City leaders oppose potential data center at Wood Haven tech park

Our Take

Credit to WFXR News for digging into a deal that officials themselves admit they can't fully explain. A company called Clearview Dynamics wants 111 acres at the Wood Haven tech park, and even the local economic development authority says it "cannot confirm the prospective use of the property." That's not a great look when the community is left to speculate whether this becomes another sprawling data center campus.

We're not going to pretend we know what's inside that name or that building. But this story is a textbook example of how surveillance-adjacent infrastructure gets built in the dark: land deals get approved before residents know what's actually going in, and by the time anyone asks hard questions, the concrete is already poured. Data centers are the backbone for everything from cloud storage to AI processing to the kind of license plate reader networks we track — and communities deserve to know what they're hosting before it's a done deal, not after.

City leaders in this case are at least asking questions publicly, which is more than most towns get. If you want to see what surveillance infrastructure already exists near you, check our camera map, and if your own city council is quietly approving projects with unclear purposes, our take-action page has tools to help you push for transparency before it's too late.