Morning In Memphis 9/15/26

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

From the Principal Toyota Studios, it's Morning In Memphis with Todd Starnes.

Todd Starnes (0:08)

Yeah, hello everybody. Welcome to the show. Happy Tuesday to you. And it is going to be a hot one. You just heard Laura Huckabee with your forecast. She'll be along a little bit later on with more details, but it's gonna be very, very hot, dangerously hot. So be careful if you're gonna get out and do the exercise. I saw a lot of you already out in the wee hours of the morning, which is the best time to do exercise these days. And we are hoping and praying the heat dome will eventually dissipate, I don't know, by Thanksgiving. Who knows? We've got a great show for you. Our good friend Congressman Tim Burchett is dropping by a little bit later on. And of course, we'll be taking your calls. A lot of news coming out of Collierville last night. A lot of residents really fired up over this town administrator and citizens coming out and standing up for employees who have been fired or have come under fire as a result of the behavior of the town administrator. We'll get into that in just a little while. I know many of you were at the meeting, gave speeches last night, and it's really interesting what's going on over in Collierville right now. Our telephone number, 901-260-5926.

That's 901-260-5926.

County Commission meeting last night, and they're spending more of your money. We'll tell you what they're spending that money on as well. But the starting point today are these AI data centers that are going up all over the country, and especially right here in the Mid-South. As a matter of fact, the largest AI computer, Colossus, built right here in the Mid-South. And there is a big controversy brewing in South Haven. And I'm fascinated by this. And the question is, do we need the data centers? And if we're going to have AI, we have to have these data centers. The question then becomes, all right, where do we put the data centers? And that has become a fierce battle. And you wonder if a lot of this is simply because this is Elon Musk and his company that we're talking about. I thought it was interesting that City Hall was hosting a big job fair yesterday. The city spending millions of your tax dollars to get kids jobs, when in fact, you've got many at City Hall that are going after and attacking these data centers. So, you know, you can't have it both ways. You've got Justin Pearson out there leading the charge, trying to shut down all of these data centers, bringing in a lot of revenue into the Mid-South. And so the question is, all right, Justin Pearson, if you're going to kick Elon Musk out of Memphis, and if we're going to kick him out of DeSoto County, what kind of businesses are you guys proposing come here? Because right now, all I see are a lot of people packing up and leaving Memphis. And here's a guy, Elon Musk, coming in and dumping tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars into our local economy. But anyway, there's a guy not... But there is a legitimate other sign to this. And there's a guy by the name of Jason Haley. I do not know this person. He is a homeowner, a resident of South Haven. And he woke up one day and he was like, what in the world is that? And he describes the sound coming from these data centers. As a constant whirring like an airplane hovering over his home.

So the noise has been keeping him and his family awake for quite some time. So two, he, Mr. Haley and two other residents, they live within a mile of the AI data center. And they're filing, they filed a lawsuit and they say there is near constant noise and vibrations are causing a negative physical and psychological health impact. And he's got all of this data or at least, I'm sorry, these emails to back up his arguments. He had been reaching out to South Haven Mayor Darren Musselwhite about the noise. He shared all of these emails with CBS News. I'm not sure the response from City Hall actually helped matters. So last November, he urged the mayor just to drive through the neighborhood and listen to the high-pitched noises. And the mayor responded by saying yes, that he was aware of the noise, and he was working on a solution with XAI. The mayor said it is a problem.

So anyway, nothing ever happens. And the noise gets worse. The family, they got the ringing of the ears. And he says, you can't live like this. So back and forth, back and forth they go.