Critics: Google town halls on Lea County data center are ‘PR’ events with few answers

Lea County commissioners may vote next week to approve up to $134 billion in industrial revenue bonds for a 1,890-acre hyperscale Google data center on Hobbs’ outskirts. Google officials, in their first public appearance in Southern New Mexico, held town halls in Lovington, Tatum and Hobbs on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the project, which is similar in size to the 1,400-acre Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa. That development secured $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds from Doña Ana County.