Two of the Four Brighton City Hall Visitors on 9/10/26

Ya’ll, I was trying to give city hall and city council the benefit of the doubt, but things have changed. My confidence in their authenticity is shrinking. I recently did a records request which revealed the information above.

On 9/10/26 around 4 PM, four people met with the deputy city manager and the planning department.  The first one was Attorney David Foster.  On his website, it lists his practice areas as:  

• Real Estate and Land Development
• Zoning and Land Use Litigation
• Government Affairs/Lobbying

Surely, David Foster is a common name.  This could be a different David Foster.  Nope!  Because with David Foster was Hunter LaClair who is listed as a “low clerk” at the same law firm.

The disconnect is huge.  

Brighton City Hall and Brighton City Council have been trying to assure us that there is nothing going on about a data center coming to Brighton.  If you attended the city council meeting on 9/15/26, you would have heard that throughout.  The problem with that is on August 4th, I briefly met with a member of Brighton planning.  I am not revealing this person as I don’t want this person harassed.  Part of my notes from that day are below.

“XXX is only aware of 1 data center, and did not know why the sound bid stated more than that.” (A copy of the sound bid can be found here.  The pertinent parts are below with bolded letters from my emphasis):

“The City of Brighton, Colorado, located in the plains north-east of Denver in both Adams and Weld  Counties, has more than doubled in size over the last 20 years. Now a municipality of 50,040  residents, Brighton’s rapid growth has created numerous challenges. Brighton holds many acres of  undeveloped land and is mostly surrounded by large-lot and vacant unincorporated properties.  

As Brighton continues to see new growth, new and unforeseen land uses have made their way into  conversations with City staff. Specifically, the City has been approached by Developers to discuss,  process, and approve the construction of data centers. 

The City of Brighton is seeking professional assistance to define standards related to noise for future  data centers. The standards should ensure protection of the health, safety, and welfare of people  on properties near a data center. The City is seeking a consulting team with demonstrable  experience in data center noise modeling and mitigation, a proven ability to draft code regulations  related to data centers, assistance in drafting the parameters of a noise study, and knowledge of  state and federal regulations.”

My notes from August 4th continued:

“XXX stated that there was 1 developer who wanted to build a facility to house a data center, but there was not a specific data center going into it. XXX would not reveal the developer.”

In addition to that, a meeting with the CEO of United Power (UP) indicated a data center had paid a substantial amount of money to start the process of how to get grid power via UP.  Admittedly, UP’s area covers more than Brighton, so this could be outside the Brighton area.

Why is this important?  Two Big Things:

1 – With city entities trying to convince us that nothing is going on, David Foster arrived.  If you do a Google search, AI (which I hate) throws up a little summary, which included this:

“David Foster is a land use and development attorney with the firm Foster Graham Milstein & Calisher, LLP who represents Global AI (GlobalAI Cloud Inc.). He has been a central figure in the legal representation and public hearings for the development of Colorado’s largest data center in Weld County, which received unanimous permit approval from county commissioners in September 2026. [1, 2, 3, 4]”

Further research on Colorado’s Tracer and OpenSecrets reveals that David Foster donates A LOT of money to candidates, especially left-leaning ones (that is not a mis-type).  In addition, he is a registered agent for a 527 political organization called Colorado Construction Industry Coalition that donated $1,000,000 to Initiative 175 (which will not be on the ballot).  A Colorado 527 political organization is a tax-exempt group formed to influence the selection, nomination, election, or appointment of individuals to public office.  Although I am unfamiliar with the groups behind this organization, I find it disconcerting.

I posed this to a Brighton City Council member, and got this response (in part):

“I’m not aware of specific meetings taken by any city staff, as city council provides policy governance but does not directly supervise staff or determine administrative functions. However, I would expect city staff to meet with resources to provide input for the requested guidance, and I would not expect all of that guidance to come from one viewpoint.” (Note to self, who does supervise?)

2 – People need to get so much more educated than we currently are.  I feel like I know more than most, but so much less than I need to know.  Things people need to understand more about:

• Water use and laws.  It’s complex.  We’re in the South Platte River basin (not the Colorado River, which is having even bigger problems).  Will they hook up to city water or not?  What happens if they don’t?  Can they get a well and dump contaminated water, contaminating us?  Who will monitor this?
• All of the regulating bodies at play.  Brighton is in both Weld and Adams Counties (map of city limits).  We have unincorporated Weld and Adams Counties around us and even inside areas you would think are part of the city.  A data center could get incorporated as part of the city OR stay unincorporated Adams OR unincorporated Weld.  In other words, a data center could be built on the same plot of land and be part of the city OR remain as an unincorporated part of the county it is in.  If they stay a part of the county, we’re arguing with the wrong people, and both sets of county commissioners have shown a bias towards environmentally unhealthy land use at the expense of all of us (have you been paying attention to the fracking mess with Chevron going in on US 85 and 136th?)  A data center is going to be more motivated to stay with whoever has the least regulations, and David Foster just got Weld County Commissioners to approve a data center west of Greeley, against a lot of community pushback.
• All of the utilities around us.  Will they hook up to United Power, Xcel, or try to diesel generate their way to power?  What happens to air quality?
• Who is responsible for clean up if the data center goes under?  Not all of these AI centers are going to make it.
• What happens if they break rules?  A lot of these companies have access to more money than our whole city or respective counties.  How can laws be enforced?  Aurora is facing this issue right now with water restrictions and Niagara Water continuing to take more than they should.  Of note, I can’t find an update to this 2 month old story.

To close with some information from the Magellan study specific to Colorado:

• 75% of Colorado respondents opposed data centers in our state.
• 82% of Colorado respondents oppose data centers in their city or town.
• If a data center was coming to their town, 43% of CD 8 (our district) respondents supported a total ban, with only 30% supporting new zoning codes.
• 70% of CD 8 (our district) respondents do not feel comfortable with their local governments incorporating AI into their regular operations and services.
• 79% of CD 8 (our district) respondents were not comfortable incorporating AI into how it educated students.
• And my absolute favorite:  91% of Colorado respondents had an unfavorable opinion of Mark Zuckerburg!  Wow! How does it feel for 91% of a state to not like you??

So, I have put in some additional requests for records.  Let’s see who else city hall has been talking to.  I really hope it is more than lobbyists, and it includes environmentalists.