URBANA — Champaign County Board members are officially barred from signing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) regarding county business.
The unanimous vote approving the ordinance took place at the county board meeting Thursday night.
Effective immediately, county board members are barred from signing NDAs regarding any county business, except when dealing with confidential information or legal settlements.
Defined in the ordinance, a non-disclosure agreement is “a legal contract between two parties that prohibits the sharing of information deemed confidential or proprietary.”
District 3 Republican John Farney led the effort to get the ordinance on the agenda.
”Public government should be doing things out in the public,” Farney said in an interview. “So you need to be transparent about it. And this is one of the ways we’re just enforcing that we’re going to be transparent about what we do.”
This comes after Mahomet village officials signed an NDA with Clean Cloud Energy, a data center developer, but ended talks with the company after backlash from residents.
Recent discussions surrounding data center development in Champaign County have been contentious.
Earlier this year, the county board passed a moratorium on data center development on undeveloped land owned by the county, but it expires in April 2027.
Last night, the county board also passed a resolution banning tax abatements for hyperscale data centers. This resolution means all data center companies looking to build in the county will have to pay their fair share of taxes, just as any other developer would.
“What this tax abatement resolution says is that for the county’s portion of property taxes, we will not negotiate over data centers,” Farney says.
This resolution comes as other states across the country are looking to repeal their laws regarding tax breaks for data center developers.
Additionally, the board appointed Republican Michael J. Smith to represent District 1, replacing Republican Jeff Wilson. In an interview with the News-Gazette, Smith said he is not a politician but cares deeply about the issues facing the county.
This fall, Wilson retired his position to run for Illinois’ 13th Congressional district in the upcoming election on November 3.