06/01/2026
Lakeland FL Project Swan AI Data Center
Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Sam Romain and I’m the chairman for the Polk County GOP. I’m also a Lakeland resident, and I’m here about the Project Swan data center.
I know it’s not on the agenda today and there’s no vote. That’s why I’m here now, before anything gets promised, while you still hold all the leverage.
Here’s my concern. Some of the largest corporations in the world are coming to Florida looking for cheap power, cheap water, and tax incentives. In a lot of communities, the result is the same: the company gets the benefit, and ordinary families end up subsidizing them. I don’t want that to be Lakeland’s story.
Consider the scale. This one facility could require a large share of Lakeland Electric’s entire power supply. Our whole system runs around 845 megawatts, and we can’t generate that kind of new load on our own. So when we’re short, the city buys power, through the municipal pool, through the open market, at whatever rate the market sets that day. And those purchased-power costs don’t stay with the utility. They get passed straight through to ratepayers on the energy charge. That’s the mechanism by which “the data center needs power” quietly becomes “your bill went up.”
And I’d ask you to keep one comparison in mind. A Lakeland homeowner who installs solar on his own roof, with his own money, still pays a demand charge to the utility. If we ask our own residents to carry that cost when they generate their own power, we shouldn’t offer the largest electricity user in the county a better deal that everyone else subsidizes.
So my ask is straightforward. No nondisclosure agreements on this project. No tax incentives committed before the water, power, and traffic studies are public and this commission has reviewed them. And one principle to hold to: if Project Swan creates a cost for this system, that cost belongs to the project, not to Lakeland families and small businesses.
You were elected to look out for the people of this city. That’s all I’m asking you to do here. Thank you.
