How NDAs Fueled Calvert County’s Explosive Data Center Controversy

PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. — In early 2026, the conversations about a possible data center in Calvert County went from a whisper to a roar.

This past March, Amazon AWS posted a job opening for a senior data center construction manager in Lusby on several hiring websites. Residents quickly took to social media to share the job listing and their confusion. When, they wondered, had a data center been approved? Had there been public hearings, proposals or even an open discussion?

In a county that tends to get involved in the minutiae of government processes, this sudden turn from “no data centers planned” to “Amazon posted a job for a data center” felt shocking — and, to some residents, insulting.

In subsequent weeks, residents learned that County Commissioner Earl “Buddy” Hance had signed a non-disclosure agreement in March 2025 with a company called Rowan Green Data LLC, which became Rowan Digital Infrastructure. Quinbrook, a specialist investment manager, and Blackstone, the world’s largest private equity firm, acquired a significant minority stake in Rowan in April 2026.

In a December 2025 joint legislative meeting, Hance confirmed that the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) had entered into an NDA with a private company. When Delegate Mark Fisher (R-27C) asked directly if such an agreement existed with a “Data Center,” Commissioner Hance said it was not with a data center.

Later meetings revealed that the county had also entered into a confidentiality agreement with Natelli Holdings about data center development in August 2024. Both agreements were signed by Hance, then the president of the BOCC, authorized by the board to sign on their behalf.

Hance expressed willingness to sit for an interview, but did not respond to The BayNet’s repeated attempts to schedule one.

The agreements signed have been dissolved and all parties involved are no longer subject to the terms. The BayNet was able to view these agreements through a Public Information Request (PIA).

As the community battles out the pros and cons of data centers themselves, these contracts have been a focal point of pushback among residents — and shed light on how big corporations can plant their flag in business-friendly counties that are looking for more revenue.

“Like any company exploring an investment, early-stage plans are often kept confidential for competitive and legal reasons — this is standard practice across industries. Amazon, AWS, or its subsidiaries did not enter into a non-disclosure agreement with Calvert County. As with all projects, Amazon operates in accordance with applicable laws, zoning and public processes,” a spokesperson for Amazon wrote in an email to The BayNet.

There is no current known record of AWS or its subsidiaries signing an NDA or similar agreement with the county. Rowan’s Chief Development Officer Stephen Jenkins spent nearly 12 years at AWS, where he held senior leadership roles overseeing global data center expansion, network design and infrastructure strategy, according to his company biography. Both Rowan and AWS are linked to data center projects in Frederick, Maryland.

The AWS spokesperson also wrote that it’s not unusual for any cloud provider to keep expansion plans confidential for competitive purposes. Economic development officials have noted that the use of confidentiality agreements to safeguard intellectual property is common practice for companies seeking to do business in their communities, and pointed to their robust Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and well-established best practices that govern these types of engagements, which employees are required to follow at all times.

County officials are careful to say there’s no formal data center proposal. They also say that non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements are a standard part of how companies explore economic development all over the country, not just in Calvert or Southern Maryland.

In fact, the county’s NDAs do not eliminate public access to information or limit public participation specifically once a project enters the formal review process. They are limited in scope to specific confidential business details shared before any application is submitted.

Calvert County Administrator Linda Turner says part of the issue comes from confusion about the process. Though the agreements were signed years ago, they weren’t legally binding obligations to build data centers, or promises by the county to allow them to be built. The agreements are simply to allow companies to research an area and are a standard part of economic development practices.

“If it’s determined that a company wants to move forward, they have to submit an application for the development review. They have to submit it to planning and zoning, they have to initiate the process. We have numerous opportunities for the public to express themselves baked into the process,” Turner said in an interview with The BayNet.

Tommy Natelli Jr., vice president of Natelli Holdings, seconded this — and said confidentiality agreements are in place more so to protect the company from competitors, not public opinion.

“This is a highly competitive market,” Natelli said in an interview with The BayNet. “I don’t want someone going out and saying, this is what Natelli is doing in this location before we even know if a project is feasible.”

