By: Gavin Schweiger, Managing Editor
City council president Paul Spinelli threatened to sue members of the public at the latest Vineland council meeting on Feb. 24.
Amidst controversy about an over 300-megawatt data center meant to power artificial intelligence (AI) under construction in the city, a primaries candidate for the 2nd congressional district for the House of Representatives, Bayly Winder, asked if any government officials or their families were financially benefitting from the project or the companies involved.
Initially, Spinelli only said no, but before the end of the meeting, he reopened the topic.
“Mr. Winder, I’m sorry that I stopped you about the money thing, but I’m tired of reading it. Because every one of them, every one of them had been screenshot. Now, you want lawsuits? Because that’s what can happen for slander,” Spinelli said. “And then you’ll pay for my lawyer because it’ll be a city lawyer and you’ll pay for your own. And that’s ridiculous. I won’t win the case, but you’ll spend money.”
Tensions have been building for months over the data center. Along with it, the public has been worried that city officials are no longer on their side due to a lack of transparency and the timing of certain actions, such as cutting public comment time from five minutes to three.
Temperatures are rising within city ranks as well, as activists, residents, politicians, private companies and state departments have been putting consistent pressure on them over issues they may not be equipped to handle.
Now, Vineland is straining from all sides to find a solution to build more trust between the people and government. But how did it get so bad?
A Concrete Plant, a Golf Course and a Data Center
Expansions and production in Vineland were taking place before the data center outcry began.
The biggest news for most in 2024 was the building of a golf course in South Vineland. John Ruga, CEO of concrete manufacturer Northeast Precast, made the original plans, which then expanded and developed with the help of Millville native Mike Trout and Tiger Woods.
As the golf course came to fruition, Ruga simultaneously made other plans with French data center company, DataOne, and its CEO, Charles-Antoine Beyney. This plan was quieter, with scarce local news coverage, and small announcements from Beyney putting information out through the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025.
The data center, currently building less than a mile from the golf course on industrial land, appeared to move quickly and quietly through state and city regulations. Many were unaware of the center taking shape.
Some, like life-long Vineland resident and research scientist Zac Landicini, found out about the project, and were left questioning why the public wasn’t notified.
“I think I was just taken aback with how sudden that change happened. And with how little notice anybody was really given,” Landicini said. “And it seemed like there was no input requested from, you know, people that lived in the area.”
Questions quickly arose for those who were privy to the project. Data centers are historically damaging to the local environment, noisy, and use a lot of electricity and water to run and cool their equipment.
Beyney’s plans are different. DataOne’s center is planned to use natural gas generators with “breakthrough” emissions management systems and a closed-loop water system to run the site.
Landicini wasn’t convinced, saying the technology seemed “aspirational.”
“The way that I started to joke about it with people is, you know, if this guy’s technology does everything he says it will, then they’re going to win a Nobel Prize,” Landicini said.
Landicini, among others, had more questions, and organized to find answers, starting Sustain South Jersey (Sustain SJ) to dig deeper and put pressure on the local government to act more sustainably and transparently.
In December, the city council voted on an over $6 million loan to fund cranes for construction. People caught wind of public money being loaned to a wealthy private project and started showing up.
Simmering Tensions
Starting in November, the quick and empty council meetings started seeing more people flood in to ask questions and make their points on the data center, including a meeting on Dec. 23, where 48 people spoke.
Among the speakers were residents, politicians, construction union representatives, and Sustain SJ members among others.
Their concerns varied, with questions about the environmental and utilities impact to the area. People also raised questions about transparency and proper notification, since many found out about the data center months after construction started.
The union representatives for the Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 77 worried that their workers weren’t getting fair employment or wages on the project.
One man, Patrick McGrory, spoke in favor of the data center as a step forward in innovation, upsetting the crowd.
McGrory, although not entirely opposed to the data center, is also opposed to the breakdown in trust and communication in Vineland from both the government and the public. He cited “trolls” that have taken to social media to make personal comments on government officials and Ruga.
“I always support the raising of questions. And sometimes you have to raise a little bit of hell to do it,” McGrory said. “But there is a line that’s unfortunately often, too often crossed in today’s day and age, you know, when we’re raising questions about projects. And so my biggest fear would be as a society, that we continue down a path of divisive politics.”
The meeting before, council members voiced their empathy for the concerns and then tabled the loan. This time, they passed the loan in a “consent agenda,” which approves all resolutions “considered to be routine and non-controversial,” after Vineland’s director of law, Richard Tonetta, gave a 15-minute speech clearing up “misinformation, and quite frankly, a lack of information.”
Security escorted the council members out of the building, a starting sign that trust was breaking down.
City officials and DataOne have since made efforts to inform and quell fears, including asking the public to focus on the positives. Proponents of the data center cite its potential for economic development and job creation as the main benefits.
City officials’ stance has been that the project has met all legal and regulatory guidelines, and that there’s not much they could do to alter or stop the plans unless there was a legal challenge. Even in city votes, Spinelli stated that the council has to vote certain legislations like the loan through, otherwise they risk lawsuits from DataOne.
Mayor Anthony Fanucci wrote to Follow South Jersey that the city is listening and doing what they can to help.
