Company's proposal for Calistoga fairgrounds sparks backlash from community

The push to build data centers to handle the coming wave of artificial intelligence has become a hot business commodity in the tech sector.  But one proposal to bring new technology to fairground sites has the small Napa County town of Calistoga up in arms. 

It's been years since they had an actual fair at the Calistoga Fairgrounds, and people have been debating for some time about the best use for the facility.  And it's hard to tell if this is just one big misunderstanding, but the latest proposal that has been presented for the site has drawn an almost universal response around town:

"They've got to be out of their minds! You know, you can't do this in Calistoga," said Stephanie Duff-Ericksen.

She lives a block from the fairgrounds, and she says there has been a local conversation about what to do with the property for a long time. But last week, the Fairgrounds Advisory Committee held a public meeting to hear a proposal from a company called Global Stack LLC that is reportedly being offered to almost every fairground property in the state.

"I couldn't believe it. I was absolutely stunned and started calling around and other people were equally stunned, like, 'What is going on?" Duff-Ericksen said.  "I think 'data center' was probably the first thing that got everyone's attention.  And the photos, did you see the photos of the project?"

The photos, or rather, hand-drawn pencil sketches, in the presentation show a Tomorrowland vision of multi-story parking structures with landing pads for helicopters and some kind of flying cars. And somewhere in the mix is a new technology facility that many are associating with a data center. It's not exactly the kind of thing you would expect in a town with a population of only 5,000 people.

"There's no way that we want a thousand-car, three-tier parking garage. I mean, it was just so out of context and so out of scale," she said. "I think it's just a group of people with money who got together and thought maybe it would be a really good idea to do this.  I don't think they did their homework."

Dan Hickman lives right across the street from the site, and like a lot of people, he's baffled by what he's seen in the company's online materials.

"It said a thousand parking spaces, bringing in 70,000 jobs. I mean, I think a lot of people are looking for the fairgrounds to find some new uses, but uses for the community.  And that's not one of them at all," said Hickman.  

But the company says its plan is misunderstood. They say they are offering new "edge computing" communications equipment which is more resilient during emergencies, a landing site for future aerial medical vehicles, and, yes, more parking.  In a statement, co-founder Dan Kang wrote, "We're partnering with California fairgrounds that have opted in to host three pieces of infrastructure. Each one serves the surrounding community, and each one adds to the state's emergency-response capacity." 

A woman named Mother Tabitha attended the meeting and said she was confused by the reaction from her neighbors.

"Right away, people zoned in on the word "data center," which he used, and the picture of the five-story parking lot," she said.  "And as soon as they saw that, it was like, 'You're not going to put that here!' And everybody just went bananas!"

Global Stack LLC says it is making its presentation to fairground managers all across the state.  It has reportedly already pitched the idea to the Cow Palace and the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo.  There's no word yet on how many sites have opted in to the idea.  The company says the proposal won't cost the cities anything, so some are wondering how they're supposed to make any money on the deal.  And that, in itself, has people suspicious. So, at this point, the town of Calistoga doesn't seem willing to take a chance that flying cars will be showing up any time soon.