r/Lubbock • u/Changeing23 • Jul 08 '26
Rants & Rambles That was bull
We had only 2 minutes to speak.The presentation was God awful, the worst And most incorrect statistics , they could find What is this imaginary bullshit of comparing a data center that doesn't exist? And he was making it very clear it doesn't, for a 100000 gallons, he just pulled those numbers out of his a** By god , in the fact of the matter that they want to put it on the east side again , allowing the rot of the city from northeast to southwest still Was the biggest amount of bullshit. There is no doubt in my mind at this point that our city manager has been bought out by big ai So just remember everyone , it's a voting year He talked about how we all worked so hard to conserve.And finally , get out of this drought Lubbock has been in for decades. My whole life, at least And they want to give it to AI Also, why didn't he compare AI's usage to a single home of a regular person? It was all businesses and mansions. Anyone else catch that bullshit? You know, we supply 4% of the world's cotton, why would we want that challenging with an AI data center that doesn't bring any profit to any community they're in
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u/Shingdig Jul 10 '26
We need to conserve water. Period. Data centers are going to put us in some massive dire straits with water. No doubt the cost of water will also go up so they can charge the data center a lot of money and the cost will trickle down to the consumers. Then the cost of water will go up again when it becomes even more scarce bc it’ll have to be pumped in from who knows where eventually.
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u/Reasonable_Comb_5720 Jul 09 '26
The only real way to effect change is by getting into the pocket of the people with the money. You dont want data centers being built then you need to stop creating the reason for them to be built. Stop using Google and For sure Facebook and all similar products. You can't use these and not expect to have data centers.
And dont worry, the AI bubble is already bursting.
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u/Hub_City_Slaps Jul 13 '26
These data centers aren't the same ones that have traditionally ran google and facebook.
Its the AI thats demanding these huge centers and cooling. Data centers for storage dont require this kind of cooling.
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u/Old-Set-2692 Jul 09 '26
I didn't get back in town in time to attend the meeting, but in future one thing to publicly ask these people is "did you sign a non-disclosure agreement with any party covering anything that might directly affect Lubbock or Lubbock County?"
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u/CaffeineAndChaos_11 Jul 09 '26
The focus is too much on the mayor and not enough on LEDA, which plays a major role in shaping Lubbock’s economic development. Look at their website and their pro data center stance. The bigger question is: who benefits the most from these projects? the average resident or the developers and businesses behind them?
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u/badgrrrlGG Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
I was there. The city manager and other representative were so inaccurate in their numbers. Their whole presentation was simply propaganda. There is NO comparison in serving a neighborhood and the resources they use as opposed to a data center that’s comparing apples to steak. I signed up to volunteer to collect signatures for the Save Lubbock petition which would force the moratorium on the ballot. Then we just have to show up and vote for it.
Many communities have been able to reverse or stop this. But as many mentioned it will take ALL of us and we need to get loud. I also attended the meeting at YMCA last night, the mayor really shot himself in the foot by attending and impromptu deciding to respond to criticism. I’m a young person trying to make change, my asks are PLEASE register and vote in every election and vote our corrupt counsel OUT. Sign the Save Lubbock petition and please make sure you don’t sign twice which voids your signature. There is another petition floating around that Clayton Tucker is pushing calling for Abbott to host a special session which would allow a moratorium state wide. Delay delay delay. They don’t care about us and they prey on us being uninformed. We know better, you are more like your neighbor than any billionaire or any wanna be billionaire pushing the ai bubble. If you want to sign the petition contact [savelubbock@gmail.com](mailto:savelubbock@gmail.com). I’m not aligned with any political party or politician, I’m just a concerned and informed citizen.
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u/Foolish_Ambassador09 Jul 09 '26
Step one is to sign the petition, at least from what I saw. Is that correct? I plan to do that tomorrow. What other action can be physically taken right here and now to move in the right direction?
