Enid Voted 6-1 to Rezone Farmland for a Data Center With No Operator, Unfinished Financing and an Unfinished Water Plan

Zoning runs with the land. Promises run with the people who make them.

Four Enid High graduates asked their city for the power to turn farmland into the foundation of a data center empire. Six of seven voters on the dais said yes.

The vote came Tuesday, October 27, in the Grand Ballroom of the Stride Bank Center, after the City moved the meeting out of its administration building to hold the crowd [2][3]. The Mayor and the Board of Commissioners approved three rezoning ordinances for Project Thunderbird by identical margins. Ward 3 Commissioner Frank Baker cast the only no vote each time [1].

Now read what the developers say about their own project.

They name no operator. They name no tenant. They describe their financing as “still being finalized.” Their water balance sits unfinished, down to the size of the storage tanks. They label the neighbor protections they promise a developer commitment, not an ordinance requirement [4][5].

The Board approved the zoning first and left the questions for later.

Forty-One Minutes

At 4:19 p.m. that afternoon, Guerrilla News emailed the Mayor, all six commissioners, the City Manager and the City Attorney, with a copy to the City Clerk [7]. The 5 p.m. meeting stood 41 minutes away.

The letter made one request: do not vote on Agenda Items 2.1 through 2.7. It explained why.

Not one of the seven items told a citizen the Board would vote. Item 2.1 said the Board would “[c]onsider a resolution.” Items 2.3, 2.5 and 2.7 said it would “[c]onsider an ordinance.” Items 2.2, 2.4 and 2.6 said only that the Board would “[h]old a public hearing” [7].

Oklahoma’s Supreme Court set the standard in 2021. An agenda must “be worded in plain language, directly stating the purpose of the meeting,” the Court wrote, and it found the City of Norman’s agenda “deceptively vague and likely to mislead” [8]. The Open Meeting Act then supplies the consequence: “[a]ny action taken in willful violation of this act shall be invalid” [8].

The letter handed the Board a way out. Announce no vote. Hold the noticed hearings. Re-notice every item with an agenda line that names the action the Board may take, identifies every affected tract, resolves who holds title to the North Campus land, states the protest status, and promises a separate vote on each emergency clause. “Two or three weeks of delay is a small price for votes that will stand,” the letter said [7].

The title question carried real weight. The agenda named Pollard Farm Land, LLC as owner of the North Campus land, while the application in the City’s own packet named DLR Holdings, LLC [7].

The Board voted anyway. The letter promised a lawsuit to void any vote and a referral to the District Attorney [7]. Whether the agenda satisfied the Open Meeting Act will soon rest with a judge.

Less Than Two Months

The City moved fast. Plainsmen unveiled the project in early September [6]. Its own timeline credits the Planning Commission with recommending approval on September 28 and the City Commission with the final vote on October 27 [4]. In between, the City pulled the rezoning items off the October 6 agenda and rescheduled them for a special meeting [6].

From public unveiling to final vote, Enid took less than two months to commit land to a project that Plainsmen itself says needs five to seven years to build [4].

What the Board Bought

Plainsmen Holdings, LLC pitches four campuses across about 1,735 acres, up to 2.75 gigawatts of computing capacity, and up to 3.3 gigawatts of on-site power from a privately built natural gas plant [3][5]. Proponents put the investment near $38 billion [3]. The full build would draw about 562 million gallons of raw Kaw Lake water a year [5].

That scale demands proof. The developers’ own website supplies the status report:

Four Friends and a Hope

Plainsmen lists four members: Jason Singer, Chad Dillingham, Aaron Singer and Troy Phillips. All four graduated from Enid High, the site says [4]. It describes their backgrounds in education and technology, insurance, technology and aviation, and a family business sold in 2016 [4]. It calls them “four people who grew up in Enid” [5].

It cites no data center the four ever built, financed or ran.

Local roots deserve respect. First-time builders sometimes deliver. But a first-time builder who brings no operator, no finished financing and no finished water plan offers a community nothing to inspect except a hope.

Opponents see the destination. Jacob McNew, director of No Data Centers in Enid, predicted the developers “are just going to sell it to Google or Meta or someone like that” [6]. Plainsmen itself says hyperscalers already call [4]. Zoning ignores who buys the land. The entitlement travels with the parcel.

The Tool the Board Skipped

The Board needed no rezoning to say yes. It could adopt a resolution declaring that the City welcomes a data center and will rezone land for the right project once that project arrives with a named operator, a finished water balance, committed financing and signed agreements. A resolution signals welcome without surrendering the City’s strongest leverage. Plainsmen loses nothing it truly intends to build.

Study the developers’ own sequence [4]:

1. Rezone the land.
2. Record neighbor protections at the county.
3. Choose the operator.
4. Run Intensive Use Review of water, power, traffic, noise and cleanup, with a public meeting.
5. Issue permits, then build.

Plainsmen cites Ordinance 2026-17, adopted August 18, 2026, which it says requires Intensive Use Review for data centers, and it stresses that “rezoning alone does not permit one” [4]. Fair enough. The review matters, and the City should hold the developers to it.

The signed ordinances add one safeguard of their own. Section III of each directs City staff to bring the zoning back to the Commission for review if the development fails to substantially commence within five years of the effective date, and it defines substantial commencement as material physical construction, not engineering, permitting or planning [13]. Expiration does not automatically restore the farmland. A review after five years still leaves the land rezoned for those five years [13].

But look at what the sequence does. It hands the developers the entitlement while every hard question waits. It asks the City to bargain over water, power, noise and cleanup after the City surrenders the one vote the developers needed first. A city negotiates from strength before it rezones. Afterward, it negotiates as a supplicant.

