Candidates for Owensboro-area state offices discussed data center regulations and state taxes Wednesday evening at a lengthy forum sponsored by the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce and held in partnership with the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer.
The question-and-answer session, moderated by Messenger-Inquirer Executive Editor Don Wilkins, was for candidates of the 7th, 13th and 14th House districts and 8th Senate District took up most of the forum at the Daviess County Courthouse.
But the event started with the two candidates for East Daviess County commissioner giving their thoughts on data centers, management of the county animal shelter and how Fiscal Court should make appointments to the library board.
East County commissioner
Candidates Joe Hagan, a Republican, and Democrat Sagan Storm are competing for the East County seat on Fiscal Court, which became an open seat when Commissioner Janie Marksberry made an unsuccessful run for judge-executive.
Hagan and Storm were close to agreement on at least some of the issues, with both saying they supported local ordinances that would regulate any data center considering Daviess County and saying the county government needs to be more involved with management of the animal shelter.
“I’m against hyperscale data centers” locating in the county, Storm said. “They are just a little too new” and there are no regulations on the facilities currently in place.
“We need to write strong ordinances to protect our land, our water and people,” Storm said.
Hagan said there is a possibility of data centers being a “win-win” in Daviess County if regulations on them are put in place first.
“If I had to vote today, I would vote ‘no,’ ” Hagan said. The county should adopt data center regulations regarding noise, water and power use, Hagan said.
“If they can fit those (regulations), wonderful,” Hagan said. “If not, wonderful; we don’t let them in.”
Fiscal Court selected It Takes A Village, a no-kill animal rescue, to manage the county animal shelter in 2025.
“We made a mistake” outsourcing the animal shelter, Hagan said.
“We need to have more hands on the animal shelter, and a little more control,” Storm said.
Regarding the Daviess County Public Library board, Storm said the library staff needs a voice in the process, and Hagan said there needs to be more people involved in the nomination process than just the judge-executive.
The library board has become an unlikely place of contention over the issue of books that some said were inappropriate for placement in the children’s and teen sections of the library. That debate has spilled over to where Fiscal Court was unable to approve either of the two most recent nominations to the board.
“The library board was pretty balanced just a few years ago,” Storm said, but that the board now lacks diversity and “diversity of thought.”
A change to state law gives judge-executives authority to nominate people for the library board if the judge-executive rejects the library board’s recommendation for a nominee.
While the county needs to follow the law, “we need to go back to the people who understand how the library runs, our librarians” for their input, Storm said.
Hagan also said Fiscal Court needs to follow the law on nominations, but said, “We need to get more people involved in the nomination process.” More candidates should be considered during the process, Hagan said.
“We’ve got to get more insight,” Hagan said, and said there should be “more names in the hat” when there is a library board opening.
8th District State Senate
Incumbent Republican Sen. Gary Boswell is facing Democrat Vicki Quisenberry in the race for the 8th District seat.
Boswell said the Republican supermajority, and having Republicans in the Owensboro-area House seats, has paid for Daviess County and the region.
“We have been able to deliver millions of dollars to the Eighth District,” which covers Daviess, Hancock and McLean counties, Boswell said.
Boswell said he has been able to advance local priorities at the state capitol.
“Being a state senator is about relationships, and I’ve got those in Frankfort,” Boswell said, adding later, “I can get stuff done.”
Quisenberry, who said she has been a board member or director of groups such as the Foundation for Daviess County Public Schools, said the 8th District races give voters “a choice against two distinctly different candidates,” adding that she has “a history of addressing real issues for real people.”
People Quisenberry has met, she said, “are exhausted by the culture wars.”
“I’m thrilled with the bipartisan support I’ve gotten,” Quisenberry said.
Both Boswell and Quisenberry said they supported the state moving to protect the public against the potential drawbacks of large-scale data centers. But they disagreed on the GOP Legislature’s system for reducing the state’s income tax, with the goal of eliminating the tax entirely.
Quisenberry said she attended a forum on the issue, where a speaker said a state with no income tax is either “a state with a lot of natural resources or a state with a lot of tourism.”
“Which state is Kentucky?” Quisenberry said. Without an income tax, “How do you fund your government?” Quisenberry said.
Boswell said state tourism is generating tax revenue.
“We have … all kinds of tourist attractions,” Boswell said, and that taxes from tourism “will continue to replace our income tax.”
7th District State House
The 7th District race is between incumbent Rep. Suzanne Miles, a Republican, and Laurie Campbell, a Democrat. Miles is field representative for Congressman Brett Guthrie, and Campbell has worked in banking and taught computer skills and digital citizenship for Daviess County Public Schools.
Miles, who is majority caucus chair for the GOP House majority, said, “There is a state role, to put guardrails in place” for data centers, and said she thinks such a bill could pass in the 2027 General Assembly session. But communities should have the say on where data centers are located, Miles said.
“If communities don’t want them, that’s not where they should go,” Miles said.
Campbell said large, “hyperscale” data centers “are not a good fit for Daviess County,” and said the impacts currently outweigh any potential benefits to the community.
On whether she supported eliminating the state’s income tax, Campbell said that move “is not helpful unless you’re a millionaire or a billionaire.”
Cutting the income tax rate, without a way to replace the revenue it generates for the state, “is not responsible government,” Campbell said.