“Listening to residents does not always mean the city has the power to change the outcome, but it does mean making sure concerns are heard, documented, and directed to the agencies that have the authority to act,” Fanucci said.
Many members of the public haven’t found these stances satisfying, especially since many of them have felt that communication was not good enough from the start.
Landicini has felt that the government looks at data center opponents and Sustain SJ as a “nuisance.” He said that while officials say they are listening, they are not showing enough, and for a project as large as this, communication could have been more proactive from both the government and DataOne.
Beyney explained during a town hall put on jointly by DataOne and the city, that he didn’t think about the communication aspect when working on the project, since he put his all into the back end. He stated that if he did a project like this again, he would be more forward with his plans.
“When I’ve got a project like this, I’m like, wholly in this project,” Beyney said. “I’m not thinking about sharing with the rest of the people because that’s my engineering background. I want to prove that it works.”
While the government may not be able to make changes to the private project, some like Winder have believed that the city could be doing more to aid communication about it.
“So that’s part of my message is that these local officials have power and they choose to use it in a certain way. They could say, ‘Wow, the last few meetings, the turnout’s been huge, people have been speaking dozens at a time. Let’s not pause necessarily, but let’s slow down,’” Winder said. “There’s a trust deficit right now and it’s hard to build trust up and it’s easy to blow it.”
As part of his Congressional campaign, Winder submitted a petition to Governor Mikie Sherrill to ensure Vineland is more transparent and responsible during the project. The petition hit 1,600 signatures.
Sustain SJ and Winder are also not alone in organizing to raise questions. Other groups like the Pinelands Preservation Alliance and the New Jersey Sierra Club have also spoken out against the project, and the handling of it by Vineland and DataOne.
As time passed, the public remained unsatisfied. At the same time, rumors began to spread about potential conflicts of interest. Spinelli and Fanucci have repeatedly denied any interests, financial or otherwise, in the project and its owners.
For a short time after the town hall, there was a lull in the discourse since the project will only keep moving on. However, the lull wouldn’t last.
From Simmer to Boil
Since the town hall, the number of people showing up to meetings dwindled, and things seemed to calm down until a new resolution was ready for a vote on Feb. 24.
This resolution sought to cut public speaking time from five minutes to three. According to Spinelli, the idea was on the table since July 2025 and informed by other municipalities.
The timing of the vote after the number of contentious meetings, however, was cause for more concern in the public.
While people spoke, the usually-stoic Spinelli that listened intently without interruption through previous meetings — which he previously said the council members are supposed to do — pushed back on many of the public comments.
While most speakers urged council members to vote “no” on the resolution, some, like resident Diane Garrity, expressed disappointment in the government overall.
“You make it like we’re not supposed to be here,” Diane Garrity said. “And I have a right to expect you, as your constituent, to help us. And right now, no one feels like you’re helping.”
At the end of the meeting, Spinelli made the threat to sue after pleading for more respect from the public.
He confirmed to Follow South Jersey that an actual suit was not off the table. However, a slander suit would likely be considered frivolous due to anti-SLAPP laws meant to prevent people from using courts and lawsuits to hinder free expression.
“It’s a slander suit. I’m a public official, that’s why I said I can’t win the lawsuit, but I can make you spend dollars. You want to play that game, and I’ll have a public attorney that all you guys are paying for,” Spinelli said. “Now, how stupid are you?”
Posts about the slander comments gained attention across Sustain SJ’s and Winder’s social media.
After the meeting, Spinelli posted two now-deleted Facebook posts making disputed claims about Sustain SJ members, which Landicini believed were about himself and another Sustain SJ founder, Matt Williams. According to reporting by the Vineland Voice, Spinelli didn’t know who founded Sustain SJ.
The comments have fueled more distrust and frustration in the government from the public, further stoking the flames.
There could be potential to rebuild trust in the future.
The Path Forward
Members of the public have been demanding more answers, more transparency, and more action from the city council and mayor. Legally and institutionally, there is not much for city officials to do when it comes to the data center.
Many have felt slighted before by the lack of transparency. It is something, that while not mandatory, could potentially have helped to keep trust. Landicini believes that this was the mayor’s responsibility since the beginning.
“I still do believe that because this project is so big, he should have been doing more to talk about it. And he didn’t. And when I spoke with him, he said that that’s not really his job. And I guess I just disagree fundamentally on that,” Landicini said.
DataOne submitted a new data center site plan to the NJDEP with changes including liquid natural gas (LNG) storage tanks placed close to protected wetlands areas. This site plan is likely to need a new planning board approval, which means the Vineland government will decide again on the contentious topic. Landicini said that while there was no community pushback at prior planning board meetings, Sustain SJ and others would be at a future one to voice concerns.
Vineland is not alone in harboring public contention around data centers. South Jersey has seen an uptick in discussions among a more nationwide growth in data center production.
While many have different approaches and opinions on managing the tensions, Landicini wants to utilize Sustain SJ as a bridge between the government and public moving forward. This includes an event that Landicini proposed could be an alternative to the one-way city council meetings and town hall.
Landicini also wants to see more positive and productive engagement on both sides.
“I’m just a Vineland resident. I just want to kind of find a way to take all the frustration and like the anger people feel about and toward the city and turn it into something half decent,” Landicini said.
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