Dear Commissioner Schneider, Commissioner Whitson, Commissioner Reynolds, and Commissioner Minor,

I am a resident of Bell County and I’m writing to urgently request your intervention on a matter that directly threatens our quality of life, our infrastructure, our environment, and our future.

The City of Temple is currently approving large-scale commercial data center projects at an alarming rate — including at least three major developments proposed by Rowan Digital Infrastructure (Project Temple, Project Stampede, and Project Ranger) — without adequate study, transparency, or accountability. These facilities are industrial in scale and bring serious consequences: massive water consumption, heavy electrical demand requiring new high-voltage transmission infrastructure, noise pollution, traffic, and long-term strain on regional resources that extend well beyond Temple's city limits into Bell County.

As Bell County residents, we are caught in a deeply unfair situation: we bear the consequences of these decisions, yet we have no voice in Temple's city government. We cannot vote in Temple's city council elections. We are not represented on the Temple Economic Development Corporation board that approves these incentive agreements. We are shut out of the process entirely — yet we will pay the price. The same is true for residents of neighboring Hill County, who face identical consequences from unchecked development along our shared regional corridors — industrial sprawl that respects no county line.

Most troubling is that the City of Temple and the Temple EDC have refused to commission independent impact studies examining the cumulative effects of these projects on water supply, the electrical grid, roads, air quality, and surrounding property values. These decisions are being made without the basic due diligence that residents of Bell County — your constituents — deserve.

We respectfully urge you to take the following actions on our behalf:

• Formally call for a moratorium on data center approvals in and around Temple until independent, comprehensive environmental and infrastructure impact studies are completed and made public;

• Use your authority and platform to demand that Bell County's interests be represented in any regional planning discussions related to data center development, transmission infrastructure, and industrial land use;

• Advocate for Bell County residents who are directly impacted by Temple's decisions but have no mechanism to participate in or challenge them due to jurisdictional and electoral boundaries;

• Coordinate with Hill County leadership to present a unified, multi-county opposition to unsustainable industrial development being pushed outward from Temple's city limits into surrounding rural communities; and

• Engage with state legislators and the Texas Legislature to close the loopholes that allow municipalities to externalize the costs of industrial development onto neighboring counties and unincorporated residents without oversight or recourse.

Commissioner’s Schneider, Whitson, Reynolds, and Minor it is the responsibility of county government to serve as the last line of defense against irresponsible and unsustainable development. When a city pushes industrial growth outward without regard for the counties and communities that absorb the impact, it falls to county commissioners to say: enough. Bell County and Hill County residents did not vote for data centers. We did not consent to high-voltage transmission lines cutting through our communities. We did not agree to have our water, our roads, and our way of life sacrificed for the benefit of out-of-state corporations and a city government that does not represent us.

Temple is out of control, and our community is being left to absorb the consequences of decisions made without us, for us. We need you to stand up for us, for Bell County, for our neighbors in Hill County, and for every resident who has no seat at Temple's table.

We are asking you to act — not someday, but now. Please respond to this letter so that we know our concerns have been received and are being addressed.

Respectfully,