Members of the Winlock City Council discussed a moratorium on data center construction during their regular meeting on Monday, Sept. 14, after Winlock City Councilor Jodie Curtis introduced a draft ordinance.
There was no vote on the draft moratorium proposal.
Curtis said she wanted to share the draft of Ordinance No. 1202 to gather the council’s thoughts as she worked on finalizing it for a vote.
“On the surface, a 500,000-square-foot data center would bring in a ton of revenue. A ton. However, it’s also going
to need water for cooling. It’s going to be a huge burden on energy and can be a noise pollution issue. And they don’t hire many people for the size of the building,” Curtis said. “Until an engineer can come up with a way to build one of these that has an enclosed cooling system, solar panels and a way to mitigate light and noise pollution and hire more people than 10 or 12, I want a moratorium on data centers.”
The discussion in Winlock is similar to those being held across the nation, as cities, counties and states consider the impacts of data centers amid the explosion of AI technology.
Councilor Dave Anderson asked about specifics when it came to data centers being considered a “safety issue,” as it was labeled in the draft.
According to Winlock Community Development Director Robert Webster, a developer already submitted a proposal to construct a 2,000,000-square-foot data center in Winlock “a while ago,” but it was rejected as Webster wasn’t sure the city could guarantee an adequate water supply.
“Just say they’re drawing 1,000,000 gallons a month. That’s way too much water into something like that. Even though it’s a lot of money for the city, it’s still, like Councilwoman Curtis said, there’s not a lot of jobs there, so they’re not really bringing a lot of investment into the city,” said Webster, who added, “They would drain us dry of (water) connections.”
He added newer data centers elsewhere in the region had been better about issues such as noise pollution, but even in cities such as Olympia and Lacey, which were approving data center construction, they were building them near large, existing bodies of water.
Councilor Alishia Hornburg supported having the moratorium in place, saying it was needed to avoid looking as though the city was being prejudicial toward an individual developer by enacting a moratorium after the developer submitted a data center proposal.
Hornburg added she wanted to do more research on the issue, but supported tabling the draft for discussion and consideration at a future meeting. A motion to table it was approved unanimously.
Prior discussion by Lewis County
The Lewis County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) announced last June that it has prioritized the protection of natural resources and rural lands by ensuring that data centers are only permitted in areas that have already been designated for industrial development, a news release from the BOCC stated at the time.
Data centers are not allowed on lands zoned as agricultural resource land, forest resource land, rural development districts or open space.
In September 2025, Lewis County adopted updates to its Comprehensive Plan and development regulations, including new provisions governing data centers.
Under these regulations, data centers may only be located on properties designated as major industrial development (MID) or regional area industrial (RAI) on the county's official zoning map.
There are two MID areas in Lewis County:
• The TransAlta/Industrial Park in Centralia, which is intended to support the transition from coal-fired power generation to other energy production and industrial uses.
• The Cardinal Glass Plant site in Winlock, which is fully developed.
There are 12 RAI areas in Lewis County, including the following: Curtis Rail Yard, Baer, Williams Industrial, Ed Carlson Airfield, PSE Natural Gas Storage, Taylor Drilling, Klein Bicycle, PLS Log Yard and Morton Log Yard.
Additional RAI-designated sites are identified on the county's official zoning map at https://maps.lewiscountywa.gov/.
While the county has established clear land-use regulations for data centers, in June the county reported discussions continued regarding appropriate standards and requirements related to water consumption, energy demand and other potential impacts associated with these facilities, the news release stated.
"Lewis County has been very deliberate in how we approach data centers. We recognize the economic opportunities they can bring, but we also have a responsibility to protect our farms, forests and rural way of life. That's why we've limited data centers to areas that have already been designated for industrial development,” Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope said the the release. “Our goal is to provide certainty for industry while preserving the resource lands and communities that make Lewis County unique."
Other matters
Also during the Winlock council meeting, councilors approved a contract with Centralia-based Freedom NW Property Management LLC to manage renting out the Winlock Community Building, located at 607 NW Kerron St.
In August, a contract with the Chehalis-based Northwest Property Managers, formerly TJ Guyer, Inc., was up for consideration by the Winlock City Council, but was tabled after a local resident expressed concerns about the company. Councilors were interested to learn if they could get competing bids.
On Monday, Winlock Mayor Victoria Marincin said Freedom NW was one of two other property management companies contacted for bids, but the other company declined, leaving the councilors to choose from either Freedom NW or Northwest Property Managers.
Freedom NW’s proposal had two options for leasing out the Winlock Community Building: either $1,700 a month or $1,500 a month with the tenant paying utilities, with a flat management and leasing fee of 10% of gross rent a month.
As for the Northwest Property Managers proposal, no clear monthly rental rate was established, and though the company’s management and leasing fee was lower — 8.5% of monthly rent — the seven-page contract contained a litany of other stipulations.
They included the requirement to use Northwest Property Managers’ own maintenance company, I-5 Maintenance & Repair, for all repairs or improvements to the community building over $300, with I-5 Maintenance & Repair’s services costing $59 per hour for everything from major repairs to painting.
“I think Freedom NW Property Management is a much simpler proposal,” Hornburg said. “... They say exactly what their fee is. Their contract is very simple.”
Additionally, councilors approved surplusing an old Winlock Police Department vehicle with over 125,000 miles, according to Winlock Police Chief Stephen Valentine. The car, a 2017 Ford Taurus police interceptor, needed an estimated $5,000 in repairs for new catalytic converter manifolds, according to the council’s agenda report.
“I don’t see any reason to dump $5,000 into a 130,000-mile car to try to keep that on the road and wait for the next thing to break,” Valentine said.
The new police cruiser, a 2025 Ford Explorer police interceptor, costs $45,664.89, on top of $24,154.38 to equip the new patrol vehicle, plus taxes.
Valentine was requesting to pay for the new patrol vehicle using existing unspent police department budget money. While the department’s budget had money to pay for four full-time officers on staff, Valentine explained for most of the year there had only been three on staff — meaning they had an excess of an estimated $101,000 in allotted budget funds that had not been spent on staff salary.
Finally, Marincin reappointed all five members of the Winlock Planning and Parks Commission during the meeting, explaining that members of the commission had not been “properly constitutionalized," with some having been sworn in without council approval, or neither sworn in nor approved.
“My method was simple for choosing. I chose by date of entry,” Marincin said.
According to the council’s agenda report, the first five applications received at Winlock City Hall for the commission seats were Michael Shemonis, Nanette Craft, Evaristo Gomez, Lindsay Sayler and Jon LeBlanc.
All five of Marincin’s appointees were approved by the council, with two sworn in after Monday’s meeting and the rest to be sworn in before next week’s Planning and Parks Commission meeting.
