The Non-Disclosure Blackout and Capture of Champion Farms?

PERRY, Ohio — Internal correspondences from early 2024 seem to expose the massive financial leverage applied to local municipal decision-makers to secure political cooperation behind closed doors on the Champion Farm land deal before any public notices were issued regarding the Champion Farm data center development.

On February 5, 2024, Mark J. Kerslake, chief executive officer of Province Group and Newport Equities, LLC, transmitted a confidential sale proposal to senior real estate broker Alex Russo at Cushman & Wakefield-CRESCO. This initial framework was protected under a strict transparency blackout, with Kerslake explicitly noting in the signature block on page 3 that "At that time, pursuant to Ohio law, this Purchase Agreement will become public and not subject to the NDA that has been signed by the Parties."

Some argue the developer then dangled an immense financial injection, calculating that a multi-building facility would cost at least $1,200 per square foot: "The cost to build a data center (excluding land and the equipment within it) is at least $1200 per square foot, so the cost of the structure alone is between $1.44 to $1.8 billion dollars... the investment impact is huge and therefore the increase in property taxes is enormous." Russo immediately forwarded this data to municipal representative Karen Sundy, noting that because the land sat within a Joint Economic Development District, "the price of the property will be based on the use," directly indexing the public land value to future corporate data center returns.

This financial promise may have led to a closed-door real estate buyout on May 1, 2024. In an email to Sundy, Russo pushed for a rapid transaction: "Should I present at the Village executive session next Thursday night? Mark is willing to go hard with $50,000 day one, but before he does he would like to review the title." Some argue Russo pushed administrators to act on an extreme timeline, writing, "draft the ordinance tomorrow to get it on the May 9th Council agenda."

The resulting Deal Point Memorandum carved up the former Champion Farm property across six specific tax parcels, permanent parcel numbers 04-A-028-0-00-001-0, 04-A-036-0-00-001-0, 04-A-036-0-00-019-0, 04-A-036-0-00-020-0, 04-A-036-0-00-021-0, and 04-A-036-0-00-027-0, locking in a total purchase price of $8,435,000. Under this agreement, 123 buildable acres were valued at $65,000 per acre, while 40 acres of wooded wet areas in the southwest corner were heavily discounted to just $11,000 per acre using Google Earth aerial calculations.

Handwritten annotations on the official blueprints explicitly trace the words "wetlands in this parcel" pointing directly to Parcel 04-A-028. These 40 acres of wetlands are hydrologically tied into the shallow sand aquifer containing arsenic and lead plumes. Some are concerned local leadership agreed to negotiate the memorandum inside a private Executive Session, which shielded the land transaction from public reporting or community vote. The contract proposal explicitly mandated that "The Agreement shall not contain a funding, loan, or appraisal contingency," which some experts argue could contractually insulate the transaction from independent commercial banking risk officers who would have flagged the underlying soil toxicity.

By late autumn 2024, internal legal reviews drafted by JEDD board counsel James M. Lyons, Esq., may indicate an aggressive corporate contract strategy designed to shift majority of the long-term risk onto the public treasury. In comprehensive legal briefs dated July 5, October 8, and October 31, 2024, Lyons analyzed the fine print of the contract, revealing that the developer successfully isolated itself from financial accountability while potentially binding the town to massive legal liabilities. The contract allowed the buyer a 180-day feasibility window, backed by multiple extensions. Lyons underlined this corporate advantage in bold uppercase lettering: "IN OTHER WORDS, THE BUYER DOES NOT HAVE TO CLOSE ON THIS TRANSACTION FOR THREE (3.0) YEARS."

Some argue that If the developer discovered during site testing that they could not secure high-volume electrical connections from the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI), or if they determined the land was not suitable for any reason, they could walk away with a full refund of their core deposit, leaving the town with a minor consideration fee. Most critically, Lyons informed the board that the buyer flatly refused to sign standard deed covenants or community development protections: "FYI, the Buyer would not agree to a development agreement or CCRs. The only protection that the Township and the Village have in this situation is the zoning."

Section 14.2 of the executed contract removes township liability caps entirely if the town blocks development, granting the developer the legal right to sue for un-capped actual third-party costs, full project exploration invoices, and mandatory reimbursement of all corporate attorneys' fees, noting that "Buyer shall also have the right to place a lien upon the Property for such unpaid amount."

