City of Sulphur Springs Information

12/10/2025

At a recent City Council meeting someone questioned whether it was even possible for the City to receive sales tax from the construction and fit-out of the datacenters. She asked “Where exactly will this be purchased, WalMart?” It is a reasonable question. It is also a very important question since we are talking about $77 million divided between the City, County and EDC for Phase 1.

It’s actually called the Sales and Use Tax. In Texas you can pay the tax when you buy the item or when you put it into use. Here is an example: Let’s say that a local hardware store sells fluorescent tubes. One day they decide to replace the tubes in all of the store’s light fixtures. They technically did not sell the tubes so they won’t pay sales tax; they’ll pay use tax.

In the city’s agreement with the developer, the developer is required to pay use tax in the city. The developer is also incentivized to pay use tax. The city will rebate 50% of the use tax proceeds to the developer.

12/09/2025

We’re seeing some confusion about two different “reinvestment zone” processes, so here’s a quick clarification. These are separate and unrelated tools under different chapters of the Texas Tax Code, and the City has followed each step for both.

Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 2 (TIRZ #2) Chapter 311
See graphic: “Roadmap of Tax Reinvestment Zone No. 2.”

When the City received the former coal mine property, it was not ready for development of any kind. Infrastructure had to come first.TIRZ #2 was created in 2024 to reinvest future real property tax value growth (the "tax increment") back into that area for public infrastructure (water, sewer, streets, drainage). The City completed the financing plan, notices, public hearing, Council ordinances, board appointment, participation agreements, and state filings required in Chapter 311. A TIRZ only captures the increment on real property, not personal property, which matters because data centers often place a lot of value in personal property. This means that any property tax that a governing body receives from personal property, will stay with each entity to be used to pay for services such a public safety, parks, and transportation.

Chapter 312 Tax Abatement
See graphic: “Chapter 312 Tax Abatement.”

This is a separate, project-specific process. The City adopted the required guidelines and created a Chapter 312 reinvestment zone on the property where the proposed data center would be located, but no tax abatement agreement exists today. The City Manager paused the recommendation to Council to ensure all project details and requirements are fully verified before anything moves forward. The 35% abatement being discussed is not an agreement yet, it’s a planning-level figure used for fiscal modeling to evaluate whether a project could meet City guidelines while still benefiting taxpayers. Discussing a proposed percentage during analysis is part of responsible staff review before making recommendations to any governing body.

11/28/2025

A lengthy social-media post circulating this week has raised eyebrows and sparked a lot of questions. Many residents who care about transparency saw it and understandably want the full story, so here’s the part that post completely leaves out.

The hotel stay in question happened October 9–11, 2024, at the annual Texas Municipal League conference in Houston. Several council members and the city manager attended—some with spouses. At that exact time:
• The City of Sulphur Springs had never heard of MSB Global.
• MSB Global had never heard of the Thermo site.
• No introductions, no calls, no negotiations, no LOI—nothing related to the data center project existed involving MSB in any way.

Ganna Halvorsen, who lived 30 minutes away in The Woodlands, was dating City Attorney Nate Smith at the time and simply came to visit him during a routine professional conference. The room had been booked months earlier.

A month later (November 2024), Ganna—still just dating Nate and not an officer or employee of MSB Global—casually mentioned to him that an acquaintance (Mark Blanchard) was looking for large industrial sites. That offhand introduction eventually led the City to speak with Blanchard and his company, MSB. SSDC1 did not yet exist.

Important clarifications the circulating post omits:
• Ganna Halvorsen has never been a principal or owner of MSB Global. She is associated only with SSDC1 LLC, the actual counterparty that signed the development agreement with the City.
• The City Attorney does not negotiate economic development agreements; the City Manager does.
• By the time a Letter of Intent was signed with MSB (December 19, 2024) and real negotiations began, Nate and Ganna’s relationship had already ended.
• The final Chapter 380 agreement wasn’t executed until April 2025—six full months after the conference stay being portrayed as scandalous.

In short: when the room was shared, no one involved had any idea a future business relationship would ever exist, nor was there any reason to believe that. There was no deal, no negotiation, and no conflict to disclose.

While the few Vocal-No-Crowd are already declaring this proof of corruption, the actual timeline and roles show something very different: those with genuine concerns deserve to know this was a normal personal visit that, months later and after the relationship ended, happened to produce a valuable introduction for the City.

11/26/2025

As for the trip to Vietnam, the original idea for the EB-5 regional center was to make it a wholly owned subsidiary of the city. This prompted a visit to Vietnam to meet a network of investors looking to loan capital to projects in the USA. When it came time to establish the LLC, the EB-5 attorney strongly advised against making it a subset of the city since changing political winds would eventually spell its demise. Recent criticism of the existence of the regional center bears that out. So the regional center was set up as a stand-alone company and the first check the regional center wrote was a reimbursement check to the city for the travel expenses.

It's not nefarious. It’s common sense.

11/25/2025

Did the City get sued by Luminant/Vistra???

There is a mountain of misinformation online pertaining to this situation.

First and foremost, the City took legal action against Luminant/Vistra. We sued them on 10/01/2025. Here is a copy of the pleadings. https://tinyurl.com/mry58b46

Then on 11/03/2025, the Texas Attorney General filed an amicus brief alongside the City agreeing with our pleadings. Specifically:
- Our suit claimed Vistra had unlawfully deceived the City…the Attorney General Agreed.
- Our suit claimed Vistra’s deed restriction was illegal…the Attorney General Agreed.
- Our suit claimed Vistra tried to illegally extort the City by demanding ransom…the Attorney General Agreed.
- Our suit claimed Vistra had conspired to create monopolies, market control, and infinite non-compete clauses…the Attorney General Agreed.

We are very grateful to Attorney General Ken Paxton as he announced that his office has launched an investigation into antitrust violations of Luminant/Vistra.
Here is the OAG brief filed on the City’s behalf…you can read it for yourself. https://tinyurl.com/mr63crcr

Then Luminant/Vistra replied to the suit on 10/27/2025 and then filed an amended answer and counter suit on 11/10/2025. Their arguments are very weak. The crux of their argument is that “a deal is a deal”. The only problem is that the deed restriction was never a part of the deal. The contract (development agreement) is very clear. Luminant/Vistra contracted to provide a special warranty deed in fee simple, which means…no restrictions. A deed restriction is not mentioned in the contract.
We like our chances.

Here is Luminant/Vistra’s amended answer and countersuit.
https://tinyurl.com/2uupecyf

11/25/2025

Travel and Visas
Over several decades following World War II we witnessed the globalization of economic trade where anyone could manufacture anything anywhere in the world. This led to the “offshoring” of American jobs by the millions. American jobs went to countries where labor was much cheaper.
In the past few years though we have begun to witness deglobalization. This is a very important topic. It is worth the time to study the subject. I recommend reading Peter Zeihan on the subject.
Here is a Google search on What is deglobalization?
https://tinyurl.com/77c5kv8p
Here is a good video about the subject.
https://youtu.be/bhGb-BaGw2Q
The upshot is that for the foreseeable future jobs are returning to America; they are “reshoring”. This trend will likely continue for many years. During this time of reshoring the City of Sulphur Springs is in the fortunate position to own 5,000 acres, the majority of which is dedicated to an industrial park. You should expect your city manager and your economic development corporation president will travel overseas to recruit manufacturers to fill the industrial park. Some of these countries will require travel visas, some will not.
This is not nefarious. It is common sense.

The globalized world has seemingly been great for everyone...security, access to foreign markets, the list goes on...so why would the US choose to continue d...