If you follow the headlines, you’d think the data center debate has exactly two sides.
On one side there’s developers racing to build the physical infrastructure behind AI. On the other there’s communities rising up to stop them by packing town halls, passing moratoriums, turning data centers into one storm of controversy after another. On both sides of the political aisle everyone seems to hate these projects, and anyone working on them has picked a side.
For the past two-plus years, standing in the middle of these fights (and closely following the ones I wasn’t a part of) was my job.
What I learned
I was the Head of Partnerships & Public Engagement for Aston, a powered-land developer specializing in siting data centers. Powered land is the unglamorous work at the very front of the pipeline: finding sites, securing power, and preparing the ground—literally and politically—where data centers can actually get built. My role consisted of sitting in county commission hearings, meeting with town managers, utility commissioners, permitting specialists, and a lot of skeptical neighbors.
People ask the same questions whenever a project comes to town: Will my electric bill go up? How much water will it use? What happens when the construction crews leave? And, most importantly, what’s actually in it for us?
When developers answered those questions honestly, early, and in writing, productive conversations normally followed. When they didn’t, things tended to go off the rails in a hurry. Here are a few of the lessons I learned:
- Communities rarely oppose data centers in the abstract. They oppose being surprised, rushed, and talked down to.
- A promise in a PowerPoint is worth nothing but one written into an enforceable community benefit agreement is worth everything.
- The developers who succeed treat community benefits as infrastructure, not PR.
Where I stand
Which brings me to today. I’m launching CommonWatts, a for-profit consultancy—just me, so far—with a simple mission: helping data center developers and communities navigate and negotiate their differences. I want to be precise about where I stand, because it’s the entire reason this company exists.
I am not pro-data center. I am not anti-data center.
I am pro data center developers who genuinely care about the communities where they’re siting—who do the slow, unglamorous work of earning trust instead of trying to manufacture consent.
And I am pro communities that seek to balance the legitimate concerns of their residents with the real benefits many of these projects can provide: tax revenue that funds schools and fire departments, construction and permanent jobs, infrastructure improvements, and a seat at the table in shaping what gets built and who in the community benefits (ideally, everyone!)
Above all, I believe data centers should be built where they’re actually wanted, like the one being proposed in Jay, Maine.
The town that said ‘yes’ to a data center
Reading the news the past several months, and one gets the impression that no community anywhere wants a data center. That isn’t always the case, as most residents of the quaint mill town of Jay, Maine will attest.
When the Androscoggin paper mill literally blew up and closed in 2023, it devastated the close-knit community. The mill was the major employer, the reason for Jay’s existence, and a huge share of the tax base that paid for basic municipal services. The town could have waited for a savior. Instead, it spent two years working on a $550 million project to redevelop the mill site as a data center, one designed to reuse the site’s existing industrial buildings, power, and water infrastructure. The project promised more than 800 construction jobs, at least 100 permanent high-paying jobs, and substantial new property tax revenue.
The town wanted it. Jay’s Board of Selectpersons said so, in writing. So did the Franklin County commissioners and the regional chamber of commerce.
But then the Maine legislature passed what would have been the nation’s first statewide data center moratorium with no exemption for Jay. A community that had done everything we say we want communities to do: study the project, ask hard questions, negotiate, and decide for itself—was about to have its decision overridden by people who didn’t live there.
Governor Janet Mills vetoed the bill, citing Jay by name and arguing that the town’s support ought to count for something. The legislature tried to override her and fell short.
Reasonable people disagreed about the details of the Jay project. They always do, and they should. Scrutiny is a healthy part of any siting process. However, the episode exposed something the national coverage keeps missing: “the community” is not a monolith, and opposition is not the only authentic local voice. Sometimes a town weighs the costs and benefits and says yes. That ‘yes’ deserves the same respect as a no.
Why “CommonWatts”
That conviction is baked into the name. CommonWatts is a riff on common sense, because most of this work isn’t complicated, it’s just rare. Show up early; tell the truth about power, water, and noise; put projects where they’re wanted; write the benefits down in agreements with teeth; and, most importantly, keep your word on everything before and after the ribbon is cut. The industry measures everything in watts, while the trust it runs on is measured in common sense and common fairness.
Secondly, what is “the grid”? What are electric utilities? They are a shared resource—electricity—that no one owns because we all own it. In other words, grids and electricity are our common watts!
What CommonWatts does
I run one process, not two. I don’t represent the developer and I don’t represent the community. I run the process between them, and everyone in it can read the same terms I’m working under.
The process itself is simple to describe and slow to do well. I listen first—structured conversations that surface what people actually care about before anyone puts up a slide. I help both sides get to a shared set of facts: what the water use really is, where the power really comes from, what the noise really measures at the property line. Most siting fights are arguments over numbers nobody has jointly verified, and they stay unresolvable until someone fixes that. Then I help convert what comes out of those conversations into written commitments—numbers, dates, responsible parties, consequences—instead of adjectives.
How I get paid is part of the method rather than a footnote to it. My fees are fixed and disclosed to every party before the first meeting, never contingent on whether a project is approved or defeated, and no single client can grow into a share of my revenue large enough that I can’t afford to walk away. A facilitator who earns more when the answer is yes is not neutral, whatever the letterhead says—and a pledge of neutrality that nobody can check is just a nicer adjective.
It’s just me so far, and for now, that’s the point. When you work with CommonWatts, you get the person who will actually sit in those rooms—listening and searching for win-wins—not a junior associate learning on your project.