# County to get second bite at moratorium on data center project (Arkansas Times) > *Tier-3 news archive. Arkansas Times report on Wendell Griffen's refiled 12-month moratorium ordinance, sponsored by JPs Tina Ward, Julie Blackwood and Rebekah Davis, ahead of the June 9 agenda meeting. The original HTML is preserved alongside this extract.* ## Source metadata - **Publisher:** Arkansas Times (arktimes.com) - **URL:** https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2026/06/04/county-to-get-second-bite-at-moratorium-on-data-center-project - **Byline:** Byron Tate - **Published:** 2026-06-04T22:43:31Z - **Archived:** 2026-06-11, by Invoke-WebRequest (HTTP 200, 275,420 bytes) - **Wayback snapshot:** http://web.archive.org/web/20260609113034/... — pre-existing snapshot found via the availability API (2026-06-09 UTC, post-dating publication); no new SPN submitted. ## Extract Wendell Griffen will try again to put the brakes on a proposed data center being planned for the Wrightsville area. Griffen, the Democratic candidate for county judge of Pulaski County, sent out a proposed ordinance on Thursday, calling for a 12-month moratorium on data centers and other large-scale projects that he is hoping county officials will take up at this month's Quorum Court meeting. A similar proposal narrowly failed at the May Quorum Court meeting, but Griffen thinks the votes will be on his side this time around. "I think the justices of the peace are very much interested in studying and carefully regulating this new industry and the land-use it will need," Griffen said Thursday afternoon. "They want to do what's right. They want transparency, not something that was planned in the back room." Griffen, who has taken an oversized role in the data center conversation, has criticized sitting cou[n]try judge Barry Hyde for a lack of transparency, saying Hyde has been quietly working on a data center project being put forth by AVAIO for two years. Griffen's proposed ordinance is being sponsored by Justices of the Peace Tina Ward, Julie Blackwood and Rebekah Davis. The measure is an emergency ordinance, meaning that once it is approved, it goes into effect immediately. Last month, another proposed moratorium ordinance was voted on by the Quorum Court. At first, the county reported that it had passed, but the next day, officials released a statement saying that, in fact, the measure had failed. The key difference between Griffen's ordinance and last month's is that the previous ordinance carved out an exception for the AVAIO project, while this one does not. AVAIO is an infrastructure development firm that is building a massive, $6 billion data center campus. County Attorney Hamilton Kemp urged elected officials last month to make an exception for AVAIO in the proposed moratorium because of legal concerns. Griffen's proposal, called the "Pulaski County High-Impact Industrial and High-Intensity Digital Infrastructure Moratorium Ordinance," calls for a 12-month pause for not only data centers but artificial intelligence computing, cryptocurrency mining, blockchain processing and other high-end projects that require 5 megawatts or more of electricity and more than 100,000 gallons of water a day. The proposal also requires the company behind such projects to submit proof that they have received various approvals to operate. Asked if AVAIO has produced such documents, Griffen answered: "Not to my knowledge." Griffen said he will need eight votes at the June 9 agenda meeting to get the proposal on the agenda, and will need 10 votes at the June 23 Quorum Court meeting to get it passed. "This will be the first of its kind in the state of Arkansas," Griffen said of the proposal. "It will provide a groundbreaking way for communities in the state to plan for these types of industry in a way that won't stop them from coming but protect those communities and how their land is developed." Griffen will face Republican Michael Rushin in the November General Election. ## Notes - Tier: 3 — established news outlet (Arkansas Times). - Anchors: Griffen's proposed ordinance sponsored by JPs Tina Ward, Julie Blackwood, Rebekah Davis; the key difference from the failed May ordinance (the May version carved out an exception for the AVAIO project; Griffen's does not); coverage extends to data centers, artificial intelligence computing, cryptocurrency mining and blockchain processing at thresholds of ≥5 MW electricity and >100,000 gallons of water a day. - **Threshold-conjunction nuance:** this article phrases the thresholds conjunctively ("5 megawatts or more of electricity **and** more than 100,000 gallons of water a day"); the Times's 2026-06-09 meeting story (same archive date) reports the ordinance's definitions as disjunctive ("electrical demand of 5 megawatts or greater **or** water use of 100,000 gallons per day or greater"). The ordinance text itself is the controlling source. - "[C]ou[n]try judge" sic in original ("sitting country judge Barry Hyde"). - Cited by: (populated by wiki pages that reference this archive)