HILLSBORO, Texas (KXXV) — Data center developer RCM Hill has dropped its $100M lawsuit against Hill County, County Judge Shane Brassells confirms.
- On Monday, RCM Hill withdrew its $100 million lawsuit against Hill County
- Hill County will pay $100,000 for the developer's attorney fees.
Hill County will pay $100,000 to settle a $100 million lawsuit filed by data center developer RCM Hill over a data center moratorium the county passed in May.
RCM Hill withdrew the lawsuit Monday. The company is proposing a data center campus on more than 800 acres near Hillsboro. Under the settlement agreement, Hill County will pay $100,000 to cover the developer's attorney fees.
Hill County Judge Shane Brassell said the money will come from a contingency fund and will not result in the loss of any county services. Despite the payout, Brassell said the legal fight produced important lessons.
"The lawsuit still feels like a loss in many ways, but we did learn a whole lot during this lawsuit… as far as we flushed out multiple projects in Hill County we didn't know about," Brassell said.
Brassell said commissioners plan to keep fighting for Hill County residents.
"We lost $100,000. Somebody had to stand up for our citizens. Somebody had to try to get the attention of the state, and I think that by us standing up and doing that we brought in now not only the state's attention but national attention," Brassell said.
Hillsboro resident Linda Pauley said the settlement could have been avoided if county leaders had looked to a neighboring county for guidance. She pointed to a Van Zandt County moratorium on new green energy projects passed in February as a model Hill County should have followed.
"We could've avoided all of this had we paid attention to the Van Zandt moratorium and presented it to our commissioners court if we followed through with that moratorium…we could've avoided all of this," Pauley said.
Pauley said she remains committed to sharing ideas with the court and expressed gratitude for commissioners' resistance to data and solar center projects.
"We're grateful today that Gransolar withdrew the request for the abatement on their project. And we're grateful that the commissioners stood their ground and did not give the abatement for Grandsolar Eleven," Pauley said.
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