While lots of people, me definitely included, find AI models like Claude (my new cyber friend) really helpful and interesting, the data centers that make AI possible are viewed with considerably more skepticism.
For good reason. Data centers typically consume huge amounts of electricity, need lots of water to cool the massive amount of computer servers, make plenty of noise, and in general have become a flashpoint for communities who don’t want them to harm the quality of life of residents.
So it wasn’t surprising that a post today on the Salem City Council Forum Facebook page stimulated numerous concerned comments. Here’s a screenshot.
One of the comments alerted me to the fact that the paragraph about SEDCOR (Strategic Economic Development Corporation) came from an August 27, 2025 agenda item for a meeting of the Marion County Board of Commissioners in the form of an annual report required for the SEDCOR contract with Marion County. Here’s a PDF file in case that link doesn’t work for you.
SEDCOR Annual Report
There was additional information about data centers in the SEDCOR annual report just prior to the paragraph shared above.
Since the annual report covers the year ending June 30, 2025, the data center news is more than a year old. So it is unclear what the current status of plans for possible data centers in the Salem area are. Since data centers are such a hot topic both nationally and here in Oregon, seemingly the Salem City Council should ask city staff for a report on this.
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