For journalists
We are not a newsroom and we are not competing with one. We file records requests and publish documents. If any of it is useful to you, take it — you have blanket permission to reuse everything below with attribution, including our arithmetic. Every figure links to its source. Where a number is ours rather than reported, we say so and show the working.
Quote us, screenshot our tables, republish our figures, use our computed numbers in your own reporting. Credit ExposeSanAngelo.com or the Move Weight Foundation. You do not need to ask, and there is no embargo on anything published here.
We will also, on request and at no cost, file a Texas Public Information Act request on a subject you name and hand you the response unedited — including if you publish it before we do. Email [email protected].
Six findings, with the working shown
Ordered by how checkable they are. The first three are the City's own words or votes. The last three are arithmetic on published figures — our contribution, and we show it so you can verify rather than trust us.
1. The City states no independent impact study was ever conducted
“No independent impact study has been conducted.” City of San Angelo, official Data Center Information page
This is the City answering its own FAQ about a 1.2‑gigawatt facility on land it sold. It is not a characterisation by us or by opponents.
2. The zoning was locked in five months before any governing ordinance existed
| Date | Action | Vote |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-12-02 | Site rezoned Ranch & Estate → Light Manufacturing | first reading |
| 2026-01-13 | Zone change approved — project now permissible | 6–1 |
| 2026-05-19 | Land use ordinance adopted | 6–0 |
| 2026-06-02 | Sewer / wastewater discharge ordinance adopted | 5–1 |
| 2026-06-16 | Water use ordinance adopted | 7–0 |
The gap between the binding decision and the rules governing it is 126 days. All three ordinances post-date the approval that made them necessary.
3. No executed Chapter 380 agreement has ever been published
The City says “to date, there have been no incentives or subsidies offered,” while confirming Chapter 380 terms remain to be negotiated. When draft documents naming Emergent circulated publicly in June 2026, the City's position was that they were examples and that no terms had been decided. Separately, reporting in April 2026 concluded the project will qualify for a large state incentive regardless of local action.
As of 25 July 2026 there is no publicly available executed 380 agreement for this project. Every economic figure in circulation is therefore a projection, not a term sheet. We have a records request drafted for the negotiation file.
4. Our arithmetic 84.9% of the FY26 tax increase falls on existing taxpayers
The City published both halves of this but not the ratio. Working:
| Figure | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Additional property tax to be raised vs. prior year | $5,716,170 | City, via ConchoValleyHomepage |
| − of which from newly added property | $861,795 | City, via ConchoValleyHomepage |
| = borne by property already on the roll | $4,854,375 | subtraction |
| Share carried by existing taxpayers | 84.9% | 4,854,375 ÷ 5,716,170 |
Context: the rate rose from 0.75440 to 0.79470 per $100 valuation — a 9.67% increase — adopted 6–1 alongside a $241,308,736 budget. The Finance Director attributed most of it to the coliseum renovation bond.
5. Our arithmetic The recall threshold for District 3 is 47 signatures — because 155 people voted
San Angelo sets a recall petition threshold at 30% of votes cast in the last election for that seat. That produces thresholds two orders of magnitude apart on the same council:
| Seat | Turnout basis | Signatures required | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mayor (at-large) | — | 2,971 | Failed — under 1,900 submitted |
| District 2 — Joe Self | — | 385 | Affidavit filed 2026-05-29 |
| District 3 — Harry Thomas | 155 votes cast, May 2023 | 47 | Petition filed 2026-07-15 |
47 signatures can force a recall election in District 3. That is a story about municipal turnout as much as about the data center, and the cost of the election falls on all taxpayers either way. City Clerk Heather Stastny certifies the petitions.
6. Open question Reported capacity doubled from 600 MW to 1.2 GW with no recorded council action explaining it
| When | Reported capacity | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 2025 | up to 600 MW | SanAngeloLive |
| Jun 2026 | 1.2 GW complex | SanAngeloLive |
For scale: the AEP Red Creek substation serving that area is rated around 250 MW, and the entire city of San Angelo is reported to use roughly 10% of it. Final load is set by ERCOT interconnection studies, not by the City — which means the documents that would settle this exist, and are requestable. We are treating this as an open question, not an allegation.
The water numbers, side by side
Both sets are on the record and they do not agree. We publish both rather than picking one.
| Measure | City / developer | Earlier reporting |
|---|---|---|
| Initial fill | ~2M gal for a 250,000 sq ft building; cap 8.0 gal/sq ft | 1.5M gal per building, ~9M across six |
| Ongoing use | ~60,000 gal/yr makeup; “near zero” in steady state | ~15,000 gal/day |
| Cooling | Closed-loop mandatory; evaporative banned | — |
| City production | ~20 million gallons/day | |
| City supply remaining | ~41 months; standard conservation in force (outside watering 2×/7 days) | |
| Hickory Aquifer allocation | 10,000 acre-feet/yr in 2026, rising to 12,000 by 2036 | |
No published projection of total campus water demand at full build-out measured against the city's ~41 months of supply. The ordinance caps per square foot, not per campus, and permits a full drain-and-refill every three years.
What we are and are not claiming
We are not claiming corruption. Nothing on this site alleges a crime by any official. Where we describe an allegation we attribute it to whoever made it.
We are not anti-data-center. The City adopted mandatory closed-loop cooling and banned evaporative cooling, 7–0. That is the strongest water protection available to a city in this position and we say so on our own water page.
Our objection is to sequence and disclosure — a binding vote 126 days before the rules, and an unpublished 380 agreement underneath every economic projection.
We correct errors on the page, not quietly. Any official named on this site may send a response of reasonable length and we will publish it in full, unedited.
Contact & verification
| Records, corrections, story requests | [email protected] |
|---|---|
| Organisation | Move Weight Foundation, 501(c)(3) · foundation.moveweight.com |
| Form 990 | Published here |
| Funding | Citizen donations only. No developer, candidate, PAC, or party money. Detail |
| Sister chapter | ExposeMiamiOK.com — 500+ archived council meetings, Miami, Oklahoma |
| Full bibliography | Every source we cite |
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