Residents will have multiple chances next week to discuss data centers and other potentially impactful issues in the City of Niagara Falls.
Falls Councilman Vincent Cauley has scheduled a town hall meeting for Monday to explain his vote on the controversial $4 million settlement with the private firm Niagara Falls Redevelopment.
The deal ended years of litigation between the company and the city. In the process, it created what both city and company officials have described as a clearer path for the development of Mayor Robert Restaino’s proposed $210 million Centennial Park arena and NFR’s $1.5 billion data center project.
Cauley’s town hall, which will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the LaSalle library branch on Buffalo Avenue, will involve a discussion about the NFR settlement, the city’s eminent domain proceeding with the company, as well as zoning, environmental and other matters related to the company’s data center plan.
On Tuesday, representatives from the Create a Healthier Niagara Falls Collaborative and the Clean Air Coalition are holding a public meeting about data center development and environmental justice matters facing the region and New York state.
Falls Council Chair Brian Archie, who is the collaborative’s executive director, said the meeting will not be focused on NFR’s data center plan, formally known as the Niagara Digital Campus, but is rather intended to help residents become better informed about data centers, their development in New York and ways for residents to interact with developers and to advocate for what they view as the community’s best interests.
“This is another opportunity where we just want to come from a space of education and figure out what is the best way forward as this industry continues to enlarge itself in our community,” Archie said.
Tuesday’s meeting is scheduled from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Packard Court Community Center, 4300 Pine Ave.
Both public meetings follow the decision by a majority of city council members, including Cauley, Archie and Jim Perry, to authorize a settlement agreement with NFR to put an end to city-initiated litigation aimed at acquiring 10 acres of the company’s land for the as-yet-funded Centennial Park project.
Dozens of residents attended the June 3 meeting, with many telling council members prior to the vote that they did not support the terms of the settlement or plans for a nine-structure data center complex NFR’s development territory, which is bounded by Niagara Street, Portage Road and John B. Daly and Rainbow boulevards.
Council member Bridgette Myles cast the lone vote against authorizing the settlement. Councilman David Zajac did not attend the meeting.
Following his vote, Cauley said his decision mainly focused on putting an end to the city’s costly eminent domain proceedings with NFR, which he said Restaino should never have initiated in the first place.
Both Perry and Archie support Restaino’s Centennial Park plan, with Archie saying after the meeting he also felt it was important to end the litigation, allow the two sides to stop fighting in court and move forward.
Myles opposed the agreement, saying she felt it was authorized in haste, with too little public discussion.