Laramie County/Cheyenne Wyoming Data Center Pause

10/15/2026

They are who we thought they were

The Labor Department's inspector general also announced his office is investigating nine universities for J-1 visa fraud

10/14/2026

Someone should ask him why he outsources all of his thinking and decision making to the CEO of Cheyenne LEADS. I tried. He refused to answer.

Cheyenne LEADS sells land to data center developers. Most of their money has come from selling land to Microsoft to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. The CEO of LEADS says Microsoft “saved our [financial] bacon.” According to the CEO, LEADS was a failing business prior to Microsoft’s land purchases. Microsoft is also on the board of LEADS. So is Patty Pants. The city (taxpayers) pays LEADS $100,000 annually to provide economic development advice. The city (taxpayers) have given LEADS $3.5 million in sales taxes and recently pledged another $1 million for the Hitching Post District. Not to mention the $5 million in 6th penny funds that people voted for. Thats over $10 million of taxpayers money that goes directly to LEADS. Patty Pants signs an NDA every year with LEADS. He legally cannot tell us where OUR money is going. He sits in private board rooms voting on private decisions about private profits then uses his public role to make sure his private promises are kept. I think $10 million is worth a seat at the table. Don’t you?

These are some of the members of LEADS who pay for higher “recognition” which is a tiered, pay to play, membership structure. These members can buy extra votes and therefore have more influence on economic development decisions which means more influence on how OUR money is spent:

Meta
Black Hills Energy
Related Digital (data center developer)
Microsoft
High West Energy
AVI Engineering (applicant for most data center developers)
Bison Business Park (Microsoft)
Tallgrass (Googles private power plant)
Skybox/ViaWest (DC Developers)

This membership structure started in 2020 when the current CEO took over. Since then, the current CEO has seen a raise of almost $100,000 based on publicly available information. Her raise is more than the average median income for a family in Laramie County.

The citizens don’t stand a chance.



10/13/2026

My favorite quotes from last night’s city council meeting:

People who support postponing data centers are “agreeing with Bernie Sanders” and are therefore “Democratic Socialists.”

If homes are built in Orchard Hills instead of a data center “children will be abducted.”

In a nutshell….

Taking time to think and make sure a benefit agreement is legally binding instead of just being another broken promise is a bad idea.

You should trust Big Tech with your child’s safety. As long as they’re indoors being preyed upon by human traffickers on social media or being convinced by Chat GPT to kill themselves instead of talking to their parents, they won’t be outdoors getting abducted by your neighbor.

10/11/2026

I received 961 of Mayor Collins's emails through a public records request from January 2022 to June 2026. Here's what they show about data centers, annexations and Cheyenne LEADS. Everything below is quoted from the city's own records:

1. The mayor endorsed Microsoft's expansion before the hearings. On April 2, 2026, Microsoft privately told him about a 3,200-acre expansion and sent him a quote they'd written for him. He approved it word for word: "This expansion represents the next decade of opportunity and tax revenue…" It ran April 14. Microsoft's annexation applications weren't filed until May 26.

2. LEADS rewrote the city's annexation findings. The day after the Cox Ranch annexation hearing, LEADS staff "prepared a response to each of the six provisions in-order to substantiate the Annexation," revising what city Planning "had originally recited within the Staff Report." LEADS CEO Betsey Hale sent it to the Planning Director and the mayor.

3. The LEADS CEO emailed council on hearing days. Hale emailed the mayor and council members on the days of the data-center hearing, the moratorium vote and the Highlands annexation hearing. The mayor sent her a draft of his legislative testimony ("Anything you want added?") and asked her how the city should respond to the Governor.

4. The mayor signed a LEADS confidentiality agreement. As an ex-officio LEADS board member, he signed LEADS's Confidentiality & Conflicts of Interest pledge. Meanwhile the city pays LEADS $100,000 a year and passed it about $3.5 million in sales tax, plus $1 million committed for the Hitching Post District.

5. Rinne family ties. Councilman Mark Rinne's son, Trey Rinne, is an engineer at AVI p.c., the applicant on every data-center annexation, and holds a seat on the LEADS board. In June 2026, LEADS put father and son on the same email about the data-center approval process, excluding all other council members. The mayor then asked Trey to explain "the environmental processes your clients use." As far as I can find, Councilman Rinne has disclosed a conflict only once, on the city's LEADS contract renewal, not on AVI's annexations.

