Findlay Mayor Says Data Center Meeting Canceled Due to New Albany Concerns Over Public Scrutiny
BY CAREY MORGAN
FINDLAY - Like many municipalities across the state, citizens flooded the Findlay city council meeting during yesterday's regular session, as local lawmakers and citizens confronted Mayor Christina Muryn over a canceled "closed-door" data center briefing. The dispute exposed fractures regarding transparency and public scrutiny, highlighting regional and state-wide sensitivities as the city navigates a 12-month moratorium on tech facility construction.
The data center push took center stage during an intense unfinished business session. Lawmakers demanded answers about why an informational virtual session with the New Albany Economic Development group—the architects behind central Ohio’s massive tech hubs—was abruptly canceled via an email from the mayor at 2:30 a.m. last week. Many questioned why the mayor would make the decision to schedule the meeting to begin with given the significant controvery surrounding New Albany and the areas most prominant proprietor.
During the council meeting, Mayor Muryn defended the canceled session, maintaining that it was purely educational and legally permissible under Ohio open-meetings law. The mayor expressed frustration that regional partners like New Albany were now hesitant to present to Findlay in an open, public forum. She noted that external officials do not want to become targets in a politically charged local debate outside their own jurisdiction.
However, council members and local residents pushed back on the notion that external entities should avoid public cross-examination if their information is fundamentally accurate and beneficial. Councilman Phillips called data center planning an essential "voter issue," arguing that public inclusion from day one is the only way forward.
"I completely agree," Phillips said. "The earlier they get involved, the better we're all going to be... it's just absolutely better for public inclusion."
Citizens at the meeting argued that if data center infrastructure assessments regarding water consumption, energy strains, and noise levels are scientifically sound and accurate, regional economic developers should have no reason to hide from public questioning. Former council member Holly Frische publicly labeled the proposed closed-door Zoom briefing an "illegal meeting" designed to keep residents in the dark.
The city enacted its 12-month data center construction moratorium in April to allow the Planning and Zoning Committee time to draft comprehensive rules. Current code proposals would relegate massive computing hubs exclusively to a newly designated "Large Scale Industrial" I-3 district. It would subject any project to the most restrictive conditional-use reviews in the city's history.
While technology infrastructure dominated the policy debate, council members also faced a contentious 8–1 vote to pass Ordinance 2026-83. This legislation authorized the mayor to accept permanent ownership of multiple property parcels from the Hancock County Commissioners as part of the city’s ongoing Blanchard River flood mitigation benching efforts.
The standard land transfer turned contentious when Fiscal Officer Jim Stasiac took the microphone to issue an ominous financial warning to the legislative body. Backing the explicit guidance of City Law Director Robert E. Feighner Jr., Stasiac urged council to table the ordinance, declaring the legislative package fundamentally "incomplete".
According to Stasiac and the legal department's assessment, dealing with the deeds before complete state environmental sign-off presents a massive legal hazard. The fundamental risk hinges on a brutal insurance reality: the city of Findlay carries absolutely zero environmental liability insurance.
"You can't get it," Stasiac said. "So any environmental issues that you acquire unintentionally are going to come out of your pocket... this is potentially an unfunded liability when you take on those properties."
The fiscal officer stressed that the city must refrain from acquiring any property deeds until formal "No Further Action" (NFA) equivalent letters are legally signed, sealed, and provided by environmental consultants.
Ward 6 surveyor and resident James Routson heavily supported the fiscal warning during public comments. He presented background histories indicating that the downtown parcels sit directly on 1880s-era manufacturing footprints that once housed volatile gunpowder, TNT, and nitroglycerin storage facilities. Routson cautioned that unmapped, poorly capped gas wells are highly likely to leech toxic waste or disrupt development engineering.
Mayor Muryn and supportive council members defused the pushback by clarifying that the phase two benching deeds will not physically transfer into city hands until the county’s environmental consultant, CEC, and the Ohio EPA execute heavy brownfield remediation. The mayor emphasized that federal grant compliance guarantees the land must be completely remediated to high "child exposure standards" prior to city acquisition.
However, critics quickly noted that Muryn’s defense failed to address the foundational legal and administrative hazards raised by fiscal experts. While the mayor’s timeline offered verbal comfort, it bypassed the reality that a politician's verbal assurances do not carry the weight of law. Because the specific remediation expectations, phase reports, and binding legal targets were not formally written into the text of the ordinance itself, the legislative package remained fundamentally incomplete at the time of the vote. Furthermore, because verbal promises do not alter the city's insurance realities, Findlay taxpayers remain exposed to an unmitigated safety net gap; if the county's third-party environmental consultants overlook an unmapped toxic well, the city—carrying zero environmental liability insurance—will still be entirely on the hook for an unfunded cleanup liability the moment the deeds are executed.
Councilman DeLong cast the lone dissenting vote against the land transfer, citing a separate financial update showing the municipal budget deficit had ticked up over $1,000 in a ten-day span, hitting $6,893.42.
The council will continue reviewing feedback from the Hancock Regional Planning commission regarding data center FAQ submissions via the city's specialized zoning web page as the moratorium marches toward its conclusion next spring.
