JAY — The Select Board on Monday approved a 42‑article warrant for the annual town meeting and voted to support a project to build a small data center at the former Androscoggin Mill site.
Following a public hearing at which no one spoke, the board voted unanimously to send the warrant to voters at the annual town meeting.
Jay conducts its town meeting by secret ballot, with voting scheduled from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. April 28 at the Jay Community Building at 13 Community Drive.
The warrant includes 25 spending articles, ranging from $250 for the Memorial Day parade to $2,014,913 for the Public Works Department.
The five‑member Select Board and the nine‑member Budget Committee approved all spending items Jan. 27.
Three measures drew negative votes from Select Board members, and three drew opposition from Budget Committee members.
The major disagreement centered on trash and recyclables pickup. In the end, the board voted to split the two items, allocating $200,000 for trash pickup by a new contractor and $10,000 for recyclables, contingent on passage of the trash article.
The new contractor for trash hauling, Riverside Disposal of Augusta, will succeed Archie’s of Mexico, which had been the subject of resident complaints. Riverside is scheduled to begin pickups July 1.
The largest spending items, other than Public Works, are: police at $1,179,363; operation of town government, $739,725; the Fire Department, $454,206, along with a separate article to move $183,000 from a reserve fund for new equipment at Station No. 2; the paving capital reserve fund, $350,000; debt service, $321,000; and the Jay‑Niles Memorial Library, $316,834.
Jay voters will also be asked to freeze rent increases at mobile home parks, retroactive to Dec. 8, and to authorize the tax collector to establish “tax clubs” that allow residents to pay their taxes monthly rather than twice a year.
Most of Monday’s meeting focused on a request from JGT2 Redevelopment LLC for a letter of support for a data center proposed at the former Androscoggin Mill. JGT2 purchased the property in 2023 after Pixelle Specialty Solutions Inc. closed the mill following a digester explosion earlier that year.
Tony McDonald, one of four principals of JGT2, said the Jay project is threatened by a bill in the Maine Legislature, L.D. 307, sponsored by Rep. Melanie Sachs, D‑Freeport. Sachs, who grew up in nearby New Sharon, chairs the Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology.
McDonald asked the board for a letter supporting the project, urging the Legislature to exempt Jay because substantial work has already been done at the site.
Sachs’ bill would prevent state, local and quasi‑governmental agencies from issuing permits or other approvals until 90 days after the end of the legislative session. It would apply to all centers with electricity loads of 20 megawatts or more.
On March 5, the committee voted 8‑5 along party lines to recommend passage of LD 307 to the full Legislature. A minority report from the five members who opposed the bill — all Republicans on the committee — would allow the Jay project, a project in Sanford and possibly one in Limestone to continue.
If passed as written, the bill would create a “Data Center Coordination Council” to study the effects of data centers on Maine. The council, also established by the bill, would be given time to study and review the potential impacts of building the centers in the state.
“The moratorium would kill this project,” McDonald said.
JGT2 has a contract requiring it to strip the buildings of all equipment by Jan. 1, 2027, and turn them over to the operator. That work is well underway, and the paper machines have been dismantled and shipped to Pakistan.
After a long discussion, the board voted 4‑0 to ask Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere to prepare a letter of support to be signed by board members. Selectman Gary McGrane abstained, telling McDonald he wants to learn more about the data center before backing it.
McDonald emphasized the distinction between data centers and artificial intelligence. In short, all artificial intelligence relies on data centers, but not all data centers host AI operations.
He added that his company is “not data cowboys running around the country trying to slap these centers together.”
Large AI centers serve multiple purposes, but smaller centers typically handle a single task, such as answering questions about urology or other specialized topics, he said. He added that Americans already use data centers every day without involving AI — email and Instagram are two examples.
JGT2’s client has been identified as Sentinel Data Centers LLC of New York City.
“Our project is not the bogeyman the drafters of LD 307 are worried about,” McDonald told the board.
He offered these assurances:
- Water use: The data center, built as a small language model, would use less than 1% of the water once consumed by the Androscoggin Mill. Its cooling system would be closed‑loop, requiring about 300,000 gallons of Androscoggin River water a day to replace evaporation. The mill used 35 million to 40 million gallons daily, he said.
- Power demand: The center’s solar system would generate up to 150 megawatts of electricity. On cloudy days with little or no solar output, the facility would draw no more than 25 megawatts from Central Maine Power Co. McDonald said CMP has assured JGT2 that its 82‑megawatt supply in Jay could handle that load. “We would need no changes to the grid,” he said.
- Jobs: During construction, the project would employ 800 to 1,000 workers, and once operating would support 125 to 150 “high‑paying” jobs. More than 80% of those workers would come from western Maine, he said, adding that their wages would boost the state’s income tax base.
- Tax base: The project represents a $550 million investment, he said. Typically, the taxable equipment inside a data center is valued at 1.5 to two times the construction cost, which would significantly increase Jay’s property tax base.
- Site cleanup and preparation: McDonald said the developers have removed environmental hazards, including asbestos, and received approval from the Maine Public Utilities Commission to use the on-site hydroelectric power. They have also demolished about 425,000 square feet of obsolete buildings to clear space for development.
- Project history: He said the group shifted toward a data center after the Godfrey Forest Products plan to build an oriented strand board mill collapsed. Federal tariffs undermined Godfrey’s financing, he said, and the company “has walked away from” the project.
McDonald said he expects an amendment to L.D. 307 to be introduced on the House or Senate floor to exempt Jay.
“I don’t want to kill 307,” he said. “That bill just isn’t about us. It’s about something else.”
Outside the meeting, Joel Gilbert, former president of the Jay-Livermore-Livermore Falls Chamber of Commerce, said his organization will also write a letter of support.
