Two days after the Jackson City Council voted 5-2 to ban new data centers, records surfaced showing the Horhn administration had spent months quietly planning to build one of the largest in the state at Lake Hico.

The documents, obtained by WLBT through an open records request and reviewed by The Jackson Wire, describe a strategy to turn the 654-acre site of the former Rex Brown Steam Electric Station into a hyperscale data center hub. The briefing document calls it 'Jackson's single best opportunity in 50 years to reverse the structural decline of its tax base.'

The financial projections are striking. A $5 billion to $15 billion facility at the site could generate between $9 million and $20 million a year in direct revenue for the city, and an equal amount for Jackson Public Schools, according to the documents. That revenue stream, the briefing states, 'exceeds Jackson's current $23 million general fund deficit within 1-2 years of full operation.'

The records show Mayor John Horhn's administration met with Entergy Mississippi CEO Haley Fisackerly and former Mayor Kane Ditto on April 30 to discuss data centers. Earlier, on April 10, the mayor's chief of staff Cathy Northington received an email about a meeting with Thomas Consulting Group to discuss 'the economic incentives and legal structures that shape utility decisions about large electricity loads.'

The city had been working with TCG for months on best practices for attracting and evaluating data center proposals, the records show. The documents also list the site's advantages: existing power infrastructure from the Entergy substation already on the property, inactive water line access, pre-clearance from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, a security fence already in place, and proximity to industrial roads, rail lines, and fiber backbone along I-220.

Ward Two Councilwoman Tina Clay, who voted for the moratorium, saw some of the documents for the first time Friday morning. She was not surprised. 'It's been on the street that they were doing that,' she told WLBT, referring to Lake Hico. Clay believes the administration intentionally adopted a $135 million budget that was $23 million too high to make the case for a data center. 'That $135 million, that was to make it look like the city of Jackson needed money, bad,' she said.

Ward One Councilman Ashby Foote, who voted against the moratorium, took the opposite view. He said the records show city leaders doing their due diligence. 'Whether the city has actually been recruiting a data center from day one or not, so what? I mean, they should be trying to recruit all kinds of businesses,' Foote said. He noted that $9 million a year in new revenue would allow the city to resurface 100 miles of roads annually, something it is not close to doing now.

The project would also create 4,000 to 7,000 construction jobs and 500 to 1,200 permanent jobs, according to the briefing. It would mean $5 million to $15 million in workforce development funding for Jackson Public Schools, Jackson State University, Hinds Community College, and the Bean Path.

Joey Deason, executive director of the Madison County Economic Development Authority, told WLBT that behind-the-scenes talks are standard for projects of this scale. He said it took nearly seven years to land Amazon Web Services in Madison County, and premature announcements could have killed the deal. 'Companies don't want the competition to know where they're going, what they're doing, and their plans for the future,' Deason said.

The timing raises a question the council will have to answer: does the moratorium stop a project the administration had already been negotiating? The moratorium ordinance, passed July 14, imposes a temporary ban on new data center permits while the city studies their impact. The Lake Hico documents suggest the administration was further along in its planning than the council debate suggested.

Jackson Director of Communications Nic Lott declined to comment on the records. The council's moratorium is set to expire after a study period, but the Lake Hico documents make clear that the conversation about data centers in Jackson is far from over.