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Logan County Board
August Zoning and Economic Development Meeting
[August 04, 2026]
The Zoning and Economic
Development Committee of the larger Logan County Board held their
monthly meeting in the first-floor courtroom of the Logan County
Courthouse on Monday, August 3rd. Chairman Gil Turner, Vice Chairman
Kathy Schmidt, Hannah Fitzpatrick, and Joseph Kuhlman were present.
Bob Sanders was not in attendance.
The committee approved the previous month’s minutes. Turner made a
motion, with the consent of the other committee members, to move
public comments up. The committee agreed and public comments began.
Three people signed up to speak. The first read a portion of an
interview involving Hut 8’s Greg Irwin conducted by Illinois Times.
Irwin states in the interview that they were working on a proposed
annexation agreement with Latham. This agreement would allow the
taxes to be given to the Village of Latham, amounting to about
$50,000 to $75,000 in community benefits per household. She
continued that, among the things that village officials were
considering using the taxes for, one could be assistance with
electricity costs. The speaker asked members of the committee why
this would be the case after people were led to believe that their
electricity costs were not going to go up. No one answered her
question and she ended her comment.
The next commenter asked Turner specifically to support the
moratorium that was on the agenda. She asked the committee to place
priority on finding an enforcement officer. She talked to Zoning and
Economic Development Officer Al Green, and he informed her that the
county has a hard time enforcing its ordinances due to the lack of
an enforcement officer.
Turner then shared that Green's
absence was due to he and his wife traveling out of state to visit
their sick daughter.
The commenter encouraged the committee to support strong ordinances
that protect the people of the county, not businesses. She
additionally urged the committee to vote in favor of the moratorium
on the agenda, as well as sharing her support for the idea of a bike
trail through the county.
Turner moved on to the three old business items. The first was a
decommissioning ordinance for data centers. Since the county does
not have any ordinance for data centers yet, it would not make sense
to pass a decommissioning plan. The item was moved to old business
for next month.
The next item was regarding the previously mentioned bike trail.
Turner shared that he read through several pages of an email from
Elkhart resident Karen Conn and gave a brief overview. Turner shared
that Conn and the consulting engineering company Kuhn & Trello would
be looking for Logan County to serve as the sponsors for a grant
that Kuhn & Trello would apply for on the county’s behalf.
Additionally, Kuhn & Trello would fill out the application for free
to see what funding the county could receive. They would be looking
for $5 million, as the trail would cost about $1 million per mile to
build. The trail would be built from north to south. He read off a
motion that Conn sent in her email, which stated that the
application submission would not automatically hold the county
fiscally responsible for paying for anything, rather, the county
would be able to take a vote on moving forward once they knew the
amount they would be required to pay.
The committee took a vote on the motion and passed it on to Workshop
unanimously.
The final item under old business was letters of support for
entities filling out applications for the Viper Mine Grant. Turner
shared that this was accidentally left on the agenda, as they had
already voted on the item at the last regular board meeting. He did
state that the final day for any group to submit the grant is August
27th.
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The committee
moved on to new business. The only item here was the data center
moratorium. Fitzpatrick shared that she had written up a draft
moratorium she was bringing forward for consideration, and to
possibly send to State’s Attorney Brad Hauge. The moratorium
would be twelve months and would include any data center 100
megawatts or greater. Turner asked if there was anything new in
this moratorium from the last one the Board tried to pass.
Fitzpatrick said there was not, but that the last one was not
legal.
Turner asked Fitzpatrick what she thought there was to gain by
passing this moratorium. Fitzpatrick stated that, in addition to
doing research to learn about new findings coming out on them,
the county does not currently have an ordinance to regulate any
data center, including Hut 8’s. Turner suggested amending the
ordinance to expire when a data center ordinance is passed.
Fitzpatrick pointed out the moratorium was written to allow the
Board to vote to end it at any time.
Kuhlman stated that he was alright with this ordinance, and
Schmidt said she would agree to it so long as it could end
early. Turner stated that he would also vote for it but that he
was still against it.
The committee then clarified that this motion would be to send
the moratorium ordinance on to Hauge for review, not to pass to
the Workshop meeting. Board member Dale Nelson, who was in
attendance, clarified that Hauge might state this moratorium
ordinance does not work because Hut 8 currently has an
application submitted, thus keeping the Board from passing any
moratorium. They would simply have to wait and see what comes
back from Hauge. Fitzpatrick stated that, to her understanding,
any data center that submitted an application before the
moratorium went into effect would still have to go through the
process of being considered by the Board.
Before a vote was taken, Nelson asked Fitzpatrick to clarify, as
he did not want there to be any potential litigation from other
companies citing discrimination if Hut 8 was considered and they
were not. He shared information on two potential, not active,
areas of litigation Hut 8 could have had against the county.
According to Nelson, one board member “requested [Hut 8] remove
their [Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA)] application with a promise
that an ordinance would pass with a conditional use permit.”
Nelson said the other potential litigation was “discrimination,
because a board member asked for funding to be donated for a
project.” He stated that these were the reasons he wanted to
make sure everything was “validated though Brad prior to getting
to Workshop.”
A member of the audience asked if this
moratorium would apply to Hut 8. Turner stated that they were not
sure, and this is why they needed to have Hauge and other lawyers
look at it. A vote was taken, and it was unanimously agreed to send
the draft moratorium to Hauge for further consideration. The
committee again stressed that this was only the first step in what
could be a lengthy process to getting any kind of moratorium passed.
Turner shared there was no Zoning and Economic Development Officer
report due to Green’s absence. A member of the audience spoke again,
stating that she forgot to say, “our prayers go with the Green
family.” Turner thanked the woman for her comment and led the room
in a prayer for Green and his family.
After the prayer was concluded, Turner entertained a motion to
adjourn.
[Matt Boutcher]
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