Some argue this may have contractually provided a private corporation the legal right to slap a foreclosure lien on the town's public property assets if the board bowed to resident pressure and tried to alter the site layout.

Local leadership seems to have deployed an Expedited Type 1 Annexation next An internal legal memorandum dated August 6, 2025, from attorney Amy Blankenship of law firm Bricker Graydon, addressed directly to Village Solicitor Jim O'Leary, details the selection of this legal vehicle under Ohio Revised Code Section 709.022. Blankenship explicitly highlighted the insulation it provided from local voters, writing that "The expedited annexation processes have very limited avenues for appeal or opposition," meaning the county commissioners must grant the annexation without holding a public hearing.

The legal boundary shift was signed into effect following the passage of Perry Village Council Resolution 2025-40 and Perry Township Board of Trustees Resolution 2025-33, successfully annexing 50.291 acres surveyed by Darrell B. Plummer of Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc. The formal petition contains what may seem a stark message to the community: "WHOEVER SIGNS THIS PETITION EXPRESSLY WAIVES THEIR RIGHT TO APPEAL ANY ACTION ON THE PETITION TAKEN BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS. THERE ALSO IS NO APPEAL FROM THE BOARD'S DECISION IN THIS MATTER IN LAW OR IN EQUITY."

Internal financial models labeled "Revenue Sharing Scenario" show potential emphasis on immediate construction-phase payroll tax spikes over enforcement of environmental safety reviews, projecting a 2% Village tax rate that would yield $300,000 in annual tax collections based on an assumed 150 permanent jobs paying $100,000 each, with an automatic 28% monthly kickback ($84,000) to the Township and JEDD coffers through the Regional Income Tax Authority (RITA). The financial sheets explicitly include a notation reminding administrators that these numbers "do not include contractors during construction."

Because the developer refused to sign binding deed restrictions, some argue that Province Group executed a seeming regulatory capture, writing the town's zoning laws for them. On Friday, April 4, 2025, at 12:37 PM, Province Group CEO Mark Kerslake emailed 7 pages of custom-written development standards directly to Karen Sundy to ensure there were "no conflicts with other parts of your zoning code," admitting that "The Township does not have a process for review and approval of a landscape plan, so we included that," and noting they "lowered the height 10’" as a political concession to placate local trustees.

Public zoning ordinances seems to indicate that the town copy-and-pasted the developer's language word-for-word into permanent law. The finalized Section 302.10 and Ordinance 870 made industrial-scale water treatment facilities an automatically permitted ancillary use, authorizing the right to build "(viii) water treatment facilities, (ix) water storage and cooling facilities and associated water pumps and equipment." This may have given the developer the absolute right to process groundwater on-site without triggering a separate public zoning review.

The code may legally permit continuous foundation digging across political boundaries by erasing interior setbacks, dictating that "any minimum building, parking, or landscaping setbacks, buffers or screening set forth in this section shall no longer apply where these parcels' lot lines abut." Furthermore, some argue section 1040-5(A)(2)(h) granted the developer an automatic 30-day cure period for public nuisances that "may be extended so long as the property owner is working to remedy or abate the condition," which could strip the local zoning inspector of immediate emergency enforcement powers.

Section K officially legalized substantial noise spillage directly against neighboring family subdivisions like Dugan Farms, permitting constant operational noise levels up to 70 decibels (dBA) during the day and 65 decibels (dBA) at night, despite the Gensler Master Plan mapping these data blocks directly adjacent to "sensitive edge conditions" like schools and libraries. Section L(2)(d) stated that an acoustic noise screen could consist of a mere five-foot earthen berm combined with dense plantings, which is acoustically incapable of blocking a 65-foot-tall data block’s roof-mounted HVAC chiller roar from reaching a school campus.

Perhaps the most alarming discrepancy revealed by the public records trail is what local officials may have deleted from the developer's draft before printing the final public versions. In the original April 4, 2025 submission, titled "PERRY TOWNSHIP DRAFT 4.4.25," the document included a highly specific clause under Section H designed to potentially legalize or outline the assembly and underground storage of unsealed, radioactive materials on the data center site, citing radiation protection limits from "the New York State Department of Labor Industrial Code Rule No. 38" and requesting limits of "200 grams of Uranium-233, 200 grams of Plutonium-239, and 350 grams of Uranium-235."

