# 2026-05 County Judge Executive Order Pauses Data-Center Planning Applications On or about 2026-05-28, following the Quorum Court's failed data-center moratorium vote of 2026-05-26, Pulaski County Judge [[Barry Hyde]] issued an executive order directing the county Planning & Development Department not to accept new site-plan / planning applications for thirty (30) days. As reported, the order states that *"High Intensity Digital Infrastructure are of great concern to the citizens of Pulaski County,"* and it carves out applications for mobile-home parks, RV parks, and multi-family residential developments. Press accounts describe the order as a temporary administrative pause on *accepting* applications — not as a repeal or cancellation of any ordinance or of the five measures the Quorum Court referred to the County Planning Board the same week (see [[2026-05 Pulaski County Quorum Court Refers Five Data-Center Measures to Planning Board]]). ## Sources - KARK, KLRT-Fox16, and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette coverage, 2026-05-28 — Tier-3. (Web-archive capture warranted; not yet archived as of 2026-05-29.) > [!web-research-unresolved] > The primary executive-order text has not been obtained. Open lint: (1) the exact scope — whether the 30-day pause reaches all planning/site-plan applications or only data-center / "high intensity digital infrastructure" applications; (2) the precise effective and expiry dates; (3) whether the order does anything to the five measures referred to the Planning Board, or is solely an application-intake pause. Resolve via a records request to the County Judge's office for the signed order. Available press supports an *application pause*; do not assert a cancellation of referred measures absent the primary document. ## What happened After the Quorum Court parliamentarian's 2026-05-28 determination that the 2026-05-26 moratorium ordinance had failed — it did not reach the two-thirds (10 of 15) vote an emergency ordinance requires (see [[2026-05 Pulaski County Quorum Court Vote on Data Center Moratorium]]) — the County Judge issued an executive order instructing Planning & Development ([[Jim Cranor]], interim director) to stop accepting new site-plan / planning applications for 30 days, excepting mobile-home parks, RV parks, and multi-family developments. The stated rationale was that high-intensity digital infrastructure is "of great concern to the citizens of Pulaski County." ## Significance - **A lame-duck executive's temporary substitute for the failed legislative moratorium.** With the Quorum Court's twelve-month moratorium having failed on the emergency-clause threshold, the County Judge's 30-day administrative pause is the only county-level brake on new data-center intake currently in effect — far shorter than the twelve months the ordinance sought, and administrative rather than legislative. - **It interacts with the vesting question.** A pause on *accepting* new applications temporarily forecloses any new data-center application from vesting during the window, but the window is ~30 days; the Planning Board's referred-measures process (90 days) and any reintroduced ordinance run on longer clocks. The relationship of the pause's expiry to those longer tracks is a live timing question. - **The County Judge's posture is mixed and procedurally relevant.** The County Judge retains veto power over any data-center ordinance through the end of the term (see [[Barry Hyde]]); a brake issued by the same office that holds the veto bears on how a future ordinance fares. ## Cross-references - [[2026-05 Pulaski County Quorum Court Vote on Data Center Moratorium]] — the failed ordinance this order followed. - [[2026-05 Pulaski County Quorum Court Refers Five Data-Center Measures to Planning Board]] — the separate, surviving track the order does not (per available reporting) disturb. - [[Barry Hyde]] — issuing County Judge. - [[Jim Cranor]] — interim director of the department directed to pause intake. - [[Site plan review]] — the administrative process the pause suspends for new applicants. ## Open follow-ups 1. **Records request to the County Judge's office** for the signed executive-order text — to pin scope, effective date, and expiry, and to confirm whether it touches the referred measures. 2. **Web-archive** the KARK / Fox16 / ADG coverage per the wiki's archive discipline. 3. **Expiry watch:** calendar the ~30-day expiry (≈ late June 2026) against the Planning Board's 90-day referral clock and any Quorum Court reintroduction.