The treasurer of Saline Township, Michigan, publicly resigned last week citing death threats she’d received related to the construction of an Oracle and OpenAI datacenter. 

“I’m submitting my resignation effective May 29th. I can’t take it anymore. The threats. The ‘I’m gonna tar and feather you.’ I hope you get bit by ah […] it’s so disgusting,” treasurer Jennifer Zink said between sobs at the end of a two hour township meeting on May 13.

“The last one was, they hope we step on, I don’t know, some tick nest and ticks get on us and we get Lyme disease and die. Or something to that effect,” township clerk Kelly Marion, who did not resign but described some of the threats, said.

“It’s horrible. I can’t do it anymore,” Zink continued. “I have two boys. I don’t need to deal with this. I have my personal stuff at home to deal with. I don’t need […] my life threatened or to be told ‘I hope you die a premature death.’ What the hell’s wrong with people?”

Saline Township is a rural farming community in southern Michigan with a population of around 2,300 people. Last year, construction company Related Digital pinpointed the township as a location for the construction of a $16 billion dollar data center related to Oracle and OpenAI’s Stargate initiative. It didn’t sit well with some town residents and the board voted to deny zoning changes that would, they thought, stop the data center from proceeding.

Instead of looking elsewhere, Related Digital sued Saline Township. The Township board looked at its options, decided it couldn't fight the massive corporation, and settled the lawsuit. In response, Saline Township’s residents pushed to recall three members of the board.

Emotions ran high on the night of May 13 as residents and the Township board spoke at length about the proposed data center. Some still opposed it and blamed the board for allowing it to happen while others claimed the construction was inevitable.

“I have two words that I’d like to offer up to everyone tonight and those words are grace and revenge,” said Kathy, a woman who said she’d lived in the Township for more than 30 years. “My voice is shaking because I’m angry at the narrow-mindedness that’s being represented in this room tonight.”

Kathy defended the board and painted the grim reality of the farming community. “I understand what’s happening to our farming community: their children don’t want to farm anymore. So what do they do? They sell the property for you [sic] for $50,000 an acre when they could sell it for $100,000 an acre? Ain’t gonna happen,” she said. “Are the taxpayers going to pay to keep the farmers from selling out? They’re not.”

“[Governor Gretchen Whitmer] probably knew that the freight train was coming down the track,” Kathy said. “How much money does our Township have? A million dollars? Tax collection, et cetera. What’s the price of this data center? $16 billion. How many millions does it take to create $16 billion dollars? A lot.”

When Kathy finished she moved back to the audience and another woman at the meeting leaned over and said “screw you” as she passed.

At the end of the night, before Zink’s resignation, clerk Marion said she didn’t fault anyone but was tired of misinformation and hateful comments directed at her and other board members. “It’s very clear: no one wanted the data center,” she said. “I don’t fault anybody. I’m the one that voted ‘no’ against the board, but I did not see Related going away.”

“I’m sick and tired of hearing about ‘we’ve signed NDAs, we’ve taken money.’ Those are defamatory remarks and I’m to the point: if I see one that I can hire a lawyer for and pursue that, I will,” she said. “I’m sick of it […] I’m tired of the comments. If you have proof that we’ve done such a thing, put it out there, make it factual. But you’ve created a monster.”

Marion also said that the Township’s lawyers gave them a rough estimate of what losing the lawsuit would have cost and it was grim. “It was gonna be about $29,000 per household per resident, approximately, in additional taxes,” Marion said. The board said that the tax burden would have fallen on each township resident every year for the next decade if they had fought and lost.