Breaking News
Todays News

Sand weighs in on data center regulations during town hall at MCC Thursday

By Lana Bradstream 6 min read

Marshall County was the third stop on Thursday for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand as more than 200 residents gathered at Marshalltown Community College to listen to his speech and take advantage of the opportunity to ask him questions.

One subject that has dominated conversations among local elected officials lately -- data centers -- was brought up by an attendee who inquired about Sand's stance on such facilities being constructed in small towns. Sand said his answer would apply to all Iowa communities, regardless of size.

"I want a bill on my desk that forces data centers to pay full freight, to carry their own weight, to create setback requirements and creates transparency requirements that is not just for what's coming in across the street, but also for water and electrical usage," he said. "The deal is if we pass this bill, the people in the county where [data centers] are building their lives will be improved because of it, not ruined."

According to Sand, people would be able to see if data centers are not following laws. If violations are occurring, he wants to see real and expensive consequences.

"When I talk to Iowans about this, they don't like what they're seeing now, which I agree with," Sand said. "We give hundreds of millions of dollars to build data centers. Why? They also don't like the idea [data centers] are getting built close to their homes, and don't like the idea they are being built shrouded in secrecy."

He has yet to meet an Iowan who does not want more jobs or development, he added. But he wants a law on his desk that creates a win for Iowans who are already here.

Attendees also asked about nursing home conditions for staff members, starting with the low pay. Sand asked if any direct care or nursing home workers were present, and a few hands were raised.

"As a Christian, I think a lot about the healing touch, and our direct care workers literally are doing the Lord's work. They're bathing people. They're dressing people. They're feeding people," he said. ". . . Most of the people doing direct care in this state could be making more money flipping burgers, and that varies from county to county but it's not far off. A lot of the people who do this work say it means more, but it's a lot harder. How bad are we going to let it get before we recognize we got to reward work for what it's worth? We ought to increase the reimbursement rate for direct care workers in the state of Iowa. We should push nursing homes to make sure they are paying a wage where we don't see constant turnover."

Sand said he was open minded about additional ways to improve working conditions for direct care employees.

Dovetailing off that question was another on how the state can get corporate nursing homes to follow rules and stop paying large bonuses to shareholders. Sand said it is a common problem in various areas in which private equity firms purchase all of the products or businesses.

"We need anti-trust work, and we need it in all these areas because they are making it more expensive and driving up costs for everybody," he said. "It can be nursing homes. It can be firetrucks, you name it. That's a big piece."

Sand would like to see incentives so nursing homes are truly accountable and are not "squeezing every penny out of everyone."

Iowa agriculture was also addressed, and Sand was asked if he had ideas on how to make things better for farmers. He said there has been too much consolidation in ag products, such as fertilizer and used the example of the Iowa Fertilizer Plant in Lee County being purchased in 2024 by Koch Industries – a sale which Sand publicly opposed. The more sellers there are, the more market there is and the more costs drop for farmers and thus for consumers, he explained.

"We need to keep prices low by fostering competition and not allowing consolidation. . . When prices go up for Iowa farmers, prices go up for everyone else and that's not good for us. You have a choice and my opponent talks about these issues a lot, but I've never seen any instance or record of him having stood up against that fertilizer sale. He might have an excuse for that being he wasn't living in Iowa at the time," Sand said, drawing laughter.

Another attendee who is a teacher asked what Sand plans to do about the private school voucher program. He said if he is elected, he will have to work with a Republican-majority legislature, but some common sense changes can be made to the program. The voucher program creates a prime situation for waste, fraud and abuse as private schools get public funding, but cannot be audited.

"We should audit and have rules for how they spend the money," Sand said. "Slight exaggeration. There's one rule. You can’t pay a rebate to a parent. Anything else you want to do with tax dollars as a private school in Iowa is a-okay."

When he spoke with a voucher lobbyist and pointed out there was no oversight, Sand said the response was, "I know. We don't want public oversight of private schools."

"Then don’t give them public money. Problem solved," Sand said to applause. "We ought to have rules. We ought to have oversight. We ought to make it so you can't just jack tuition up by $8,000 which you got from the state, because if you do that, it's equally as unaffordable as it was before. We ought to make it if you take public money, you take the public. You can't pick and choose which students come in the front door."

Another voucher program change Sand wants to implement is placing an income limit on who can receive them with the goal of saving hundreds of millions of dollars that could be saved and used for early childhood education for all children, and help increase pay for experienced teachers.

Sand will face Republican Zach Lahn of Belle Plaine during the November general election.

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.

Starting at /week.