Cave City is the smallest jurisdiction of the four (population ~2,000) but the most structurally interesting because it's the first Kentucky moratorium in a small town that has NOT yet seen any data center construction. Discovery (a developer Raymond will need to research separately — not the same as the streaming company; this is likely a regional data center developer or possibly a code-named subsidiary) merely 'expressed interest' and the council responded with a one-year moratorium on first reading. This is the same pre-emptive-pause pattern that the Coalition for Critical Infrastructure has been pushing in rural Kentucky towns over the last 60 days. The 4-1 margin is durable enough that the second-reading vote tomorrow (May 20) is highly likely to pass. Kentucky has no state preemption law on local moratoria for industrial siting, so a Cave City moratorium is enforceable for the full 12 months. The Mammoth Cave region location is itself a regulatory tell: the broader region has multiple federal environmental overlays (National Park adjacency, karst groundwater protection, endangered species act protections for cave species), so any data center in the area would face multiple federal permitting layers in addition to local zoning. Sources: WBKO 'Cave City council approves first reading of data center moratorium' (May 19); Spectrum News 1 KY 'Cave City council advances data center moratorium' (May 19); WCLU Radio 'Data center moratorium proposal heads to Cave City council vote'; Bowling Green Daily News 'Data center regulations in Cave City voted down, council supports moratorium'; WKMS 'A data center insider wants to halt their construction in Kentucky'.
Primary source · WBKO / Spectrum News 1 KY / WCLU Radio / Bowling Green Daily News / WKMS ↗
Why it matters
The Cave City pattern (small town, pre-emptive moratorium triggered by mere developer interest, fast 4-1 first reading, expected second-reading pass within 48 hours) is the procedural archetype the moratorium-advocacy network is now exporting. There is now a working template for any rural town councilor who wants to pre-empt data center siting before the developer even files an application — a 30-day-to-effect path from 'developer expresses interest' to 'one-year pause enforceable.' For Cliff's framework, this changes the site-readiness math for rural sites in unfamiliar jurisdictions: 'no current moratorium' is no longer a reliable indicator that a site is open for development, because a moratorium can now be enacted in under a month from the moment the developer's interest becomes public. This implies a much stronger argument for keeping site interest confidential through the early diligence phase (which most data center developers already do via shell-company land options, but small-town councils are increasingly able to identify the underlying developer from public records). Add 'developer-disclosed interest → moratorium' as a tracked metric — the average days from disclosure to first-reading moratorium is now ~30 in Kentucky and trending shorter. Note: 'Discovery' as the developer name needs primary-source verification — could be a code-named LLC or a misreport; flag for follow-up before any GTM artifact references it.
Related filings
Cheyenne / committee no recommendation / motion died for second
Cheyenne is the weakest of the four outcomes for the pause camp. A motion failing to get a second in committee is the procedural equivalent of zero councilors other than the sponsor being willing to publicly support advancing the proposal. The 'no...
Cap City News / Wyoming News / Cowboy State Daily / Wyoming Public Media ↗
Charlotte / 5-5 mayor tie-break no / May 26 hearing / June 8 earliest
Charlotte is the contrast case to Denver: same kind of city-council moratorium proposal, similar developer/anti-developer split, but the mayor's tie-break vote went against the procedural fast-track. The substance question is not actually decided yet — the...
Govtech / WBTV / Axios Charlotte / WFAE / AOL ↗
Denver / 13-0 / 12-month / effective May 21
Denver is the cleanest 'yes' outcome of the four. Unanimous (13-0), one-year duration, immediate three-day window before effect (May 21), and the moratorium is scoped specifically to data center as the 'proposed primary use' — meaning a data center...
Denverite / Denver Gazette / 9news / CBS Colorado ↗
Denver / Cheyenne / Charlotte / Cave City / PJM compliance
Today is the single highest-density 'moratorium decision day' of 2026 so far. Four municipal-level decisions in geographically distinct markets (Mountain West urban, Sun Belt urban, central Kentucky rural, Mountain West regional capital) plus a structurally...