Starpointe data center developer paid for flights, lunch for township supervisors
A developer paid for an out-of-state trip for local officials who are considering its conditional use permit application for a proposed seven-building data center campus and attached natural gas power plant in Starpointe Business Park near Burgettstown.
Kate Nolan Bryden, the project lead from Dallas, Texas-based Prime Data Centers LCC, testified in a Wednesday night hearing that the company paid for airline tickets and lunch for at least two of the three Hanover Township supervisors to visit one of its operational data center facilities near Chicago in July.
The trip occurred nearly two months after Prime submitted the project application to the township in May.
Bryden said the trip was to give the officials an opportunity to see Prime’s Elk Grove Village data center campus, to see a working facility “in a mature data center market.”
This area has over 20 operational data centers, so the supervisors could see “my product, and the product of my peers,” she said.
It was intended to provide “educational context for what it is like in a data center, a modern operating data center.”
Bryden said she did not recall whether the trip was initiated by a request from the supervisors or an offer from a Prime representative.
Bryden served as the “tour guide” for this trip, she said, which included a paid lunch at a local pizza place.
“It’s Chicago, so if you go and don’t get deep-dish what are you doing,” she said.
The group from Hanover Township arrived early in the morning at a Chicago-area airport and left that same evening on July 2, she said.
Bryden testified that she booked economy-class airline tickets for the group.
She said she does not recall a full list of Hanover Township officials who attended the trip, but that Supervisor Chair Dale Handick and Vice Chair William Michael were there.
According to Bryden, the group did not discuss the active permit application regarding the proposed Starpointe data center campus.
The supervisors have been reviewing a conditional use permit application submitted by Prime in May for a large data center facility that would occupy around 120 acres of land in Starpointe Business Park.
According to Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission Executive Director Mary Fox, elected officials in the commonwealth are legally allowed to accept certain gifts including airline tickets and meals, as long as any gifts worth over $600 are reported on annual Statement of Financial Interests disclosure forms.
Handick did not comment on a range of questions regarding the trip.