Pittsburg County referendum · 85% data center tax abatement
Let Pittsburg County voters decide.
This referendum asks Pittsburg County voters whether to approve or reject the resolution adopted by the Board of County Commissioners approving the Emerald ProjectCo Data Center Economic Development Project Plan and establishing Tax Abatement District No. 1 and Tax Abatement District No. 2, which would provide an 85 percent ad valorem (property) tax abatement for the data center project under the Oklahoma Local Development Act.
The numbers
Registered-voter count: Pittsburg County Election Board, provided 2 September 2026. The ten percent minimum is set by 62 O.S. § 868; the target and the valid-rate assumption are the campaign's own.
What the county is being asked to give
The Emerald ProjectCo Data Center Project Economic Development Project Plan was recommended to the Board of County Commissioners on 21 April 2026 and tabled after the June hearings. It would create two incentive districts on about 2,000 acres two miles south of Kiowa and abate most of the new property tax there for a generation. The figures below are the plan's own, with one from the company's annual report.
Every figure is sourced, page and section, on Childress vs. Kiowa and in the questions to the Board.
What binds whom
The plan is carefully drafted. The problem is narrower: the terms that protect the county are labelled illustrative, and the terms that bind the county are already definite.
- Definite, on the county. The 85%, the 25 years, the 1 January 2026 base value, and five taxing-entity signatures within 60 days of adoption.
- Illustrative, on the company. The minimum payments, which the plan introduces as "a non-binding example" that is "not intended to establish fixed or binding payment obligations."
- Absent. A jobs floor, a capacity minimum, a parent guarantee, a recapture clause if the company leaves, and any word on water source, backup generators or noise.
What a referendum does
Under the Oklahoma Local Development Act, voters can refer a county resolution like this one to the ballot. If the Board adopts the plan, a petition signed by ten percent of the county's registered voters, 2,773 of 27,727, must be filed within 30 days. We are aiming for 4,437 signatures, 60 percent over the minimum, so that rejected signatures cannot sink the filing. The question then goes to the next general county election, and the abatement waits for the answer (62 O.S. § 868).
The Board has tabled the resolution. Nothing can be signed until it acts, and nothing is being circulated. This site is ready for the day it does.
Read the file
Who is IREN?
The company behind Emerald ProjectCo: sites, board, voting control, the $9.7 billion Microsoft contract and six years of results, from its own SEC filings. It closed its last year with $5.9 billion of unrestricted cash.
Childress vs. Kiowa
IREN built 750 MW in Texas on a ten-year deal worth about a million dollars a year to that county. Here it asks for 85% for twenty-five years. Both deals side by side, from the executed agreements and the county's own plan.
Ask the board
Fifteen questions for the commissioners, each pinned to a page of the county's plan, a Texas agreement, an SEC filing or a state registry, and the conditions that would answer them. Prints as a letter.
Who decides
Three county commissioners. The Kiowa site is in District 2.
District 1
Charlie Rogers
District 2
Mike Haynes · the site's district
District 3 · Chairman
Ross Selman
What has happened so far
- By 30 June 2025 · IREN's books already carry deposits for an "expansion project" in Oklahoma. The company says so in November; its August annual report never mentions the state.
- 29 July 2025 · Emerald ProjectCo Inc. is incorporated in Delaware.
- 30 July 2025 · Black Mountain Energy Storage, an Austin battery-storage developer, writes to the City of McAlester asking for six million gallons of raw water a day to cool a “proposed data center south of Kiowa”. The letter names no operator; the same company assigned the land to IREN’s Emerald ProjectCo that October. The council votes to negotiate on 12 August.
- 7 November 2025 · The county's first public word: an agenda item to appoint members to "the Iren Data Center TID-TIF Committee". The committee meets five times before a resident attends.
- 16 December 2025 · It qualifies to do business in Oklahoma, signed by Will Roberts as President from IREN's Childress campus, with $21,100 of assets and ten dollars of authorised capital. No owner appears on any public record.
- 1 January 2026 · The base value date the plan fixes for the whole term.
- 21 April 2026 · The county's Statutory Review Committee recommends the plan unanimously.
- 8 and 22 June 2026 · Public hearings at the Southeast Expo Center. After the second, the Board tables the two incentive districts so the review committee can look over new cost estimates. No adoption date has been set.
- 21 August 2026 · A Corporation Commission judge recommends PSO's new large-load tariff: 15-year terms, 48 months of collateral and exit fees for data centers above 75 MW, on contracts signed after 1 July 2026. Whether IREN's 2025 contract is covered is not on the record.
- 27 August 2026 · IREN files its annual report: $5.9 billion of unrestricted cash, and the Oklahoma campus described at 1,600 MW.
- 10 September 2026 · IREN writes first. The company’s community engagement manager contacts this site — “we have seen your website” — offering to connect the author with its development team. Accepted — on the terms that nothing is off the record, no non-disclosure agreement will be signed, and whatever the company says is published in full with the date it was received. The terms, in full →
- 1 October 2026 · The Corporation Commission hears the tariff case en banc at 10:00 a.m. in Oklahoma City.
The full dated record, with every source · from the first deposit to the tabled vote, and where the county's file goes quiet.
Dates and sources are on the sequence.
Upcoming signing times
No signing times are scheduled yet. Signatures can only be collected after the resolution is adopted and a true copy of the petition is filed with the County Election Board. Check back, or call us.
Before you come
- You must be a registered voter living in Pittsburg County. Check in two minutes.
- Know the address on your voter registration and your birth month and day — the sheet asks for them.
- Sign only your own name, once. That is the law (34 O.S. § 23).
Want to help?
Circulators, notaries, drivers and event helpers are all needed. Circulators must be registered Oklahoma voters, 18 or older, and are trained before carrying a pamphlet.