Survey Flags and a Moved Meeting: Cherokee County Pushes Back on a Possible Data Center

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  November 13, 2026

Residents near Grape Creek Road in a rural part of Cherokee County found out about a potential new data center by talking to utility workers who were putting survey flags on property in the area.

The project has not pulled permits or begun construction. But residents are already organizing, and on Tuesday evening a small group gathered in front of Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation, a member-owned electric cooperative, to demand transparency around its potential plans to build a new data center.

How did residents find out about the data center?

In late October, residents along Grape Creek Road held a community meeting at Grape Creek Baptist Church. Local officials attended. Since then, residents have been organizing online, and the regional environmental advocacy group MountainTrue helped organize Tuesday's protest.

The group showed up expecting the cooperative's monthly board meeting. That morning, they learned the meeting date had been moved to Nov. 17, according to resident Katherine Taaffe, who has lived in Murphy since high school.

"To me, it just elevated an issue about transparency, that a membership co-op should probably be more transparent," Taaffe said.

What did the electric co-op say?

In videos shared by MountainTrue organizer Donovan Green, Blue Ridge Mountain EMC CEO Alan Glidewell met irate protesters outside the building. He said the data center question was not his to decide.

"It's a board-level type of thing, so I'd suggest you put that in front of them," Glidewell said in the video.

According to The Asheville Citizen-Times, Glidewell also told protesters the cooperative cannot choose which customers to serve, and that the meeting date had been changed two weeks earlier.

Why does tribal land matter here?

Marc Kephart, a resident and enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, got involved when survey flags began to go up in a utility right-of-way on tribal land. "We weren't given any notice that anyone was going to be on our property or doing anything to our property," he said.

According to Kephart, changes like this would have to go before the tribal government for approval. "My property's on the reservation and we got a moratorium," he said.

Can Cherokee County limit data centers?

County commissioners are working through that question now. On the same Tuesday as the protest, they held a special meeting on a proposed high-impact land use ordinance to limit data centers. The regulation has been in the works for a while.

The county put a moratorium on cryptocurrency mines in 2023 and extended it for a year, but it expired in 2025 and did not fully take data centers into account. Commissioners examined whether the county could institute another moratorium until the ordinance can be finalized.

County attorney William Bulfer cautioned that another moratorium could open the county up to a lawsuit, since the company behind the data center could interpret it as targeted specifically toward them.

What happens next?

Commissioners planned to further examine the issue at their usual meeting on Nov. 12, where Glidewell was also expected to speak. Taaffe said the group will reconvene at the rescheduled Blue Ridge Mountain EMC meeting next Tuesday, Nov. 17.

You can read the full report from BPR at bpr.org.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the next Blue Ridge Mountain EMC board meeting?

The cooperative's board meeting date was moved to Tuesday, Nov. 17. Resident Katherine Taaffe said the group will reconvene at the meeting.

Does Cherokee County have a moratorium on data centers?

The county placed a moratorium on cryptocurrency mines in 2023 and extended it for a year, but it expired in 2025 and did not fully take data centers into account. Commissioners are working on a high-impact land use ordinance to limit data centers, though the county attorney warned a new moratorium could invite a lawsuit.