The Dane County Board unanimously approved a data center moratorium Thursday, pausing zoning permit applications for hyperscale data centers until December 2027.

The measure was modeled on a similar move in Manitowoc County, which dodged a state prohibition on development moratoriums by targeting the permitting process. Dane County’s moratorium extends to 26 towns that fall under county zoning, but doesn’t apply to six others — along with 20 villages and eight cities — that set their own zoning.

“In the past when the United States has had eras of major technological, industrial and warfare advancements, they have declared certain lands to be ‘sacrifice zones’ in the name of progress. And now we are seeing an unprecedented number of new ‘sacrifice zones’ being created across the United States, and even here in Wisconsin,” said Winona Storms, a community organizer who last fall battled a proposal to build a data center in the town of Vienna on land that would have been annexed to the village of DeForest.

The self-described mom, full-time student, and “professional busybody” was one of several organizers who testified in support of the moratorium and against hyperscale data centers, which she describes as an industry of corporate "extraction" of resources.

The moratorium, fast-tracked by Dane County Chair Patrick Miles, comes as a county advisory committee continues to slog through the implications of data centers. Miles, who proposed forming the committee to “lift the veil of opacity” that he had seen take root in other communities, says the committee will present findings and policy recommendations to Dane County communities next year.

While the vote was unanimous, county supervisors raised other concerns that haven’t yet been explored by the committee. The uneven and “rampant” energy demand of data centers on the electrical grid — a phenomenon some energy experts refer to as “lumpiness” — is like a “brick in a dryer,” said Supv. Aria Trucios, an engineer who studied power generation and now works as a local power plant operator.

The county board also unanimously approved a resolution urging UW Health and Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin to resume gender-affirming care for transgender youth. 

The county’s resolution calls on the hospitals to end their “abrupt cessation of gender-affirming health care services” for minors, which were paused in January following federal changes. The measure does not have any enforcement powers.

A declaration in December by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the care as “irreversible harm;” a proposed federal rule threatened to cut off critical Medicare and Medicaid funding for hospitals that provided the care (the same cudgel has been used to threaten funding for health care providers who offer abortion services; federal funds have never directly funded abortion).

In April, a federal court agreed with a legal challenge to the “declaration” pausing gender-affirming care, but UW Health and Children’s Hospital have not resumed care since. 

Some spoke Thursday from personal experience to describe how the pause could affect trans individuals — how the block could amount to forced “second puberty” for trans individuals who would need to start their transition as an adult.

Silas, a 72-year old trans man who transitioned within the last decade, spoke from the other end of the spectrum: “As a very young child, I knew I should have been a boy. But there was no path for me to receive any care or support about that…. If there had been care and support, my life would have been extraordinarily different.”

Brian Juchems, education and policy director at GSAFE, characterized UW Health’s move as a “premature decision to pre-comply with questionably legal threats and bluster from the Trump administration this spring.” Facing what he says is a “stubbornly opaque” response, he asked supervisors to use any of their connections to compel a conversation with UW Health CEO Dr. Alan Kaplan, or the hospital’s board of directors.

“As leaders, you don’t get to choose which crisis you have to face. And this is their crisis to face. And they blinked. They caved in and failed to rise to the moment. The least they can do is meet face-to-face with the folks they harmed,” said Juchems. “Yes, it will be scary. Yes, people will cry. Yes, they will feel the righteous and justified anger. It won’t be fun, but they will live through it — especially if they remember to say ‘I’m so sorry,’ avoid saying there was nothing they could do, and breathe.”

The county board’s approval echoes growing calls to resume care. A May 19 letter from a coalition of trans and gender-diverse elected officials counted three members of the Madison school board and 12 members of the Madison city council as signatories. And: the mayors of Madison, Sun Prairie, Verona and Fitchburg; the Dane County executive; seven members of the Dane County board; and eight members of the state Legislature who represent Dane County.

And still, in other action, the board restarted the process for two public safety contracts that have, at times, been controversial: a vendor for jail communications and a vendor for automated license plate readers. This time, the contract process will come with new provisions that proponents say better outline the board’s priorities.

“It’s really solving a problem that we’re really running into in Dane County,” said Supv. Yogesh Chawla, a member of the county’s Personnel and Finance Committee, describing a pattern of receiving contracts too close to the finish line without input from the board.

Supervisors approved a resolution to urge the Dane County Sheriff's Office to once again seek proposals for a provider of telephone and video calls inside the Dane County Jail. The board has already rejected proposed contracts with ViaPath and Smart Communications, the only vendors to answer a previous RFP.

This time, the measure “[tries] to give the sheriff’s department guidance on what we’re looking for as a board,” says Supv. Keith Furman, who serves on the county’s Public Protection and Judiciary Committee. The resolution has “enhanced” standards for privacy, affordability and transparency. There’s a deadline: a current contract with ViaPath expires at the end of October.

The board narrowly voted to reinstate $80,000 in the 2026 budget for an automated license plate reader system. The funding was removed by the county board in April over data collection and privacy concerns with current vendor Flock. Supervisors agreed to allow the sheriff to start the process to search for a non-Flock provider that meets the board’s new requirements for the use of the technology, but the finalist would need approval by the board.

The 26 Flock cameras that were installed around the county were supposed to be removed by the company by May 31. But they are still up. Sheriff Kalvin Barrett told supervisors that if they are not removed by 3 p.m. on June 5, he will direct county public works staff to cover the cameras with bags; by Friday morning, he had moved the timeline forward, and the cameras had already been covered.  

This story has been updated to include additional information on Flock cameras, and correct a committee assignment.