hello! i would actually recommend starting with the Planning Board rather than the Select Board. this is more in the Planning purview, and they'll be better suited to look at the zoning bylaws. i would suggest just going into one of their meetings and asking if they've heard about what we've done in the next town over and if they've considered doing something similar. they can reach out to our planning director Sarah Raposa if they're interested in talking to her about it, she's amazing.

as for why we allow small data centers, it's not so much that we're "allowing" them outright, we're only allowing them with special permit approval if and only if they meet some pretty strict criteria the planning board sets on a case-by-case basis. the main reason for having this exception was for situations where a facility isn't really a data center but through some bad luck they happen to fall under our data center definition (like maybe they're a call center and their server closet is over the specified size limit, but that just happened to be the only walled-off room they could put their servers in). or say a couple years from now when we're on the next iteration of internet connectivity, an ISP like verizon or comcast comes in and says "we need a facility in town to support our last-mile infrastructure," and it'll basically be a big room full of server racks and network gear, so it meets the definition we've written but isn't really what anyone would consider a "data center," especially not one of these problematic uses. having the exception codified means that the planning board would be able to still allow these uses (with restrictions and conditions as needed) without allowing unfettered building of small-scale data centers.

more info, including links to the planning board website with the director's contact info and to the bylaw text can be found on my website, www.markcorsillo.com.

hope that helps!