Secret nondisclosure agreements between government officials and private data center developers are raising questions about transparency and the public's right to know. An editorial argues Illinois should prohibit such agreements when officials are conducting the people's business.
by Sentinel Editorial TeamElected government officials should be barred from signing nondisclosure agreements with private companies when performing official duties for their city, office, department or the state. I don't know about you, but the idea of an elected official signing a nondisclosure agreement with the sole purpose of working behind the backs of the people who elected them and whom they represent seems shady. Tolono, and now Mahomet, have been targeted by data center developers. In both cases, when the community learned that its elected officials were doing them dirty behind closed doors and through nondisclosure agreements, the response and uproar have been significant. According to KUTV, a survey published in August by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found that 61% of U.S. adults oppose data center construction in their area — a 12-percentage-point increase over four months. It is only logical that you don't need to hide projects that are good for the community. So why proceed with negotiations for a project the public will object to — and behind their backs? Let's be clear: Elected officials and members of government should not be able to legally sign NDAs with private companies when doing the people's business. Bills to ban NDAs for data centers have been introduced in several states, including Michigan, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Ohio. Frankly, Illinois needs to do the same. In an article published July 8, 2026, by Deanna Noël of Public Citizen, she describes several instances where NDAs have been used by data center developers and technology companies to keep communities and elected officials from learning about plans for proposed facilities until key approvals, subsidies or permits have been secured by the companies. Developers and shell companies do the dirty work, hiding the identity of the actual company that will eventually occupy the facility. In that article, Noël's research showed that in Virginia, home to the world's largest concentration of data centers, 80% of localities with proposed or existing data centers have NDAs in place. Sad. Over in Mahomet, the data center developer modus operandi was running smoothly and quietly until Dani Tietz of the Mahomet Daily caught wind of rumors that a tech company was interested in building on land just outside the village limits. Her story, which ran a week ago, brought to light how three village officials signed NDAs and engaged in preliminary negotiations on a development deal worth $17 million that had started 10 months earlier. The developer, Clean Cloud Energy, wants an area of about 340 acres of farmland in unincorporated Mahomet Township, west of Champaign. The property is outside current village limits but falls within Mahomet's extraterritorial jurisdiction under the village's planning and subdivision authority. Tietz, investigating further, put together a thorough outline of Clean Cloud's methodology and a timeline of its efforts for a possible Mahomet facility. Days later, Mahomet citizens rallied together and began fighting the proposed facility while demanding further transparency. It recently came to light that if Mahomet annexes the proposed site, Clean Cloud Energy can evade a Champaign County-enacted 12-month moratorium on large-scale data centers — those with 10,000 or more square feet of processing area. This is the pushback that data centers and developers fear, justifying their use of contractual hush agreements. The Illinois General Assembly needs to pass legislation that prohibits public employees and officials from signing NDAs. The law should impose individual civil penalties not only on the employee or official individually but also on each representative of the company executing the agreement. Finally, the bill must require advance public notice in communities whenever local governments take action on a development application, including rezoning, tax incentives or utility use. It's clear Illinois, like other states, needs strict transparency laws to protect families and their communities from overly ambitious village board and council members engaging in discreet negotiations with private companies.
What do you think?
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Whether you agree, disagree, or want to build on the ideas in this piece, we’d love to hear your voice. If you have an opinion you’d like to share — on this topic or any other — you can find our submission guidelines here: Sentinel submission guideline. We welcome a wide range of viewpoints and would be glad to consider your perspective for publication on OurSentinel.com. Send your letter or commentary to editor@oursentinel.com and help keep the community conversation moving forward.