Natelli also said that the public misunderstands how this all works, and they view this stage as his company already being involved in developing a data center. Instead, he said this is just the beginning of his process. At this point, he’s not certain if he will even pursue a project.

These linguistic differentiations are a critical part of how the government and business talk about development. Turner and her team were specific to say that the Natelli and Amazon concepts were not proposals. They were concepts, or presentations. A proposal means formal, official and has procedure involved. A presentation or a concept does not.

But opponents say these are technicalities and show a disconnect in how the government conducts itself and what the people actually need. The very fact that companies are allowed to do work outside of the formal review process that would necessitate public awareness doesn’t alleviate concerns — it’s the cause of them.

Opponents, including two candidates looking to unseat District One County Commissioner Mike Hart, say the people are now two years behind on organizing, and even more so on information. As a result, they worry that companies will be able to rush the process and take advantage of the county’s lack of knowledge and safeguards by getting approvals based on inadequate zoning or environmental protections. Critics argue these methods pressure counties into developing data center-friendly policies and limit public influence.

Tyson Slocum, director of the Energy Program at the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen, said that NDAs have been part of government processes for a while. But Slocum argued that data centers take advantage of what he described as a “broken process” and turn them into “NDAs on steroids.” Slocum said that data center NDAs are more sweeping, more punitive and deny public access to almost all pertinent information — not just proprietary information that would alleviate security concerns.

“It’s a totally outrageous abuse of NDAs by project developers where the goal, he argued, is not to protect proprietary information, but to limit public participation by keeping relevant and important information from the public,” Slocum said.

These events occurred through typical channels and processes and did allow the opportunity for public comment. But many residents have pointed out the limited nature of these many one-sided public comments, public forums, business presentations and commissioner comment periods. These processes don’t allow the public to actually engage in a dialogue with the officials who are supposed to be their voice.

There is a distinct legal and technical difference between saying no data centers are planned and choosing not to disclose that companies are interested. The statements from the county prior to March 2026 were true — but, to many, made some members of the public feel like officials were avoiding direct answers and relying heavily on technical legal distinctions.

Commissioner Mike Hart said even he was caught on the back foot in this process. He gave consent to Commissioner Hance to sign the agreements, and said he met with representatives from Natelli, including Tommy Natelli Jr., during lunch meetings with the BOCC. Still, he said businesses are constantly expressing interest, and he did not realize the extent of the data center possibilities.

Natelli disputes Hart’s description of his experience, and said he didn’t hear any pushback from Hart during meetings with the BOCC.

Regardless, any one of the five members of the BOCC could have refused to allow Hance to sign on their behalf. It’s possible that if the commissioners informed to the public that companies were exploring data centers while the agreements were still active, they would have been within their legal parameters. None publicly disclosed those discussions while the agreements were active.

Hart, for his part, says he is trying to make up for mistakes.

“They can say we made mistakes. The delivery was horrible. The zoning was wrong. We made mistakes. But let’s fix it before anyone gets hurt, let’s fix it. Let’s put the moratorium on, get professionals in here to study it and talk to us. Put it on a referendum, and let the people choose,” he said in an interview with The BayNet.

Hart’s proposed moratorium was voted down 2-3 on April 7.

Delegate Fisher also says he was blindsided. He knows how the people feel, he said, because he believes he was misled, too.

“Here I thought we were just having a conversation, and I come to find out there was already an agreement in place.”

Fisher said he only found out about the agreements because of an informal conversation with Tommy Natelli Sr. at an event in Annapolis. Delegate Fisher has since proposed legislation to ban NDAs and similar agreements for economic development in Calvert County, which he said had bipartisan support this session from representatives around Maryland.

The problem, critics say, is that the public doesn’t have the opportunity to put forth their own experts or their own representatives. They don’t get to submit independent reviews or studies. They don’t get a lobbying voice or to sit with officials. They can visit office hours, make phone calls, send letters or speak during public comment periods, all important parts of the democratic process that can feel less influential than private meetings between officials and developers. The people who are meant to be their voice in the process were sworn to secrecy to the company, which limits their ability to advocate for the people that elected them.

