Just a few months after a proposed data center project was rejected by city leaders in Coweta, the controversy is far from finished.
Now there are claims and contentions that some emails in support of the project were fraudulent and perhaps impersonated residents who wanted the Project Atlas data center.
KTUL TV News in Tulsa reported this week the dispute arose following Open Records requests made by community activist Darren Blanchard who fought the data center.
“They had what appear to be fraudulent emails or emails impersonating people of the community asking for the data center to be approved,” Blanchard told the station.
The station reported “one of those document discoveries was a doozy.”
It pertained to some text message communications between the Vice Mayor and Mayor of Coweta in which they discussed the legitimacy of some emails that supported the project. The Vice Mayor also contacted one resident and asked the individual if they had sent a supportive email.
The Vice Mayor then sends him a screen shot of the email which states, “Dear Vice Mayor Barnett, Project Atlas would generate millions for city services and schools, and all the needed upgrades are paid for by the developer. This seems like reasonable, low-impact growth. Please support this opportunity for Coweta.”
The resident told the Vice Mayor, “Yeah don’t know why you would receive that. I’m against the data center.”
We reached out to that resident as well who told us, “I would never support that.,” reported KTUL.
Coweta city leaders aren’t commenting since the controversy remains under investigation by the Coweta Police Department.
“The City of Coweta has full faith in the Coweta Police Department to investigate this matter and we await the outcome,” responded the Mayor and Vice Mayor.
The Chief of Police said much the same, “This event is classified as under investigation at this time…We are attempting to complete all investigations by mid to late June.”
Blanchard has already taken his discovery to federal authorities.
“I’ve actually relayed this to the FBI and so it’ll be interesting to see if law enforcement does anything,” he said.