6. Records outside email. Dozens of the mayor's emails appear only as quoted text inside other emails, and Microsoft thanked him for approving his quote through a consultant. That approval isn't in any released email.

None of this proves anyone broke the law. But residents deserve to know who is shaping decisions about thousands of acres of annexation, and to see recusals when family business is on the line. LEADS is being treated as a partner on city positions and the Mayor heavily relies on Betsey, above anyone else, to shape the future of Cheyenne.

Show up. Ask questions.

10/06/2026

Sharing the photos and caption from another person’s post then adding my 2 cents….Another long post.

“Tonight, the Planning Commission graciously postponed the proposed data center rules to October 19th, two weeks from now. The chair was concerned about public awareness and whether residents have had enough time to learn what is being proposed and to speak up. Several people who spoke tonight pushed to get this through quickly. But rules that will shape our community for years deserve a full, open discussion, and I appreciate the commission taking the extra time.

The proposal talks about decibels aloud, sewer and utilities usage. For example should data centers only used close loop or not and if they should generate their own power of not. Evaluating buffers between neighboring properties and more…

Please come out in two weeks and speak. You don’t need to be an expert. If the noise limits worry you, say so. If you want to understand how sewer and utility decisions get made, ask. Either way, the commission can only weigh what it hears, and a few minutes at the microphone can make a real difference. Bring a neighbor, read the staff report first, and make your voice part of the record.”

My 2 cents:

Thank you for sharing this. I appreciate that the the council brought this forward. It’s a good start but it needs work. The commission specifically said that they want to hear from the public. Not just the experts. Share your lived experience. It matters.

My thoughts…

1. End use by right permitting for data centers and demand special use permits. Neighbors need to be notified if a DC is going in their neighborhood and the council needs to be able to set conditions on a case by case basis. Use by right is an administrative decision made by one person. You may not know about a DC 25 ft away from your property until earth starts moving. That’s not ok.

2. Demand a buffer of distance, not just trees or a berm. Currently, a DC can be built 25 feet away from your property. Distance is the best protection against industrial development. Not walls. Not trees. Ask for 2500 feet from your residential property (not quite half a mile) and 5000 feet away from property with schools, playgrounds/outdoor recreation, daycares, nursing/rehab facilities, hospitals, and any vulnerable populations.

Other places have a 500 ft buffer from residential areas. It’s better than 25 ft but it’s not even 0.1 miles and it’s not based on science. We can’t base all of our ordinances on other communities. Other communities don’t allow use by right permitting for data centers. Other communities don’t annex every single property simply because the owner says please. Other communities stick to their land use maps and zoning plans. Other communities have elected officials who not only sit through hours long meetings and claim to listen, but they take action based on community feedback from those meetings. We don’t have that here. Protection from industrial encroachment needs to be the law. Not a blessing bestowed upon us by a couple developers and the ONE representative of both developers who cares more about protecting Cheyenne than the council does.

09/29/2026

Those numbers aren’t accurate. There are about 30 independently functioning data centers across 10 different locations. There are 5 new locations under construction. Each location will have between 2-4 independently functioning data centers for now. They are in Business Parks with use by right permitting so they can build as many as they want without public notification or a public hearing once they’re annexed and rezoned, courtesy of Cheyenne LEADS and the illustrious Mayor. There are 10 new projects in planning stages. To my knowledge, none of these projects will be just one data center.

Do you still think 70 sounds crazy? Wait till Microsoft starts building on the 3400+ acres.

The data centers we currently have are selling/renting available space meaning they’re not even fully utilized but we keep approving more and more. Look at us go!!!!

Vocal critics of data centers in Cheyenne told the City Council on Monday that many "have totally, completely given up on you." Then council members…

09/29/2026

PSA. I will not be discussing this with reporters or anyone else who doesn’t absolutely need to know. I don’t want to do/say anything that could compromise the outcome.

A Cheyenne resident who has spent nearly a year attending Cheyenne City Council meetings to speak against various industrial development-related items has asked a court to overturn a Microsoft data center annexation and nullify the council’s decision to seek judicial review on a citizen-led petition. https://buff.ly/9FBa1gX

09/26/2026

If you’re the type to protest….

How much do you want to bet Dr. Emmons sees this and skips the meeting like she did last time?