Jun. 20—On June 14, 2019, Frederick County's now-former executive director of economic development signed a nondisclosure agreement with Amazon.com Inc., agreeing that the county's economic development office would not disclose confidential information to anyone without Amazon's consent.
The same day, Jayson Knott, the senior director in the Maryland Department of Commerce's business development office, emailed an Amazon employee with plans to visit potential data center sites in the area.
"Let's meet at Frederick visitor center at 10am," Knott wrote in an email to Tony Burkart, listed on Linkedin as having served as Amazon Web Services' economic development manager at the time. "Since most properties are close enough together we can hit as many as you want."
The information about the nondisclosure agreement, or NDA, as well as emails exchanged between the county staff, state employees and representatives from Amazon, was included among public records obtained by The Frederick News-Post this week.
The county and various state agencies, including the Maryland Department of Commerce and the Maryland Department of the Environment, produced the records for the Sugarloaf Alliance in response to public records requests the local preservation group filed in 2022 and 2023.
The records provide further insight into Amazon's efforts to develop data centers in the county, a $30 billion proposal that fell through sometime in 2021 after the company and the county couldn't reach an agreement on the timeline for the project.
Amazon's proposed project in Frederick County was referred to as both "Project Herron" and "Project Holiday," according to the records.
Other records, released by the county to the Sugarloaf Alliance last week in response to a judge's order, point to the fact that Amazon representatives provided input to county staff as they internally drafted a bill on critical digital infrastructure, which governs where and how data centers in the county can be built.
Last week's released records also included emails exchanged among the Frederick County staff, in which individuals expressed doubt about being able to keep Amazon's plans in the county under wraps.
The additional records obtained by the News-Post this week also point to efforts from state employees to similarly keep Amazon's involvement under wraps.
In an email to a fellow state employee on Feb. 16, 2021, Knott said he would make a case to keep Amazon anonymous in a process that would normally require public notice.
"I'm having a call later this week with DOIT [Maryland Department of Information Technology] and MDOT OAG [Maryland Department of Transportation Office of Attorney General]. As part of the AWS project, the company will need to access state highway rights of way for fiber. Part of this process includes some public notice which may jeopardize their anonymity," Knott wrote. "My discussion is to make the business-competitive case to do this process anonymously."
The records also show that the Maryland Department of Commerce and Maryland Department of the Environment were involved in talks with Amazon and the county, providing guidance on air permits, potential data center locations and more.
One record, provided by the state environment department, shows a conceptual site plan for data centers on a swath of land west of Interstate 270. The plan showcases two campuses, each with four buildings.
This swath of land is the same one that was removed from a proposed protected area in the Sugarloaf Treasured Landscape Management Plan as the county's talks with Amazon played out in 2021.
A previous unreleased draft from March 2021 of the Sugarloaf area plan was obtained by the Sugarloaf Alliance prior to last week's record returns, according to Steve Black, president of the preservation group.
In the draft of the plan, a chunk of land bordered by I-270 to the east is included in the proposed protected area.
In the September 2021 draft of the Sugarloaf plan, the first to be released for public review, the same chunk of land is not included in the plan.
That tract of land encompasses property that has been owned by Natelli Holdings II LLC since 2003 after purchasing it from Kiplinger Washington Editors Inc. for $3.5 million, according to state property records.
Attempts to reach Natelli Holdings II LLC for comment were unsuccessful Tuesday.
After Amazon's proposal fell through, the piece of land was seemingly returned to the protected boundary of the plan.
The tract of land was included in the protected area in a version of the plan from July 2022, which the County Council passed in October 2022.
During its vote, the council also postponed a decision on development restrictions in the area. The matter is back with the Frederick County Planning Commission for consideration.
Most of this land is currently designated for agricultural use, but part of the draft plan from March 2022 proposed rezoning these areas as a resource conservation area.
The tract of land that was removed from the plan's boundaries was just one of several sites Amazon was eyeing in the county, Kai Hagen, a former county councilman, said in an interview.
Hagen was an outspoken advocate for preservation and for the Sugarloaf plan while he was on the council, and served in that capacity during August 2021, when the council held two closed session meetings with representatives from Amazon.
According to Hagen, Amazon wanted to build data centers in three different parts of the county with five such centers in each — Urbana, Adamstown and in Brunswick.
He also said County Council members did not know about Amazon's plans until the closed session meetings.
The company, Hagen said, wanted its development plans to play out on a timeline that was too tight for members of the council and Planning Commission to make changes based on their own opinions and public feedback.
"There was no way to do everything they wanted done in the time we had ... and still have a reasonable, legitimate, publicly engaged process," Hagen said, adding that the disagreement on the timeline caused Amazon to pull out of the project.
In an email to county spokesperson Vivian Laxton on Friday, The Frederick News-Post asked when Amazon first approached the county about potentially developing data centers in the Frederick area and whether suggestions posed by Amazon were included in the final critical digital infrastructure legislation the county adopted.
The News-Post also asked if County Executive Jessica Fitzwater, who served on the County Council during the county's talks with Amazon, had a statement on the company's involvement in the county.
Chloe Scott, Frederick County's public affairs specialist, wrote in an email on Friday that the county needed more time to gather relevant information and will provide "substantive responses" early next week.
"We appreciate the FNPs desire to get good information to their readers and want to make sure when we respond that we are providing accurate information to their questions which will unfortunately take a bit of time for us to gather all the relevant information," Scott wrote. "We look forward to getting substantive responses to their questions early next week and hope that they'll run an additional story at that time."
In a statement Tuesday, Laxton did not directly address the News-Post's questions.
"Industry officials and county staff offered their opinions on matters officials were considering. The County wants staff to feel comfortable offering their candid opinions and sharing their honest concerns, which is why the County always wants to protect those conversations," Laxton's statement said. "The County is concerned that the Court's recent ruling will create a chilling effect on staff's ability to offer advice."
Frederick County Councilman Jerry Donald, who represents District 1 and served on the council at the time of the closed meetings with Amazon, wrote in an email to the News-Post it's the council's job to look at potential business opportunities for the county.
Donald said he is not supposed to comment on closed meetings, but he has general concerns about the water and electricity required for data center operation.
In an email to the News-Post, Council member Renee Knapp wrote: "I don't have any insights to offer regarding Amazon Web Services interest in Frederick County. I was not a a member of the County Council at that time. Moving forward, it's important to continue to reassess and refine the county's Critical Data Infrastructure standards. We have the opportunity to learn from experiences in the data center industry in neighboring counties, so we can add to Frederick County's technology economy while preserving our agricultural and natural resources."
Other members of the County Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
