On January 16th, 2026, more than a month after the surprise guest visitor appeared at the December Board Meeting, our Village announced a “Special” Plan Commission Meeting scheduled for February 2nd to, “Welcome Resident Input For the Consideration of a Possible Data Center Development.” That announcement was posted to both the Village Facebook Page and Website.
On January 26th the regular meeting of the Barrington Hills Board of Trustees took place. Minutes posted from that meeting include the following:
“Attorney Sean Conway thanked everyone for coming, and touched upon various points, including:
- The Board originally scheduled the Plan Commission Special Meeting only as an informational meeting for the public.
- The data center developer informed the Village that they are not interested in presenting or pursuing it at this time. Thus, the Plan Commission Special Meeting was cancelled.
- No plans of any kind were submitted to the Village.
PUBLIC COMMENT
- Mary Ellen Peterson regarding the data center
- Aaron Becker regarding spot rezoning
- Tony Bojiorno regarding the data center
- Chris Yamamoto regarding land stewardship and the data center
- Ron Barlow regarding data centers relative to horses
- Karen Trzaska regarding the data center
- Caitlyn Sieg regarding the data center
- Representative Martin McLaughlin regarding the data center
President Cecola reiterated that to be transparent to the residents, the special meeting was scheduled (But NOT posted on his agenda) for informational purposes only. He shared there is a possibility this project might deannex from the Village. The Board has the Village’s best interests and continues to support residential 5-acre zoning, green space, and protecting its borders, providing the Penny Road Pub annexation as an example.
Trustee Hoffmann acknowledged Rep. Mclaughlin’s comment, highlighting the importance of the agenda are reflecting exactly what the Board will be discussing to ensure transparency and trust with the residents.
Trustee McClary agreed with Trustee Hoffmann’s comment, adding her concern if the data center does deannex, the Village may face negative impacts and not be in a position for mitigation.
Trustee Ekstrom concurred with Trustee Hoffmann’s comment and shared her concerns about the property disconnecting, touching upon noise mitigation, water recirculation, regulations and strategy to protect the land.”
We will share the transcript of all comments, but it is very important for people to read the comments made by the most experienced person in the room that evening regarding the, “110 Acre AI data center campus pitched to Village Board”:
“Good evening everybody. Uh, Martin McLaughlin… former President of Barrington Hills, currently State Representative in the 52nd District, where I serve 12 villages, up from 4,000 people to about 120,000.
I was called by a ton of residents regarding this issue, and I want to thank all the trustees for volunteers. I know these are all highly paid positions… just for the audience, you don’t get any money working in these positions, but you get a lot of this, which is trying to look down the road and protect what’s best for the village.
I have worked with some of these people professionally, the attorney, the administrator, the clerk, and I often said that their job is to put a 5-rail fence up so that the trustees know what they can and cannot do. You cannot have a presentation from an outside group with questions and answers in advance of a planning and zone commission.
How do I know this? Because former Village Attorney Pat Bond stopped us from doing exactly the same thing when someone wanted to come and develop Penny Road Pub into a retail center. We had a developer come with presentations, and we stopped them based on the attorney’s recommendation, and the village administrator. I was actually shocked to find out that that occurred prior to a planned committee meeting.
What I want to say about it is this, the history of this Village is we are constantly under attack for our zoning laws. This is not the first time this has happened. It will not be the last. But you need to be aware of this: A year ago and 2 months, East Dundee changed their zoning for the adjacent property to M1, M2 manufacturing industrial, manufacturing industrial light. That means that somebody a year and 2 months ago in East Dundee was aware that they were hoping that they could grab the adjacent land in Barrington Hills.
Here’s how this works for everyone in the audience. The 2-mile or 1.5-mile doesn’t exist, unless you have an intergovernmental agreement with East Dundee. Barrington Hills does not have an intergovernmental agreement for development with East Dundee. The reason? Our former President, before I was here, sued them so often, and they were so angry that they would never enter into an agreement with us. I would recommend that the Board do that immediately. I will do everything I can in my power to sit down with East Dundee to get a development agreement.
Further, I want to give a little history of the Village. The Iatarola property at 59 and 72 was disconnected prior to my time as Village President, and someday it’ll be high rises and retail center. Kennedy, Bill Kennedy, a developer in Carpentersville, had 300 acres a number of years ago. The village said, we’re not interested in doing feathered development. I call it the F word of Barrington Hills. They disconnected, and instead they put quarter-acre and eighth-acre homes there. My point is, you guys have an opportunity to work with your neighbors.
You have an opportunity to get out ahead of this. And the administration, the administrator and the attorney have an obligation to make sure that they keep these trustees out of trouble and make sure they do the right thing. And if that includes being rude to a developer that shows up here to speak beyond 3 minutes at this podium, I strongly urge that the professionals in this room do that.
Because I’ve been in that seat and I’ve often said, I’m not a professional politician. I manage a pension fund for a reason. So those of you that are paid to keep these guys out of trouble, please do your job next time. Don’t allow that to ever happen again. And please, Village President, communicate with me because I need to know what’s happening when I reach out to you. He did, he gave me communication, but I need details so I don’t have to come here and find out.
I appreciate all the work that you guys do. Thank you.”
A transcript of the proceedings from the January 26th Board Meeting, including all public comments described in the January Board of Trustees Minutes, voted on and approved by the Board, can be found here. The audio recording from the meeting can be found here.
Editorial note: We found the comments of Trustees Hoffman and Ekstrom, who each stated that they were unaware that the Data Center pitch and guest speaker would be addressing the Board at the December 15th Board Meeting, particularly interesting. McClary, in her agreement with Hoffman, appears to had been similarly left in the dark.
Related: “Do you trust our Board of Trustees? We don’t. But you decide for yourself once we have finished. (Part 1),” “7 things to know about Illinois data centers,” “Data Center group concerned over pause,” “110 Acre AI data center campus pitched to Village Board”
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