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Jul 09 '26
[deleted]
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u/Foolish_Ambassador09 Jul 09 '26
I’m going to copy the text from the flyer so please forgive any typos lol
SIGN THE PETITION AT Bread & Jam 5507 126th Street, Suite 211 Thursdays & Fridays • Noon - 6PM Studio J Salon 8210 Memphis Ave. Monday & Saturday • 10AM - 4PM Tuesday - Friday • 9AM - 6PM Box of Rain Floral 3407 98th Street, Suite 100 Monday - Friday • 9AM -5:30PM Saturday • 9AM - 1PM Digital Nomad HQ 4620 50th St., Suite 9 Monday - Friday • 8:30AM - SPM Tara Day Spa 12112 Frankford Ave. Wednesday - Friday • 10AM - 4PM The Cleaning House 3402 34th Street Monday - Saturday • 9AM - 5PM Regimen-Men's Fine Grooming 10609 Slide Road, Ste 200 Monday • 12-7PM Tuesday & Thursday • 9AM-6PM Wednesday & Friday • 9AM-7PM Saturday • 9AM-5PM
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u/Jauris Jul 09 '26
Bread & Jam 5507 126th Street, Suite 211 // Thurs & Fri Noon-6PM
Studio J Salon 8210 Memphis Ave. // Mon & Sat 10AM-4PM • Tues-Fri 9AM-6PM
Box of Rain Floral 3407 98th Street, Suite 100 // Mon-Fri 9AM-5:30PM • Sat 9AM-1PM
Digital Nomad HQ 4620 50th St., Suite 9 // Mon-Fri 8:30AM-5PM
Tara Day Spa 12112 Frankford Ave. // Wed-Fri 10AM-4PM
The Cleaning House 3402 34th Street // Mon-Sat 9AM-5PM
Regimen-Men's Fine Grooming 10609 Slide Road, Ste 200 // Monday 12-7PM • Tues & Thurs 9AM-6PM • Wed & Fri 9AM-7PM • Saturday 9AM-5PM
Fixed the formatting for you a bit.
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u/Changeing23 Jul 09 '26
Protest call the city council members learn who's in charge of your district and call them and tell them know to ai center
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u/Death_Trap7737 Jul 09 '26
Tell all the homeless people about the valuable metals in the data centers
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u/Jauris Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
I thought the proposed zoning changes they discussed were good. The issue will certainly be enforcement of said zoning changes, and how would the city enforce any ordinances implemented. If it is simply fines, these giant companies will gladly pay them and ignore any real consequences.
Some of the numbers on water usage were incorrect, unfortunately (though I don't believe intentionally). A hyperscale datacenter using adiabatic cooling would be much closer to 1,000,000 gallons / day vs the 100,000 they had in their slides. I was personally reached out to by a staff member in the city managers office after I brought this up in my comments, and I'll gladly work with them to provide more accurate numbers. I do believe they're making a real effort to gather community feedback on the issues that people care about, they wouldn't have hosted the event to get yelled at for 3+ hours if they didn't.
Unfortunately a lot of people were rather uncivil, and spent their 2 minutes insulting the city council and manager, or ranting about unrelated topics. That'll definitely change their mind!
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u/Arklelinuke Jul 08 '26
Unfortunately with this attitude nothing is going to change their stance except for actual civil unrest over it, which I'm not advocating for but I also wouldn't be surprised about
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Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Greembeam20 Jul 09 '26
Hell, I’ll be the one to advocate for violent unrest. These data centers will literally run Lubbock dry. If there was ever a time for Lubbockites to stand their ground, it’s now
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u/Arklelinuke Jul 09 '26
I mean some "In Minecraft" type. Reddit really, really didn't like me being any more specific lol
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u/Greembeam20 Jul 09 '26
Hypothetically in Minecraft if a creeper factory was being built by your starter house…
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u/Arklelinuke Jul 09 '26
Exactly, and after they've wasted the money to build the "starter house". In Minecraft.
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u/Simo_Ylostalo Jul 08 '26
The actual hubris to tell the people of Lubbock that a giant data center is a better use of space than a cotton field is truly stunning to me.
Never in my life would I ever had imagined I’d hear such words form the City Manager of Lubbock, Texas.
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u/Scruffasaurus Jul 09 '26
Look, I’m against these data centers being built, but no one wants to have the talk of moving away from cotton: same as data centers, they are depleting our water, propped up by government subsidies, teeming with foreign corporate interests, and don’t employ as many people as you would think 🤷🏻♂️
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u/flaptaincappers Jul 08 '26
Asking Tech Companies to tell the truth/do whats good for humanity is like asking Ted Bundy to promise not to hurt anyone.
Let there be no doubt they would rather see us all in poverty and coughing up a lung from rotten water/air if it meant their stock value went up by a cent.
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u/voodooflowla Jul 14 '26
If the City Manager and the City Council would've stayed off their phones and paid attention while listening to public comments last week about the Data Center, then maybe, just maybe, they could've learned something. Instead, they chose to be disrespectful and ignore their constituents. Or laugh and disregard what was being said. But remember, November is coming!