Another De Santis Grift exposed.
DeSantis officials gave $1.5M to data center campus. They say they were tricked
Indian River State College has been working for years on the “Okee-One Data Campus” in the town of Okeechobee. The campus, which is slated to include a data center, is planned for a 205-acre rural parcel that sits along U.S. 441, about 2 1/2 hours east of Sarasota.
In a February presentation before the Okeechobee County Commission, a college official noted multiple times that the project would not have moved forward without support from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.
He also stirred anxiety — noting the project’s potential to grow in size, use more electricity and possibly involve a mega-data center corporation like Nvidia. The project has proceeded without any public vote for approval in the city or county governments, because the land is controlled by the state college.
The parcel has a dark history. To make way for the center, the college plans to bulldoze most of the remnants of the former Florida School for Boys at Okeechobee, an infamous reform school where students were systematically abused. It’s the sister campus to the more well-known Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, where students were so brutally beaten that dozens of bodies have been found in unmarked graves.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/desantis-officials-gave-15m-to-data-center-campus-they-say-they-were-tricked/ar-AA21tnWa