Source documents

The underlying County, IID, legal, planning, project, and news materials used in the committee research. Links open the public committee library.

START HERE - Committee Guide and Library Index

First meeting documentation packet

This is Mark Hamby's process packet, prepared before the Data Center Advisory Committee's first public meeting. The committee held its organizational meeting on September 17, 2026. The packet remains the 1-2-3 public-record process document: open a comment period, publish every comment, and keep facts walled from opinion. It is process and public record. It is not a vote, not an ordinance, and not a position on any one project.

Data Center Advisory Committee meetings

Hosted MP3s (not in git): 2026-09-17 · 2026-09-28. Granicus remains the county source of record.

Public Granicus recordings of the Imperial County Data Center Advisory Committee, with unofficial summaries and full automated transcripts hosted on this site. Unofficial automated transcript from public Granicus audio. Official record is the county recording/minutes. County agendas and minutes for these meetings are now posted on the County committee page; hosted copies of the September 17 and September 28 minutes and the October 5 agenda packet are linked below. Do not treat the summaries or transcripts as official minutes. The Before First Public Meeting packet above is related process material already on this site. It is not a Granicus attachment for these clips, and it is not re-uploaded here.

Committee meetings index, including a short comparison of the two nights.

Committee Authority and Charge

Imperial County General Plan and Land Use

Specific Plans and Industrial-Energy Planning

IID Power and Large-Load Rules

California Legal Framework

County CEQA Regulation Updates (2026)

The County is updating its local CEQA procedures, last revised in 2017. The Planning Commission recommended approval on May 13, 2026. The Board of Supervisors continued the item on July 7 and again on August 25 after public comment, directing staff to hold a community workshop. The workshop ran September 3, 2026, 6-8 PM in El Centro; no formal action was taken, and the item returns to the Board for future consideration. CEQA procedure governs how large projects, including data center proposals, are reviewed, approved, and challenged in Imperial County.

The packet contains the county press release (English and Spanish), the Planning & Development Services presentation "Understanding the CEQA Process," the proposed-updates presentation given to the Board on July 28, 2026, and the county's CEQA process flow chart. Per the county's presentation, the proposed updates would: require CEQA appeals to state all grounds with reference to the CEQA document (specificity); align appeal windows at 10 calendar days; stay the statute of limitations while an appeal is pending before the Board; add new appeal rights from non-elected bodies to the Board of Supervisors; apply prospectively only, with no retroactive effect on prior approvals; and make no change to who holds approval authority.

Workshop public comment. Four residents commented in person and staff read one written question from an online attendee. Jake Tyson argued the proposal would make public participation easier to disqualify - "CEQA is an information disclosure law, not a government obstacle course," he said - and asked what the outside counsel costs taxpayers, whether any supervisor directed the changes, and how the rules would treat an appeal of a future data center project. Kimberly Palacio of Calexico asked for the names of the Environmental Evaluation Committee members and how the changes interact with the Lithium Valley Specific Plan; staff responded that specific plans are legislative acts with no appeal step and that the changes are prospective only. Fabiola Moreno asked which state changes triggered the update; staff cited the state's periodic CEQA Guidelines revisions and recent court decisions. A speaker identified as Robert asked about the Evaluation Committee's composition and objected to a new provision letting a project proponent appeal a committee document-type decision past the Planning Commission to the Board of Supervisors, calling it "a terrible idea." Kelly Turner's written question asked staff to walk the CEQA flowchart for "a major industrial project like a data center" and to identify who holds decision-making authority at each step.

Planning Director Jim Minnick described the update as routine maintenance of rules last revised in 2017 and said no specific project motivated it; the county's outside CEQA counsel, presenting remotely, cited the Redondo Beach appeals described in the July presentation and a San Diego "document dump" case as the rationale for the specificity and fair-presentation rules. Staff committed to posting the recording, both presentations, the process flow charts, and prior written comments (Exhibit E to the August 25 Board packet, item 14) on the county's Granicus archive. The transcript linked above was produced by automated transcription of the county's recording; it is unofficial and may contain errors. The official record is the county's video.

Superior Court cases

Two Imperial County Superior Court matters. ECU004800 is Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing, LLC v. County of Imperial: the September 4, 2026 judgment declares moratorium Ordinances 1616 and 1618 invalid for lack of the findings Government Code § 65858(c) requires. ECU004457 is City of Imperial v. County of Imperial: the September 9, 2026 Decision and Order to Prepare Judgment and Writ adopts the August 31 tentative as the final Decision. It finds the County prejudicially abused its discretion by approving the Aten Road lot merger without the CEQA review required for the whole project, orders the City to prepare the judgment and writ within 10 days, and does not consider objections to the tentative (waived under Rule of Court 3.1590). Objections to the proposed judgment and writ are ongoing; no judgment has been entered. Case pages and the key filings are linked below. The registers list more actions than the files on hand; older filings are still being added.

News and Project Background

Committee Analysis