Miles said reducing the income tax rate to zero would be “a benefit for anyone paying taxes.”
Miles said the state has slowly reduced the income tax rate and said lawmakers came up with a “responsible way” of lowering the rate.
State revenues “have only increased” since the income tax rate started being reduced, Miles said.
When asked for ideas for improving access to housing in the community, Campbell said the General Assembly has reduced housing assistance. The state, Campbell said, should fund a program to revitalize existing housing, which would increase the number of available houses while moving people “out of substandard living,” Campbell said.
On the issue of Medicaid and Medicare spending shifting from the federal government to the states, Miles said lawmakers did make provisions for the contingency by placing dollars in the state’s “rainy day fund,” but said fraud is an issue in the system.
“Let’s make sure fraud and abuse is out of Medicaid,” Miles said.
13th District State House
Republican incumbent DJ Johnson, an Army veteran and small-business management consultant, is facing a challenge this year from the Rev. Rhondalyn Randolph, senior pastor of Pleasant Point Baptist Church and executive director of the Owensboro Human Relations Commission.
On whether the income tax should be eliminated, Johnson said he supported the plan.
“It’s the people’s money,” Johnson said. “As much as we can return the money people have worked for, we should do that.”
Eliminating the income tax will also make Kentucky competitive against states that have already taken that step, such as Tennessee, Johnson said.
“Tennessee is eating our lunch along the state line” in terms of economic development, because Kentucky still have an income tax, Johnson said.
Randolph said eliminating the income tax “mostly benefits wealthy families.”
“I don’t support that, because it puts a burden on working families,” Randolph said.
“I don’t think we have anything in place that will make up for the (tax revenue) that is lost,” Randolph said.
When asked what more the state should do to build on legislation lawmakers passed this year to improve access to child care in Daviess County, Randolph said the state needs to put more resources toward child care.
“We have to increase the number of slots by investing into all daycare centers in the community,” Randolph said. But there was a larger issue as well, Randolph said.
“It’s affordability of child care that’s the issue,” Randolph said. “We don’t have the wages to keep up with the rising cost of child care.”
Johnson said he has worked as state representative support expansion of local daycare, such as with the Owensboro Family YMCA, which is opening two new daycare facilities. But the state should make it easier for for-profit daycare facilities to operate by reducing regulations, Johnson said.
“For-profit daycare centers are definitely being challenged” by regulations, Johnson said.
On improving access to housing, Johnson said the price to build a new starter home is more than first-time buyers can afford. The state should look at how regulations have made homebuilding more expensive, Johnson said.
“We have issues with zoning in the state of Kentucky,” Johnson said.
The state has made finding housing more difficult when the state “took away housing supports” such as vouchers, Randolph said.
“We need to invest in people and invest in increasing our housing units,” Randolph said. Later, Randolph said, “We need to invest in people and (in) the programs that are important safety nets” for residents.
14th District House race
The 14th District seat is being vacated by Rep. Scott Lewis, who is retiring from office. Vying for the seat are Donna Haynes, a Democrat and organized labor advocate who has been a member of the Kentucky AFL-CIO executive board and vice president of IBEW Local 1701, and Republican Wes Pate, a nurse and farmer and mayor pro tem of the Lewisport City Council.
Hancock County is the site of a major $4 billion data center being built by TeraWulf LLC, in partnership with Anthropic, at the former Century Aluminum site.
“We’ve seen it first-hand,” Pate said, and that his family farm is 3 to 5 miles from the TeraWulf data center site. “I’m a concerned citizen first; are these data centers telling us the truth? Do we take them at their word?”
Pate said it’s important for state lawmakers to make sure data center projects don’t hurt communities in the long run and that data center developers pay their share of taxes.
Data centers should be considered “if it can be done smartly, and if we can hold them accountable,” Pate said.
Haynes said while data center construction would provide jobs for union workers, how many people would work at the completed data center is a question.
“I have heard so many conflicting numbers” on how many people would be employed, Haynes said.
“We need to regulate them,” Haynes said, adding later, “We need more information and more state protection from them.”
On the cost of Medicaid and Medicare shifting to the state, Pate said, “I want to find a happy medium where we are able to cut the waste and cut the fraud.”
There is a need for Medicaid and Medicare, Pate said, and by reducing fraud, funds can be used for “people who legitimately need it.”
Haynes said there is Medicaid fraud.
“Any time you have more expenses, that is a problem,” Haynes said.
Hayne said she opposed eliminating the state’s income tax.
“There’s no good way (the state) can spend on child care or Medicaid with no money coming in,” Haynes said. “You can’t spend it if you don’t have it.” Haynes said she supported collecting taxes “especially for the wealthy, to help people in Kentucky.”
Pate said there are ways to make up for eliminating the income tax, such as by making sure industries like the gaming, horse and data center industries pay their share of taxes.
“We do have to get creative,” Pate said. With the TeraWulf data center project, “it’s so much (tax) money, if we can make them pay it.”
Of the income tax, Pate said, “In general, I think taxation is theft.”
By collecting taxes in other areas, the state potentially could also eliminate property taxes, Pate said.
The Chamber of Commerce will hold a final election event Oct. 29, when it hosts the “Red, White & Blue” picnic at the Daviess County Courthouse.
By James Mayse Messenger-Inquirer