Data Centers Put on Moratorium in City

While Mayor Lowery was absent due to travel purposes, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen still met, and they had quite the topic to address this month: data centers. The existence of data centers in either the city or the county has given many residents concern, but due to McMinnville’s potential adoption of a data center, the city felt it was necessary to investigate the matter in Sparta. To this end, the city put a temporary moratorium on any data center development in the city limits for at least 180 days.

Resolution 26-626 and Ordinance 26-1003 both concerned the nature of Data centers. The former set forth legislative findings regarding data centers, and it requested a review of proposed zoning regulations by the Sparta Municipal Planning Commission.

Tonya Tindle, City Administrator, said, “This has come up because this has happened in McMinnville. We’ve got somebody that’s looking at putting a data center in McMinnville, so it got Jerry to thinking that we might want to look into the possibilities of what we need to do. To make it in a certain zone or make it where they just can’t put it anywhere. This resolution is just to resolve the fact that it is a concern of the Board of Aldermen, and that they are looking into it.”

The moratorium passed unanimously, and it is intended to give the board time to investigate data centers and citizen concerns, to ensure that safety and infrastructure are protected regardless of how the board chooses to move forward.

Vice Mayor Robert Officer said, “Hopefully they don’t find us an attractive place to go to. It takes a lot of land. We don’t really have a whole lot of land in the city limits.”

A lot of the ordinances from the past meeting had a second and final reading during this board meeting. The three that fit this description where Ordinance No. 26-1000, 26-1001, and 26-1002, and all three of these pertain to the adoption of the 2026-2027 budget and amended the prior budget for cleanup. All three passed without a hitch.

A few purchasing bids were approved during the meeting. A low bid for chemicals, a low bid for rock and gravel, and approval of a $70,000 contract from Patterson & Dewar Engineering for new circuit upgrades.

Lastly, there were a lot of personnel hirings at the meeting. Devin Moore was promoted to Sergeant due to Andrew Corso’s resignation. Two police officers had their hiring recommendations approved due to Devin Moore’s promotion and Thomas Lafferty’s resignation. The two hired were Spencer Booher and Sean Johannes. The two officers who resigned, Police Chief Nick Dunn said, it was better pay in other areas that caused them to resign.

A street laborer was hired on due to J.T. Knowles’s promotion to Truck Driver. And then a Water Trades Helper and a Sewer Trades Helper were both hired on due to Gage Walker's and Jordan Johnson’s resignations, respectively.

All Board of Mayor and Aldermen meetings are open to the public on the second floor of City Hall, as well as streamed on their YouTube channel at Sparta TN Media. The next meeting is scheduled for July 2.