SALT LAKE CITY – Voters angry about Kevin O’Leary’s data center project got the chance to make their voices heard in June’s primary election—and the verdict was clear.
Senate President J. Stuart Adams (R-Davis) and Box Elder County Commissioners Lee Perry and Boyd Bingham all lost their reelection bids in the Republican primaries.
The Senate president and the two commissioners all faced backlash for their involvement in the approval of the O’Leary-backed data center, dubbed the Stratos Project.
The Stratos Project was initially proposed as a 40,000-acre “hyperscale” data center. Though its size has since been reduced, the project has drawn concern for its potential impacts to the Great Salt Lake, wildlife, and the state’s air quality, along with criticism over its quick approval process.
Although election results have yet to be certified, Adams, Perry, and Bingham all conceded their races shortly after Election Day.
Voters had ‘something to say’
Adams, a lawmaker with over 20 years in the state Legislature, faced a stunning loss in his first-ever primary.
“As president of the Senate, you don’t expect to be challenged, and then you don’t really expect to lose in a primary… I mean, it’s quite a strong story,” University of Utah political science Professor Matthew Burbank told Utah Junction about Adams’ loss.
Faced with two Republican challengers, Adams, at the time of writing, received 34.13% of the vote.
Challenger Stephanie Hollist won with 43.10% of the vote in the GOP primary for Senate District 7 and is set to face Democrat Garret Rushforth and Constitution Party member Jeffrey Ostler in November.
Burbank believes Adams’ role as board chair for the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) played a key part in his election loss.
MIDA, created by the Utah Legislature in 2007, essentially functions as a local government and can make decisions to approve developments with a military focus. The data center will, in part, be on military-owned land, and revenue from the project will support infrastructure for Hill Air Force Base and the Utah National Guard.
MIDA gave the Stratos Project the green light earlier this year, before it went to the Box Elder County Commission for approval.
Following public outcry against the project, Adams appealed to O’Leary to cut the data center’s size down from 40,000 to 10,000 acres. In the end, O’Leary agreed to cut the size down to around 20,000 acres. The agreement also includes protections for the Great Salt Lake.
Despite Adams’ damage control efforts, the public still chose to vote him out.
Burbank believes Adams’ involvement with MIDA was a part of a larger pattern of behavior from him that voters were unhappy with.
“Essentially, what he’s doing is saying, ‘Well, we’re the state Legislature, we’ll decide. It’s not up to the courts, and it’s not the governor… We’re the ones in charge.’ And I think there was a real sense that kind of voters felt like, ‘Well, no, maybe we have something to say about this.’”
Adams’ loss is just a piece of the conversation surrounding MIDA.
The development authority is the subject of a lawsuit by members of the Box Elder Accountability Referendum and Alliance for a Better Utah. The lawsuit seeks to have MIDA deemed unconstitutional.
Utah State Auditor Tina Cannon has also launched a website aimed at providing more transparency into MIDA’s actions. However, Cannon’s office said the site compiles publicly available information about the development authority and is not an audit of MIDA.
In a comment to Utah Junction, MIDA’s spokesperson said:
“MIDA prides itself on its transparency efforts and welcomes the State Auditor’s Office compiling our factual information as another resource, in addition to the factual and public information, including audit reports, on the MIDA website, midaut.org, and the State’s, Utah.gov.”
Defeats in Box Elder County
Box Elder County Commissioners Perry and Bingham were also bested in June’s Republican primary, conceding defeat the day after the election.
The commissioners, along with Commissioner Tyler Vincent, all voted to approve the Stratos Project back in May, despite an outpouring of public pleas to reject the data center.
Burbank said that, from his perspective, the initial approval from MIDA didn’t leave the county commission many options other than to approve it as well.
Bingham, in a Facebook post made several weeks before Election Day, had a similar assessment.
“We approved a project area that if we had voted no to, would have brought lawsuits that our county would lose. Taxpayer dollars would have been spent, not insurance money, since we had no legal basis to stand on for a no vote. We did not approve a data center. Our leaders at the capitol handed this to us with their deal already made,” Bingham wrote on his campaign page.
Because of MIDA’s approval of the Stratos Project, the data center wasn’t subject to Box Elder County’s normal review process, according to comments the county’s spokesperson made to the Salt Lake Tribune.
The county had to vote to approve a project area, but details about the Stratos Project had already been discussed by developers and state officials before it went to the Box Elder County commissioners.
The commissioners could have voted against approving the project area, Burbank said, but that only would have slowed development down, not stopped it.
The issue for the commissioners, Burbank said, was showing up to the commission meeting and approving the Stratos Project despite publicly saying they didn’t like it.
“I think there was so much unhappiness that showed up in these primary election results,” Burbank said.
