A city contractor getting paid $115 an hour by your taxes just told a room full of neighbors that “the public isn’t my boss.” She then recommended a $500M data center on lead-poisoned soil in one of Indy’s oldest Black neighborhoods.

The Deal

The lot at 2505 North Sherman Drive used to be the Sherman Drive-In. It’s been vacant for a long time. Now a company from Los Angeles called Metrobloks wants to turn it into a five hundred million dollar data center. They say it’ll be a high tech hub for the historic neighborhood. They promise it’ll bring economic investment to an area that’s been ignored for decades.

Neighbors aren’t buying it. They’ve spent months organizing against the plan. They’re worried about the noise from massive cooling fans. They’re worried about diesel fuel stored on site for backup generators. Most of all, they’re worried about the soil. That land is already contaminated with lead.

Construction could kick up dust that poisons the kids living next door. The developer says they’ll manage the risk. They offered two point five million dollars for infrastructure and affordable housing. That sounds like a lot of money to most people. It’s less than one percent of what they’re spending on the building.

“The Public Isn’t My Boss”

Judy Weerts Hall is the hearing examiner for the Metropolitan Development Commission. She’s the one who makes the initial recommendation on these deals. Dozens of people showed up on February 12 to ask her to say no. They had twenty minutes to plead for their neighborhood.

Councilor Jesse Brown told her that the people in the room were her bosses. Weerts Hall didn’t like that. She told the crowd that the public isn’t her boss. She said the mayor isn’t her boss either. She claimed she’s an independent person making decisions based on her background.

The city has paid Weerts Hall more than one hundred and nine thousand dollars since 2016. She gets one hundred and fifteen dollars an hour in taxpayer money. Her contract says she’s an independent contractor. That apparently means she doesn’t think she answers to the people paying her bills.

It’s a bold thing to say to a room full of Black residents who feel ignored by the city.

The Numbers That Don’t Lie

While the city chases data center crumbs, the people are drowning. Marion County logs twenty four thousand two hundred and sixteen eviction filings every single year. That’s a fourteen percent filing rate. One of the highest in the nation.

Fifty two percent of Black residents faced eviction in the past year. The average rent has gone up fifty percent in ten years. People are paying thirteen hundred dollars for apartments that used to be eight hundred. Half of all renters in the county are cost-burdened.

Over two hundred and eight thousand people in Indianapolis live in food deserts. They can’t find a fresh head of lettuce. But the city will find the power to run a thousand servers.

What Happens Next

The vote on the Martindale-Brightwood rezoning is delayed until April. The neighborhood won a little more time to fight. But the pattern is already set. Weerts Hall just recommended approval for a four billion dollar data center in Decatur Township. She did that despite sixteen hundred neighbors signing a petition against it.

The city has paid Weerts Hall over $109,000 since 2016 to tell you she doesn’t answer to you. That’s more than most families in Martindale-Brightwood see in three years.

If the people paying the bills aren’t the boss, who is?