The bottom of Page 2 of this raw corporate draft exposed a critical procedural omission under the bold header "Environmental Performance Standards," where the text read: "The Environmental Performance Standards applicable to a data center campus are as follows: <to be drafted for Township>," with the handwritten ordinance section notation "302.05" scribbled below. This may indicate that the document intentionally left the entire environmental protection framework completely blank when forcing the text onto local council agendas.

The exact nuclear language from Section H was entirely scrubbed from the final public text signed by official George Sziga.

The public records trail links this industrial transaction directly back to a historical public land loop. On May 9, 2017, the Perry Township Board of Trustees executed Resolution No. 2017-17, which authorized a multi-party lease-purchase framework for a portion of the Champion Farm property. The legislation explicitly notes that while the Perry Local School Board was purchasing the site from the bank, the Township was securing 64 acres contractually promised to the community to be reserved for "recreation and/or cemetery uses." This transaction occurred immediately after the 2016 Phase II environmental assessment was completed for the school district

The Township and school board then entered into a multi-party lease-assignment, assigning all rights and obligations to the JEDD via Township Resolution 2017-17. By May 2022, Perry Local Schools was paid back in whole by Perry Village and the JEDD for the purchase of the property. It is argued that by May 2022, Perry Local Schools was paid back in whole by Perry Village and the JEDD for the purchase of the property.

Internal legal emails dated July 30, 2024, from James M. Lyons to Karen Sundy, expose how the entities coordinated to finalize the transaction details in a way that functionally kept the public in the dark, with Lyons noting that "Jim O'Leary will send an e-mail to Matt requesting that the School remove the requirement of having a walking path around the 230 acres," and adding that "We also discussed the school board placing the deeds to the property into escrow and not filing them until the close of the transaction. Matt appeared agreeable to that process."

Lyons explicitly instructed Sundy to "share this email with Alex Russo so that he knows where things stand," which suggests feeding confidential government strategy directly to the broker whose commission depended on closing the transaction.

To clear the path for the data center's strict closing parameters, the town executed an immediate eviction of a pre-existing school athletic easement on the property. A formal proposal titled "Proposal for a High School Varsity Cross Country Course at Lee Lydic Park," dated October 10, 2024, reveals that the Village Parks and Recreation Department spent $25,000 in municipal funds to build an alternative running course circling the Lee Lydic pond for a singular corporate purpose: "This initiative would... serve as an alternative to placing the easement on land being sold for the construction of a secure data center... to allow commercial development to proceed without restrictions."

The JEDD simultaneously executed an immediate shutdown of an active July 14, 2022 Lease Agreement with Lake County Nursery, Inc., which was utilizing 15 acres of the site near North Ridge Road and Middle Ridge Road. Section 6 of the lease dictates that "If the property sells, the lease will be considered terminated. Removal of nursery stock will follow owners specifications." Section 8 forced the farmer to "indemnify, pay, save harmless Perry for all liability, damage, expense... arising out of, or in connection with, or relating to any use or occupation of the property," shifting the legal burden of the initial agricultural disruption entirely onto the local farming operation.

The final financial architecture of the sub-parcel layout was split across the JEDD and Perry Township to lock down the remaining 52 acres of the data center envelope. The raw contracts reveal that public boards agreed to liquidate an additional 30 acres of JEDD land for $1,950,000 and 22 acres of Township land for $1,430,000 through Resolution No. 2025-07, passed on February 11, 2025. This contract proposal explicitly mandated that the agreement "shall not contain a funding, loan, or appraisal contingency," while handwritten notations catch administrators altering the transaction terms on the fly to strike out standard typed corporate layout lines and hand-write an immediate cash accommodation: "Good Faith intentions pay seller $25,000 cl/in. Non-refundable when deal consummates. Said deposit be credit to sale price if sale proceeds @ closing."

Section 3.3 of the 40-page master agreement granted an extraordinary environmental discovery shield to Newport Equities, LLC, dictating that "the Buyer shall not indemnify the Seller or the Property from any such claims... which arise from or relate to the discovery, existence or release of any physical condition existing on the Property prior to the Buyer's entry thereon, including, without limitation, the discovery of any Hazardous Materials on the Property." Resolution No. 2025-07 explicitly recorded that while the Auditor's Fair Market Value of the property was only $62,000.00, the developer's $1,430,000.00 purchase price may have allowed the trustees to declare the chemically compromised parcel "surplus property" to execute the final land flip.

