By Scott McCarty –
Fairgrounds Board of Directors Meeting Recap: 9-15-26
At the September 15 Fairgrounds Board of Directors (BOD) meeting, the Board voted 5–3 in favor of preparing a notice to Global Stack stating that any further movement on the current Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the company will cease.
Here’s a recap of the meeting, in three parts:
- The pitch by Global Stack
- Public comment
- BOD discussion and action
THE PITCH BY GLOBAL STACK
A short video and PowerPoint presentation were given by Dan Kang and Nick Kovacevich, CEO and President of Global Stack, respectively. According to Kang and Kovacevich, the “core initiatives” of the proposed project are:
- a) “Emergency resilience,” and
- b) “New technology to create year-round revenue” for the Fairgrounds.
How this would be accomplished, however, was not clear from the presentation, which was devoid of technical or financial detail.
Part of the “emergency resilience” plan is to implement “advanced air mobility,” which comprises a “vertiport” for use by electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The purpose would be to “provide an uninterrupted aerial route for medical transport, responders, and urgent supplies when roads are blocked or congested.” (The need for this portion of the project is unclear, however, as the Fairgrounds and nearby State Park have plenty of room for staging just such operations.)
Mr. Kang posited, “We’re not a data center,” referring instead to his product as “containers of compute” – a term that was never defined or differentiated from “data center.”
Mr. Kovacevich stated, “We’re trying to come up with solutions” to keeping the Fairgrounds sustainable and being prepared in the event of an emergency. (The former may be a valid aspiration, but as was pointed out later in the meeting, there is no “problem to be solved” with respect to local emergency preparedness.) He went on to characterize the project as “a parking structure with a ‘compute container’ in the middle of it.”
Further, he declined to discuss whether Global Stack had reached agreements with any other Fairgrounds in the state, and he confirmed that his company had not yet approached the California Coastal Commission about this project.
Mr. Kang conceded that Global Stack has not previously executed this type of project, and he closed the presentation with: “There is no data center being proposed. I’m not here to argue with you guys. If you don’t want it, you don’t want it.”
PUBLIC COMMENT
Forty-seven speakers were allotted two minutes each to address the Board. Of the 47 speakers, only one spoke in favor of the proposal, while three others were agnostic on the topic. All four are members of LiUNA Local 585, who were at the meeting to advocate for the use of local skilled and trained labor on such projects.
Those who spoke out against the project characterized their opposition along the following lines:
- It’s a “scam, land-grab, bait-and-switch.”
- “The project is unnecessary.”
- “I don’t see any details.”
- The project is “a manufactured need.”
- “How does this proposal contribute to public safety?”
- Many comments expressed concerns about environmental and health effects.
Of note, a descendant of E.P. Foster (whose deed in 1909 to the County made the Fairgrounds land public) spoke at the meeting. Mildred Schofield passionately asserted that “we are now all stewards of what E.P. Foster gifted us.”
Speaker Susan Mulligan, former City Water Commission chair, perhaps summed up the public sentiment best: “We don’t need a private company to provide what we already have.”
BOD DISCUSSION AND ACTION
During the deliberation phase of the meeting, the Board expressed many of the same concerns voiced by the public. These included, with some comments paraphrased:
- “Why was it a secret?” (Regarding the 12-month, non-binding MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) that was executed with Global Stack.)
- “We haven’t received any information about Global Stack’s business model.”
- “Why does Global Stack’s proposal include a parking structure? No need. This project is not right for the Fairgrounds.”
- Concerns about Global Stack’s lack of transparency and potential internal conflicts of interest.
- “Why does Global Stack want a 100-year lease when the proposed use may become obsolete in 10 years?”
- “It’s ludicrous that anyone should approve a 100-year lease for anything.”
- “The last thing we need is a helicopter pad [so near the beach].”
- “This project would be a mistake to have happen here.”
- “We need to listen to the community. I’m appalled by the secrecy and vagueness of this proposition from Day 1.”
- “We should be careful. I’m not willing to go forward on this project.”
- Regarding emergency preparedness: “We are very good at handling emergencies on our own grounds. We have a system of communications, and I don’t believe this concept adds to that.”
Although three Board members argued for continued conversations with Global Stack to obtain more specifics about the proposal, one member’s position seemed to sum up the sentiment of the majority: “Listening to all of this is like trying to understand a nightmare. We just don’t know enough! Going forward with the [Memorandum of Understanding] is not something we should support.”
Indeed, when the vote was taken, the Fairgrounds Board of Directors did not support moving forward with the MOU.
I kept the substance and quotations intact while making the final sentence more precise about what the vote concerned.
