Mendocino County supes ban data centers—for the moment, at least

MENDOCINO CO., 9/2/2026 — Mendocino County supervisors voted 5-0 Tuesday to adopt an urgency ordinance barring any new data center in the unincorporated county, the land outside city limits. It took effect immediately and runs 45 days, to Oct. 16, unless the board extends it.

The board packet names no applicant. The ordinance says only that the county “anticipates receiving” inquiries and applications.

Deputy County Counsel Matthew Kiedrowski said the county code doesn’t define or regulate data centers, so one could be approved through a routine building permit.

The reasoning behind the moratorium, he said, is “to prevent the applications coming in for construction of buildings that could be used as data centers and could be processed under a building permit.”

The board told staff to write the ordinance on July 7, a board ad hoc committee worked on the language, with District 3 Supervisor John Haschak and District 5 Supervisor Ted Williams sponsoring it.

The ban is broad. It covers hyperscale and colocation facilities, cloud computing, artificial intelligence training and inference, high-performance computing, and blockchain and cryptocurrency mining. It stops every kind of permit — use permits, variances, grading permits, building permits. Server closets, ordinary office computers, emergency communications and utility facilities are exempt, and anyone with approvals already in hand keeps them.

Before public comment, the board polled itself. “So it looks like 5-0 at this point to support the ordinance,” Chair Bernie Norvell said. Then he opened the floor to public comments.

Eileen Russell, community engagement manager for Mendocino Redwood Company, asked the board to leave room for the industry. Her company’s sister firm runs the sawmill in Ukiah.

“There is a new wave of renewable energy ideas which include co-locating data centers with the sawmill for use of renewable heat, power and water,” she said. The mill needs heat “for the process of drying lumber,” she said. Data centers “could provide value in creating jobs and improving infrastructure.”

Gizmo, a regular at the public comment microphone, told the board he was speaking for Dolly Riley, chair of the Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council, who couldn’t attend. He asked for 90 days instead of 45, because a renewal hearing in October runs up against the holidays. Riley said in an email Thursday that she had not asked him to speak for her or for the council, which had sent its own letter to the board. He is not a member, she said, and the council had taken no vote.

Ellen Drell, who helped found the Willits Environmental Center, supported the moratorium and wanted it extended — a year or two, she said, to vet the issue. She asked for three changes.

“I’ve seen pictures of data centers that spread over hundreds of acres of flat farmland,” she said, asking that loss of farmland be added to the findings that support the ordinance. “Mendocino County is not that well endowed with flat farmland.”

Add the county’s carbon goals, she said, because “so much of the booming alternative energy now is going to serve data centers instead of the basic needs that we have for power in this society.”

And strike “public safety” from the list of exempt uses, keeping only emergency communications and emergency operations.

“So often, especially in the public’s mind and in reality, public safety is equated with policing powers,” Drell said. “Much of this data is based on surveillance, which is very troubling to the public, and it’s getting worse and worse and worse.” She named Flock license plate reader cameras, GPS devices, and facial and voice recognition.

Supervisor Williams offered a fix: put “local” in front of public safety.

“We want to exempt our sheriff and other local public safety agencies,” he said. “But I think what you’re describing is we don’t want that to be used as an excuse for outside forces to come in and claim that it’s public safety processing.”

“I haven’t talked to the sheriff about this, and I don’t know to what extent they feel Flock camera information and GPS information is really important to their operations,” he said.

Rex Gressett said he wants to know whether a data center company is already talking to the county.

“I’d like to know if they have made contact with the county already,” he said. “And I filed a Freedom of Information Act request to check out some texts and emails and nondisclosure agreements to see if that’s been the case.”

He also said the county’s permitting is already strict. You can’t put up a shed here, he said, “without regulators coming down on you and making you jump through a bunch of hoops and then shaking you down.”

Anna Stockel thinks the ban is a bad idea. “If we called this a factory, and if it were a factory and not a data center, I don’t think it would be getting the same level of pushback,” she said. “It’s just that the output happens to be AI, and it happens to be data, right, and not widgets.”

Williams’ language and Drell’s request for additional findings weren’t adopted. Norvell asked whether members were comfortable passing what they had and bringing the wording back on Sept. 15. Supervisor John Haschak moved it, Williams seconded, and the board voted unanimously to enact the temporary ban.

Counsel Kiedrowski said he expects to be back before the board on Oct. 6 with a public hearing on extending it, which under state law can keep the moratorium in place for as long as two years.

Update 9/3/2026: This article has been updated to include a comment from Dolly Riley.