In our previous coverage, we touched on what was the final stage of this transactional execution trail was captured in a series of recorded property filings on August 4, 2025, under Limited Warranty Deed Record Number 2025R016356. Prepared by JEDD Counsel James M. Lyons, the deed recorded a nominal Ten Dollar ($10.00) transaction to split Permanent Parcel 04-A-036-0-00-040-0 into a 3.398-acre tract and a 2.506-acre tract. The corresponding official Plat of Survey map, certified under the field supervision of Darrell B. Plummer, Professional Surveyor No. 7595, physically mapped a major FirstEnergy 345kV high-voltage transmission line slicing through the northern section of the development boundary.

The accompanying approved Perry Village Application for Zoning Certificate, Permit No. 2025-169, reveals that contractor Tim Ramm of Newport Equities, LLC, secured official approval for a "Lot split in advance of large development" under Overlay District 1 (OD1) parameters on August 2, 2025—two full days before the underlying deeds were even legally executed and recorded with Lake County Recorder Becky Lynch and during what some consider a weekend 'blackout' from public view.

The JEDD then recorded a finalized "Memorandum of Purchase Agreement" signed by Mark J. Kerslake and JEDD Chairman Robert J. Dowson, permanently clouding the title of Permanent Parcel No. 03-A-037-0-00-022-0 and contractually surrendering 100% of the public's subterranean mineral and water rights under ORC Section 5302.04.

The entire transaction culminated, when the JEDD officially recorded a finalized "Memorandum of Purchase Agreement" signed by Mark J. Kerslake and JEDD Chairman Robert J. Dowson, permanently clouding the title of Permanent Parcel No. 03-A-037-0-00-022-0 and contractually surrendering 100% of the public's subterranean mineral and water rights under ORC Section 5302.04.

Perry Village Council additionally passed emergency Resolution No. 33-2024. The resolution authorized utilizing the Lake County Land Reutilization Corporation (the Land Bank) as a transactional proxy to flip the 163 acres of Champion Farms, explicitly noting that "Revised Code Section 721.03 also requires the sale of land be advertised for sale on five consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation, unless it is sold through a Community Improvement Corporation." By potentially misapplying Land Bank reclamation rules under RC 1724.10, the Village may have completely cut off market transparency, while declaring Section 4 an "emergency measure necessary for the immediate preservation of the public health, safety and welfare" to strip the community of its statutory 30-day right to launch a ballot referendum against the land sale.

Perry Township was asked for comment on the attached documents as well as specific concerns related to the method in which the project was processed that the documents seem to indicate occured. Perry Township acknowledged the veracity of the documents in their response and additionally requested their statements be printed in full with the article. The complete email exchanges are noted below.

Part II: Document Mapping for Article 2 (The Non-Disclosure Blackout and Capture)

The financial ledgers, legal contracts, custom zoning text amendments, and community resistance timelines exposed in Article 2 are attributed to the following core records from the public request file:

