City Council moves forward on emergency services, housing development, and data center review

With all members present, the Lennox City Council met Monday, January 26 at Lennox City Hall to discuss agenda items. 

City Administrator, Nate Vander Plaats asked the Council to consider Resolution 2026-01-26-01 Sole Source Ambulance Procurement. 

“As you know we need to replace one of our ambulances this year. You will recall that it’s one of our larger purchases. This purchase will remount the current ambulance box onto a new chassis. Typically that is subject to South Dakota bidding laws, but we found that this specific service is so unique that there’s really only one vendor readily available to us,” he said. 

Motion to approve by Bill Daugherty, seconded by Lauren VanDriel, motion carried.

Vander Plaats asked the council to consider Resolution 2026-01-26-02. 

“The developer for the Countryside Subdivision has requested acceptance of the infrastructure installed on the City’s behalf. Early last year, KN Construction finished Phase 2 of the Countryside Subdivision. That work has since been completed, inspected, and found in keeping with the City’s requirements. The improvements are provided in Exhibit A to the resolution,” Vander Plaats said. 

Motion to approve by Daugherty, seconded by Billy Welch, motion carried.

The City of Lennox has received an application for a preliminary plan for the new Nelson Addition. 

“In late 2025, the Planning Commission, followed by the City Council, approved a rezone of this property from Agriculture to Multi-Family Residential. Now that this zone is actively zoned as Multi-Family Residential, the developer has submitted a preliminary plan for your review and, if appropriate, approval. You will note in the correspondence from the City Engineer that several revisions were requested, and all revisions have been accepted,” Vander Plaats said. 

Mayor Danny Fergen asked for public comment on the preliminary plans and Betsy Hills stood to express her opinion. 

“My husband and I are adjacent landowners to this planned development, and my parents also own the adjacent pastureland. During the planning and zoning meeting I reported how we are working with the developer, Mr. Nelson, regarding a number of items. Planning and zoning approved the preliminary plan with some amendments that I’ve asked for and I’m going to go through those tonight,” said Hills. 

“I’m grateful planning and zoning added my provision asking for signage. I indicated I need help on a safety issue. I’m asking the city to install signage indicating Fourth Avenue as a dead end or start of a private driveway. We have young children playing outside and we are concerned about the public mistaking our driveway as a street. Regarding the preliminary plan itself, it’s my understanding that the city requested future roadways be extended onto our property as part of the city’s comprehensive growth plan. But there’s also a problem with this. The lines drawn are physically unrealistic. Proposed Long Creek Trail, a 70 foot wide ride way located on the South end of the developer’s development, extends through multiple properties, including my husband and my land and my parents pasture. The proposed alignment is located within a FEMA flood plane and likely impacts jurisdictional wetlands along the fringes of Long Creek. The future of 4th Avenue appears to be extended along the quarter section line with no regard to our existing house location. Standard practice for a preliminary plan is to scope the subject property and its connectivity with city infrastructure. So we object to showing specific street right of ways on our properties. We are not participants with this preliminary plan. And note, we have not been contacted by the city regarding coordination of alignment for future development. Depicting these roadways implies a level of consent and coordination that simply does not exist. There are lines all over our property and this plan does not indicate what they are or what they mean,” Hills said. 

A motion to approve the preliminary plan by Welch, seconded by Chad Swier, motion carried 5-1 with VanDriel being the nay vote.

Vander Plaats added data center discussions to the agenda for community input. 

“I want to open up an opportunity for conversation on this and see if there’s a willingness to take a deeper look at whether this is something that is in our future or not. Whether we simply prepare for it, whether we advocate for it, whatever it might be, and see where that discussion takes us,” he said. 

Mayor Fergen opened the floor to public comment on the data center. Scott Sandal stood to speak. 

“For decades I’ve been asked what is it that you do? And recently what I’ve run into is a ton of data center experts all over,” he joked. “About 30 years ago we started the digital age with mainframes, PCs, laptops, gaming stations, and moved on to mobile phones with apps for this and apps for that. Then social media came around and as time went on, we learned to click, like, share, love, with everything you have out there,” he continued. 

Sandal shared he, like most people, have thousands of emails, photos, and unused apps taking up storage in his phone. 

“It all felt free, right? This all felt free to everybody. Why? Because it just went to the cloud. Everybody saved in the cloud. But now, the communities have realized this isn’t free. The cloud came down like a heavy fog on communities. Society finally learned that these clouds are nothing more than a building full of computers looking for energy,” he said. 

“Something that came up over the weekend with Lincoln County is going to be considering two resolutions or ordinances to put a moratorium on data centers in Lincoln County. That will just be in the rural parts of Lincoln County, it doesn’t govern what’s in city limits, but I think taking the time to study this, I think the timing is right,” Vander Plaats said. 

Council members asked Sandal how to know if the area has the resources for a data center. 

“The short answer is you have to study if the infrastructure can handle it and then size it appropriately to that,” Sandal responded. 

Alderman Laura Thiesse asked if the water was unusable after it is used in the data center. 

“You’ve got to look at the purification systems that go through that because the water has to maintain purity to a high level that goes through there,” Sandal responded. 

Alderman Thiesse questioned if the council moved forward with the project if it would be treated like a customer for utilities. 

“Yes, in terms of water and sewer, I would assume because we only have so much water available, but if this were to happen, if someone were to build one, is would all have to be self-contained cooling,” Vander Plaats responded. 

Motion  to authorize City Administrator to select and negotiate agreement with consultant for data center feasibility study by VanDriel, seconded by Welch, motion carried unanimously.

The Mayor asked that information be made available regarding the city’s protections against bad actors in finance and cyber security. 

“Following the discovery of multiple cybersecurity breaches and internal control failures over the course of the last month, the Mayor asked that staff provide an update on the protections the City has in place to prevent breaches, fraud, and similar events,” Vander Plaats said. 

“When it comes to how email fraud are occurring around the state it starts off with any employee, usually a department head who needs to buy something for their department and they tell me or my department head of the purchase that needs to be made and I sign off on it. A purchase order is made and stays in the drawer until an invoice is made and brought to us by the vendor. Once the invoice is received, it’s attached to the back of the PO and sent to me to be reviewed and signed to be placed on the next claims report,” Finance Officer, Tyson Dahler said.