One example of how this process favors business is the meeting held by AWS billed as a “community open house.” The county helped spread the word about this event and encouraged attendance. During the event, AWS answered pre-selected questions that aligned with the county’s official response: there was no official proposal. They also offered in-house experts to address concerns.

The public did not have their own representative during this meeting, and was not allowed their own experts to debate with AWS. Critics argue meetings like these can create an imbalance of power when one party is the host and one is the audience, rather than two equals engaged in open debate.

Then, when people — and the environmental commission — called for independent environmental review to better align with the people’s desires, the county said that without a proposal, “there’s nothing to study” and the business in question would be required to submit studies in accordance with state law and local zoning ordinances. But critics argue corporate-funded reviews can create perceived conflicts of interest.

Or as Slocum said, “A tech company’s in-house environmental assessment is not worth the paper it’s printed on.”

Opponents agree that NDAs and confidentiality agreements have an important use. Protecting security information for nuclear energy, for example, or for a company that may have access to sensitive data about patients or students. They also point out that the NDA and confidentiality agreements in place with Rowan and Natelli respectively did not prohibit the county from saying the agreements exist, especially if information came from a source outside of the companies. So, it’s possible that Hance would have been within his legal rights, even abiding by the Rowan NDA’s terms, to answer Fisher’s questions more directly.

“NDAs have their place. For example, if you take a tour of a facility and see a proprietary process, you don’t tell the public the process, but you can say you saw a tour of the facility,” District One County Commissioner Patrick Flaherty explained.

“The Commissioners want to play both sides of the NDA issue. To a degree they can be necessary, but if anything will change how we live, they have a duty to report to the people.”

“The thing about signing an NDA with a government is that you’re not signing an agreement with a business. You’re signing an agreement with the people. So keeping that from the people is unacceptable,” another District One county commissioner candidate, Ethan Cox, added.

Residents have run into roadblocks trying to obtain information too. Calvert County resident Joseph Cormier said he’s been sending PIAs in for years, and has always found the government helpful and cooperative — until it came to data centers. For the first time, he got a written letter in the mail from then-County Attorney John Norris informing him of an extension when he tried to request copies of the NDA and confidentiality agreement. Then, the documents arrived by email, redacted.

“I’ve always been able to pick up the phone and call somebody,” Cormier said. “But I feel like they took a stand on this data center that had the effect of keeping people in the dark for too long. And it’s not right. It runs counter to the democratic process.”

Cormier added that while he’s fortunate to be able to closely follow all the happenings in the government, not everyone is that lucky. There’s a lot happening across different departments and at different times, and unless you have time to sit through meetings and read the agendas and minutes and go through ordinances and transcripts, you’re going to miss important information. Especially when your elected officials aren’t directly communicating the whole picture.

Many members of the public do believe that the BOCC was working in good faith, and is trying to secure the economic future of the county. Critics say the current processes allow secrecy to thrive, and give major conglomerates a leg up they truly do not need.

“I think at one point, there could have been a use for NDAs in government. But the damage caused by this debacle means we can’t put public trust after economic development ever again,” Cox said. “The most valuable thing a government has is public trust. Neither the government nor the people can afford to lose that.”

The Calvert County Government encourages residents to attend as many county meetings as possible and stay up to date by using their FAQ page.

At the May 5 BOCC meeting, commissioners confirmed that AWS will soon submit their development review application, the first step of the official process. At the same meeting, commissioners declined again to pursue a moratorium and voted to tighten text amendments surrounding data centers that would compel companies to adhere to text amendment changes up until the day construction starts.

For those in Calvert, it may be too little, too late. Reminders about processes, about proposals, about how the county followed all the rules, fall on unreceptive ears among residents who say they feel frustrated and betrayed by the process. The data center process may continue, but for some residents, concerns about transparency and trust in local government remain unresolved.

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