Friday, June 19, 2026 • Storm chances early. Mid-80s. ⛈️

Don’t forget: Make reservations for this Sunday’s OKANA Father’s Day BBQ Fest ‼️

Today is Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Texas and announced the freedom of the last enslaved people in the Confederacy, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

• Juneteenth in Oklahoma: Events across Oklahoma (News 9)

• Security checks and no unaccompanied minors: What to expect at Tulsa’s Juneteenth festival (The Oklahoma Eagle)

• Caribbean fusion flavor coming to Bigger Than Food Foundation's Juneteenth Block Party (KOCO)

• Sixth annual Norman Juneteenth Festival brings community together Friday night (Fox 25)

• City of OKC offices closed June 19 for Juneteenth (Oklahoma City Free Press)

Poll results:

We received 120 votes on the Thursday poll, “Do you approve of President Trump's handling of the Iran War?”

• 19 said YES
• 95 said NO
• 6 said “Don’t know enough to say”

New poll question at the bottom of today’s newsletter. (You can also suggest a poll question by emailing me at [email protected].)

By Clifton Adcock, The Frontier
👉 Click here to support this newsroom

Kyle Schmidt’s family farmhouse sits in the rolling, wooded hills near Sand Springs. A short distance from the front porch, a goat Schmidt’s daughter is raising bleats in its pen, and more than a dozen ducks mill about the property. He’s worried about light and noise from the data center Google plans to build a mile north of his home.

“We come out and we sit out here at night and we just look at the stars and watch the weather and stuff,” Schmidt said. “Straight up over there, we would just see a nice glow from the data center.”

The City of Sand Springs annexed 827 acres of ranch land near Schmidt’s home in June 2025. The city didn’t tell residents that the property was being eyed by Google. The city manager later signed a nondisclosure agreement in October, agreeing not to talk about the project.

The property owners asked Sand Springs for the annexation, and the city wasn’t legally required to notify neighboring property owners.

Schmidt said he found out about the annexation the day after the council approved it. Months later, the application to build a data center, called Project Spring, became public. The Sand Springs City Council approved the project in February.

Sand Springs City Manager Mike Carter said the city wasn’t aware of definite plans for a data center when the annexation was approved, but a third-party developer had said it hoped to eventually attract one to the site.

Bringing the vacant land, which was about eight miles north of downtown, into city limits allowed Sand Springs to collect a 2% fee from electricity usage by the facility. The city expects the development to generate $100 million in revenue from the fee over 25 years.

Long before a new data center is publicly announced, local officials work behind the scenes to aid developers in determining whether the location is a good fit. But to protect the companies involved, public officials have often been sworn to secrecy.

Officials in other cities like Coweta, Claremore, Luther, Yukon, and Stillwater also signed nondisclosure agreements with data center developers in the past two years. Though the language of the agreements vary, some require that public officials not reveal that any discussions  with developers are occurring, that any confidential information has been received, or even that a non-disclosure agreement exists. Some agreements allow the companies to sue cities to enforce the terms of the deals, sometimes in other states. In Claremore and Coweta, data center developers have briefed public boards and commissions on their plans, one or two members at a time to avoid quorums that would require a public meeting under the Oklahoma Open Meetings Act after signing nondisclosure agreements, emails show.

One official in Wagoner County warned local leaders there that a nondisclosure contract could be illegal or run afoul of Oklahoma government transparency laws. 

At The Frontier’s request, Oklahoma City University School of Law professor D.A. Jeremy Telman, who specializes in contract law, reviewed some of the nondisclosure agreements Oklahoma public officials have entered into with data center developers. 

While some of the non-disclosure agreements have language to allow companies to seek a court order to stop sharing confidential information and penalties for violating the contract, others contained no enforcement mechanisms, Telman said. 

“It’s not clear to me that they would be enforceable,” he said.

👉 Click here to read the full story

🚨 See also: All the details on data center secrecy deals Oklahoma communities have signed (The Frontier)

Editor’s note: Links requiring subscriptions have an *.

Here’s what’s happening in Oklahoma today:

• President Trump calls Gentner Drummond 'fake Republican' in Truth Social post over governor's race (KOCO)

• Oklahoma holding back on AI regulations amid Trump’s order for states not to stifle the new technology (Oklahoma Voice)

• OG&E proposes new data center agreement intended to prevent residential utility cost spikes (StateImpact Oklahoma)

• Cole optimistic about Senate support for $55 million E 7 Wedgetail surveillance jet (Gaylord News)

• Tulsa’s annual budget earned unanimous approval. Find out where $1.2B will be spent. (Tulsa Flyer)

• Tulsa mayor shifts public safety role, blindsiding council a day after budget approval (Tulsa Flyer)

• Oklahoma County jail fails 12th consecutive health inspection (KOSU)

• Jackson Lahmeyer admits affair, takes sabbatical from church (2 News Oklahoma)

• OSBI identifies man and woman killed by officers on Will Rogers Turnpike (Tulsa World)*

• 21-year-old cliff diver drowns at Muskogee County recreation area, troopers say (Tulsa World)*

• Oklahoma Pentecostal Group replaces bishop involved in embezzlement scandal (KFOR)

• Oklahoma deputies investigate report baby girl traded for rent break (Fox 25)

• Caney Valley accepts $425k in anonymous donations to cover budget shortfall (News On 6)

• Century-old Commerce Building in downtown Okmulgee added to Preservation Oklahoma’s ‘Endangered Places List’ (News On 6)

• Lawton Police releases details about shooting that sent two people to the hospital (KSWO)

• Lone Grove teen killed in ATV crash (KXII)

• Girl, 8, dies in Pushmataha Co. ATV crash (KXII)

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