The treasurer of Saline Township, Michigan, publicly resigned last week citing death threats she\u2019d received related to the construction of an Oracle and OpenAI datacenter.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m submitting my resignation effective May 29th. I can\u2019t take it anymore. The threats. The \u2018I\u2019m gonna tar and feather you.\u2019 I hope you get bit by ah [\u2026] it\u2019s so disgusting,\u201d treasurer Jennifer Zink said between sobs at the end of a two hour township meeting on May 13.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last one was, they hope we step on, I don\u2019t know, some tick nest and ticks get on us and we get Lyme disease and die. Or something to that effect,\u201d township clerk Kelly Marion, who did not resign but described some of the threats, said.\u201cIt\u2019s horrible. I can\u2019t do it anymore,\u201d Zink continued. \u201cI have two boys. I don\u2019t need to deal with this. I have my personal stuff at home to deal with. I don\u2019t need [\u2026] my life threatened or to be told \u2018I hope you die a premature death.\u2019 What the hell\u2019s wrong with people?\u201d<\/p>\n
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Saline Township Treasurer resigning after death threats. Full video on YouTube.
\n 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\u2019s Stargate initiative. It didn\u2019t 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\u2019s 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.\u201cI have two words that I\u2019d like to offer up to everyone tonight and those words are grace and revenge,\u201d said Kathy, a woman who said she\u2019d lived in the Township for more than 30 years. \u201cMy voice is shaking because I\u2019m angry at the narrow-mindedness that\u2019s being represented in this room tonight.\u201dKathy defended the board and painted the grim reality of the farming community. \u201cI understand what\u2019s happening to our farming community: their children don\u2019t 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\u2019t gonna happen,\u201d she said. \u201cAre the taxpayers going to pay to keep the farmers from selling out? They\u2019re not.\u201d\u201c[Governor Gretchen Whitmer] probably knew that the freight train was coming down the track,\u201d Kathy said. \u201cHow much money does our Township have? A million dollars? Tax collection, et cetera. What\u2019s the price of this data center? $16 billion. How many millions does it take to create $16 billion dollars? A lot.\u201dWhen Kathy finished she moved back to the audience and another woman at the meeting leaned over and said \u201cscrew you\u201d as she passed.At the end of the night, before Zink\u2019s resignation, clerk Marion said she didn\u2019t fault anyone but was tired of misinformation and hateful comments directed at her and other board members. \u201cIt\u2019s very clear: no one wanted the data center,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t fault anybody. I\u2019m the one that voted \u2018no\u2019 against the board, but I did not see Related going away.\u201d\u201cI\u2019m sick and tired of hearing about \u2018we\u2019ve signed NDAs, we\u2019ve taken money.\u2019 Those are defamatory remarks and I\u2019m to the point: if I see one that I can hire a lawyer for and pursue that, I will,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m sick of it [\u2026] I\u2019m tired of the comments. If you have proof that we\u2019ve done such a thing, put it out there, make it factual. But you\u2019ve created a monster.\u201dMarion also said that the Township\u2019s lawyers gave them a rough estimate of what losing the lawsuit would have cost and it was grim. \u201cIt was gonna be about $29,000 per household per resident, approximately, in additional taxes,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"