• The Corporate NDA & Investment Projections: The direct block quote confirming the Non-Disclosure Agreement concealment and the structural investment projection calculations of $1.44 Billion to $1.8 Billion at $1,200 per square foot are sourced from The Corporate Confidential Letter of Intent, transmitted via email on February 5, 2024, by CEO Mark J. Kerslake.
• The Google Earth Parcel Discounts: The total purchase validation of $8,435,000, the split of 123 buildable acres at $65,000/acre, and the 83% discount of 40 wetland acres down to $11,000/acre are sourced from The Deal Point Memorandum, transmitted May 1, 2024, by Alex Russo (Cushman & Wakefield | CRESCO Real Estate).
• The 3-Year Land Lock & Un-Capped Corporate Lien Clauses: The direct block quote warning that "the buyer does not have to close on this transaction for three (3.0) years," the lack of standard banking/appraisal contingencies, the rejection of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CCRs), and the Section 14.2 un-capped default liabilities allowing a foreclosure lien are sourced from The JEDD Board Contractual Summaries, finalized October 31, 2024, by Attorney James M. Lyons.
• The Expedited Type 1 Annexation Metrics: The deployment of Ohio Revised Code Section 709.022, the direct quote confirming “very limited avenues for appeal,” the boundary mapping of 50.291 acres, and the total waiver of judicial appeal are sourced from The Expedited Type 1 Annexation Pact, finalized late August 2025, under Village Council Resolution 2025-40 and Township Resolution 2025-33.
• The Income Tax Model & RITA Revenue Split: The 2% Village tax rate projections on a $15,000,000 regional payroll from 150 permanent jobs, yielding $300,000 annually, and the 28% monthly kickback ($84,000) to the Township/JEDD are sourced from the internal financial models embedded in The Expedited Type 1 Annexation Pact, Sheet 3 (Revenue Sharing Scenario).
• The Copy-Pasted Code, Noise Limits, and 30-Day Cure Loophole: The direct quotes from the April 4, 2025 email by Kerslake regarding the landscape plans and 10-foot height concessions, the verbatim permitted use (P) classification, the water-treatment plant rights, the elimination of setbacks, the 70 dBA daytime / 65 dBA nighttime noise thresholds, and the automatic extended cure windows are sourced from The Final Codified Township Resolution (Section 302.10).
• The Sanitized Nuclear Code Placeholder: The copy-pasted New York State Department of Labor radiation boilerplate, the exact weight limits of 200g Uranium-233, 200g Plutonium-239, and 350g Uranium-235, and the empty placeholder reading "<to be drafted for Township>" are sourced from the raw, un-redacted corporate draft layout The Raw Developer Zoning Draft ("PERRY TOWNSHIP DRAFT 4.4.25"), Pages 2 and 6.
• The 2017 Land Scheme & Cemetery Promise: The unanimous asset assignment to the JEDD and the broken contractual promise to reserve the property for "recreation and/or cemetery uses" are sourced from The 2017 Land Assignment Resolution (Res No. 2017-17), adopted May 9, 2017, under Township Fiscal Officer Christine J. Page.
• The Athlete Easement Eviction & Nursery Termination Contracts: The $25,000 park fund expenditure to relocate the cross-country course off-site is sourced from the October 10, 2024 Parks and Recreation proposal. The immediate closure of the 15-acre commercial nursery lease and the total farmer indemnification parameters are sourced from the July 14, 2022 Lake County Nursery Contract.
• The Sub-Parcel Township Sales, Price Leap, and Land Splits: The township cash-out parameters of $3,510,000, the handwritten $25,000 Good Faith deposit modifications, the 2,200% price leap over the Auditor's $62,000.00 valuation, and the Section 3.3 environmental discovery shield are sourced from The Executed Township Purchase Contract (Res No. 2025-07), passed February 11, 2025. The final 3.398-acre and 2.506-acre parcel split coordinates, the FirstEnergy high-voltage transmission line details, and Overlay District Permit No. 2025-169 are sourced from The Finalized Lot Split Deed .
• The Land Bank Loophole Resolution: The deployment of the Land Bank to bypass the state-mandated 5-week newspaper advertising rule and the emergency override execution are sourced from The Village Land Bank Loophole Ordinance (Res No. 33-2024).
  
  

STATUTORY PRIVILEGE NOTICE

Please be advised that The Ohio Register has finalized and published a comprehensive, data-driven investigative report concerning the multi-jurisdictional land transactions, annexation agreements, and zoning text updates involving tax parcels 04-A-028-0-00-001-0, 04-A-036-0-00-040-0, and associated properties (Untitled d... pp. 1, 6).

This addendum serves as formal notification that 100% of the material terms, direct quotes, numerical values, and transaction parameters published across this series are drawn directly from certified public records. These include, but are not limited to:

• Resolution No. 2025-07 and the accompanying Agreement for Purchase and Sale and Escrow Instructions executed February 11, 2025;
• Limited Warranty Deed Record Number 2025R016356 and Plat of Survey Exhibit C filed August 4, 2025;
• Perry Village Application for Zoning Certificate Permit No. 2025-169 approved August 2, 2025;
• The raw legislative attachment titled "PERRY TOWNSHIP DRAFT 4.4.25" transmitted by Mark J. Kerslake on April.

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