The page never explains why step one must precede step four. Residents asked the same question for weeks, and crowds overflowed earlier meetings into the hallway [3][6].

What Enid Residents Can Do

Oklahoma law reserves the referendum power to municipal voters, and it sets hard rules for using it [9][10]. The signed ordinances contain no emergency clause [13]. A true copy of the measure goes to the City Clerk before anyone collects a signature. The petition needs signatures from at least 25 percent of the total votes cast for the highest-ranking at-large municipal office at the most recent general municipal election [9].

The deadline trips people. One statute gives 60 days after passage to submit signed petitions [9]. Another sets thirty days for municipal measures in the referendum form [11]. The two conflict. Guerrilla News builds its examples to the shorter clock: day 30 lands on Thursday, November 26, Thanksgiving Day, so the safe target for submitting signatures falls on Wednesday, November 25. A 60-day reading ends Saturday, December 26. An attorney must resolve the conflict before anyone relies on the later date.

We Drafted Them. They Belong to You.

Guerrilla News publishes three example referendum packets alongside this article, one for each ordinance: 2026-21, 2026-22 and 2026-23. Each packet includes organizer instructions, a ballot title, the petition, signature sheets, circulator affidavits, and a filing notice for the City Clerk. We left every proponent block blank so any group of residents can adapt them. Get the example packets here. Take them to your attorney for legal advice before you circulate a single sheet. These are merely our thoughts.

Courts punish petition defects. In 2007, Oklahoma’s Court of Civil Appeals upheld the dismissal of three Norman referendum petitions on rezoning ordinances because they omitted the ordinance text [12]. Attach the certified ordinance. Quote its exact title. Trust no shortcut.

Before the next meeting, ask the Mayor and Commissioners five questions in writing:

1. Which company will operate Project Thunderbird, and how soon will the City learn its name?
2. What source will supply 562 million gallons of water a year, and who pays if supply falls short?
3. Who pays if the Patriot Utility District financing fails?
4. Why did the Board rezone before Intensive Use Review began?
5. Will the Board adopt a resolution stating that Enid will approve a qualifying project with a named operator and signed agreements?

Then file an Open Records Act request for the City’s communications with the four Plainsmen principals and for the drafting history of the October 27 agenda.

Zoning runs with the land. Promises run with whoever makes them, and with whoever buys them. On October 27, six votes in Enid chose which one to trust.

More From Our Data Center Series

• Rezone First, Name the Buyer Later: What Enid Is Really Voting On Oct. 27

Editor's Note

The quotations from Plainsmen Holdings come from its public website, projectthunderbird.com, as read on October 29, 2026. Plainsmen can change those pages at any time. The quotations from Guerrilla News’s letter come from the email sent October 27, 2026 at 4:19 p.m. Central to the Mayor, the six commissioners, the City Manager and the City Attorney, with a copy to the City Clerk. The vote count and the lone dissent come from Enid Live reporting. The ordinance numbers, titles and Section III terms come from copies of Ordinances 2026-21, 2026-22 and 2026-23 as signed October 27, 2026.

This article makes no allegation of unlawful conduct against Plainsmen Holdings, its members or any commissioner. Whether the October 27 agenda satisfied the Open Meeting Act belongs to a court. Rezoning land in advance of a project falls within a city board’s lawful discretion. This article argues the Board used that discretion poorly.

The example referendum packets published with this article leave every proponent block blank so any group of residents can adapt them.

This article and the example packets offer information, not legal advice. Consult an Oklahoma attorney before you circulate any petition.

Corrections: ron@guerrilla.news

Sources

1. City Commission Passes Project Thunderbird Rezoning Requests in Special Meeting. Enid Live, Oct. 28, 2026. enidlive.com
2. Special Commission Meeting for Project Thunderbird Rezoning to be Held at Stride Bank Center. Enid Live. enidlive.com
3. Kevin Hassler, Project Thunderbird rezoning requests on tap Tuesday. Enid News & Eagle, Oct. 26, 2026. enidnews.com
4. Project Thunderbird, Plainsmen Holdings, LLC (home page: process steps, decided and undecided items, members). Accessed Oct. 29, 2026. projectthunderbird.com
5. Every OSU question, answered. Project Thunderbird (financing, water, power, jobs, operator). Accessed Oct. 29, 2026. projectthunderbird.com
6. Enid city leaders delay public meeting on proposed data center. Oklahoma Energy Today, Oct. 2026. okenergytoday.com
7. Ronald E. Durbin II, J.D., Caution Before Tonight’s Vote: Oct. 27 Special Meeting, Items 2.1-2.7 (Project Thunderbird), letter to the City of Enid, Oct. 27, 2026 (cites 25 O.S. §§ 303, 311, 313, 314).
8. Fraternal Order of Police v. City of Norman, 2021 OK 20 (Okla. Apr. 13, 2021). justia.com
9. 11 O.S. § 15-103 (petition form, signatures, time for filing). justia.com
10. 11 O.S. §§ 15-101, 15-109 (municipal referendum power; submission to voters). 15-101 and 15-109
11. 34 O.S. § 1 (referendum petition form). oklegislature.gov
12. In re Referendum Petitions City of Norman, 155 P.3d 841, 2007 OK CIV APP 19. vlex.com
13. City of Enid, Ordinance Nos. 2026-21, 2026-22 and 2026-23, each signed October 27, 2026 by Mayor David M. Mason, attested by City Clerk Summer Anderson and approved as to form and legality by the City Attorney.