that,” Austin said. “Having the information and knowing that the data center was coming here years ago, they could have done something to put in some zoning or at least some restrictions on buildings of this scale.” A billboard in Carrollton, Ky, urges community members concerned about data centers to contact the mayor.(Sylvia Goodman / AMSN)Many residents say they want more than transparency at the beginning of the process, they want real time details on the project as it advances. But that desire for more information is at odds with developers saying many details aren’t finalized yet.At a meeting in Louisville last month, which is seeing pushback over its own proposed data center in west Louisville, Audrey Ernstberger with the Kentucky Resource Council emphasized the importance of getting as much information as possible, including how companies are coming up with their numbers. She pointed to jobs numbers and tax revenue projections.“Those are the developers' estimates,” Ernstberger said. “Communities need to have access to the calculations behind these estimates to determine whether there's any type of inflated value that they are being given.”The Greens Bottom project has promised 320 permanent jobs at the facility and projected millions in local tax revenue, including $64 million for education. At the same time, the company says it's in the very early stages of the project and has yet to create detailed site plans.Transparency across the stateNon-disclosure agreements, commonly called NDAs, and lack of transparency hasn’t just ruffled feathers in Carroll County. Across Kentucky, public officials are facing heavy pressure from constituents, from diverse political perspectives, who feel they’ve been kept in the dark about a project that could change the character of their community.The Harrodsburg-Mercer County Industrial Development Authority signed an NDA this March with Panattoni Development Company related to its controversial data center project. This project has led to significant local backlash, especially when the city of Burgin started the process this summer to annex the property to shield it from county-wide zoning rules. Pannattoni has communicated privately with public officials, but held no community meetings about its data center project.The same Mercer County development authority also responded to a Kentucky Public Radio open records request by stating that it possesses copies of NDAs executed last fall with an unnamed data center developer that were signed by the mayor of Harrodsburg and the judge-executive of Mercer County. Despite this, the Mercer County government said in its response to a records request that it had no NDAs with potential data center developers in its possession.In northeast Kentucky, several local officials acknowledged signing NDAs with crypto-mining company TeraWulf for their proposed massive data center project in the EastPark industrial park. At a town hall in June, some residents said they felt they couldn’t trust a project that had started off in the shadows.Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order he said would put guardrails around data center developments, including by demanding they engage in public discussions with the community. It is unclear how Beshear or his administration can enforce such a requirement.A bill proposed during the last legislative session would have prohibited local officials from entering nondisclosure agreements with data center developers. It did not get a hearing. The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Sen. Keturah Herron, said she would try again during the next session, in January.“If you are not being open and honest of what you are doing, then we can only assume that it's shady business happening,” Herron said.Kentucky Public Radio's Joe Sonka contributed to this report.This story is part of our series exploring the impacts of data centers in our region. It was produced by the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WPLN and WUOT in Tennessee, LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU Public Radio in Kentucky, and NPR. Sign up for the weekly Porch Light newsletter here for news from around the region. ...read more read less