# Phil Stowers Phil Stowers is the Justice of the Peace representing District 13 on the Pulaski County Quorum Court and the **Vice Chair of the Agenda Committee**. He has served since 2005 — the third-longest current tenure after [[Donna Massey]] (1999) and [[Julie Blackwood]] (2007); his current term runs from 2025-01-01 through 2026-12-31. In addition to the Agenda Vice Chair role, he sits on the Budget Committee (primary public record, [Pulaski County official Quorum Court directory, archived 2026-05-28](../../web%20archive/2026-05-28/pulaskicounty.net/quorum-court.md)). At the contested 2026-05-26 Quorum Court vote on a twelve-month data-center moratorium ordinance (26-I-37A), Stowers sponsored **Amendment 1**, which added the Article 8 grandfather clause (Tier-1 from the #26-341 production; first reported Tier-3 by *Arkansas Times*, 2026-05-27, [archive](../../web%20archive/2026-05-28/arktimes.com/2026-05-27-pulaski-county-data-center-moratorium.md)). The amendment is **criteria-based** — it exempts projects with executed utility-interconnection agreements, final County approvals, or complete interconnection applications — not an explicit AVAIO carve-out, though it reaches the already-approved [[AVAIO Digital Partners|AVAIO Project Leo]] site via its December 2024 approval. His own roll-call positions remain unestablished (the certified worksheets are handwritten and reflect the disavowed miscount); see below. ## Role and affiliations - **Justice of the Peace, Pulaski County Quorum Court, District 13.** Current term: 2025-01-01 through 2026-12-31. - **Committee assignments:** **Agenda Committee — Vice Chair;** Budget Committee. - **Service-start year:** 2005 (third-longest current tenure). - **Party affiliation:** not publicly disclosed on official sources as of 2026-05-28. - **November 2026 ballot status:** to be verified against Pulaski County Clerk election records. ## Contact - **Email:** `[email protected]` (personal address published by Pulaski County on the official directory). - **Phone:** `501-993-6165`. - **Mailing address:** Pulaski County Quorum Court, 201 S. Broadway, Suite 410, Little Rock, AR 72203. ## Data center positions - **Sponsor of the grandfather amendment (Tier-1).** Stowers's **Amendment 1** to the moratorium ordinance adds **Article 8 (Grandfathering)** verbatim: the ordinance *"shall not apply to projects that: 1. Have executed binding utility interconnection agreements; or 2. Have received final County approvals; or 3. Have submitted complete interconnection applications and received preliminary utility study acceptance prior to the effective date"* ([[Data Center Moratorium Ordinance 26-I-37A and the Grandfather Amendment]], `Amendment 1- 26-I-37-Grandfather Clause-moratorium.docx`). The amendment is **criteria-based and names no project.** Because [[AVAIO Digital Partners|AVAIO Project Leo]] holds final administrative County site-plan approval (December 2024), it falls within prong 2 — which is why County-Judge-elect [[Wendell Griffen]] (a non-JP) characterized the amendment as exempting AVAIO *"from any land-use regulations."* The wiki distinguishes the amendment's general text from that practical effect. - **2026-05-26 vote:** Stowers's own recorded vote on the amendment and the underlying ordinance is not cleanly established (the certified worksheets embody the disavowed miscount). The Clerk's 2026-05-28 correction established that 26-I-37A did not pass, so the legal effect of the grandfather amendment is moot pending any re-vote. See [[2026-05 Pulaski County Quorum Court Vote on Data Center Moratorium]]. - **General data-center posture:** an uncorroborated characterization tagged Stowers as having "argued FOR data centers." That summary is overbroad. His documented 2026-05-26 action was specifically to grandfather projects with vested approvals from the moratorium — compatible with either a general pro-development view OR a narrow "don't apply new regulations retroactively to vested projects" view. The wiki does not resolve which. > [!web-research-unresolved] > Stowers's specific roll-call vote on the amendment and on the underlying ordinance, and any floor remarks, are not cleanly established by the production (the certified worksheets are handwritten and reflect the disavowed miscount; the meeting video — Swagit link, archived 2026-05-29 — would be the reliable source). The full *text* of his amendment is now Tier-1. ## Appearances in the corpus - [[Data Center Moratorium Ordinance 26-I-37A and the Grandfather Amendment]] — sponsor of Amendment 1 (the Article 8 grandfather clause). - [[2026-05 Pulaski County Quorum Court Vote on Data Center Moratorium]] — sponsor of the grandfather amendment; Agenda Committee Vice Chair. - [[Pulaski County Quorum Court Directory]] — directory landing page. - [[AVAIO Digital Partners|AVAIO Project Leo]] — the project his amendment's prong 2 would exempt from the contested moratorium. ## Notes - District 13 covers, per an uncorroborated neighborhood-level description, "Camp Robinson / NLR Airport / Gibson" — Camp Joseph T. Robinson, the North Little Rock Municipal Airport, and the Gibson area. This is not Tier-2 evidence; the neighborhood-level claim is gap-disclosed pending a Tier-2 source. - Stowers's twenty-plus-year tenure makes him an institutional repository of Pulaski County Quorum Court practice and history. His amendment posture on AVAIO is, in part, an experienced legislator's reading of how to defuse a politically-difficult retroactive-regulation question; whether that reading prevailed will be revealed by the certified roll-call record.