Under Executive Order 658, no state agency can issue a permit for a data center over 25 megawatts until the host town has a signed community benefits agreement. The PR Bunker, led by Don Martelli, is the community relations counsel that gets developers to that signature: the risk assessment, the plain-language materials, the hearing room and the local press, with 165 million square feet of permitted Massachusetts development behind it.
"Data center projects in Massachusetts are not dying at the Siting Board. They are dying at town meeting, in the Facebook group, and in the two weeks between the land-record filing and the first public session, when residents learn about a 200-megawatt facility from a headline while the project team is still finishing the water study."
Executive Order 658 turned that gap into a permit condition. The community benefits agreement now comes first.
Before founding PR Bunker I ran a large Boston agency as its president, a firm known for winning town meeting votes. Today I am also president of the Revere Chamber of Commerce, which means I sit on the community's side of the table too. Data centers are the sharpest opposition category in the state right now. The playbook that permitted 165 million square feet is the same one, run earlier and harder.
Before site control is public: who carries the room, where the opposition will organize, which officials the town trusts, and what the water, power, noise and tax questions will be before anyone has heard the project's name.
What the host town actually needs, what the Office of Environmental Justice and Equity will look for, and how to get to a signed agreement that reads as engagement rather than a purchase.
The water draw, the property-line noise number, the power source and who pays for the grid upgrade, in words residents understand, plus the first-hearing FAQ that closes the misinformation gap.
Preparation for every session, from the first listening session to the select board vote, including being in the room.
The outlets residents actually read, the Facebook groups where opposition forms, and a daily briefing so the project team is never surprised.
When the petition drops, the moratorium article lands on the warrant, or the project name leaks before you planned to say it.
Massachusetts towns have banned or paused data centers one by one, and on September 8, 2026 Governor Healey signed Executive Order 658. Any data center over 25 megawatts now needs a community benefits agreement with its host municipality, reviewed against Office of Environmental Justice and Equity standards, before any state agency can issue a permit. State agencies can no longer sign NDAs with developers. The community conversation is the first permit, not the last hearing.
New or expanded facilities above 25 MW of peak demand are covered. That is nearly the entire hyperscale and colocation pipeline.
Negotiated with the host municipality, meeting state standards, submitted with OEJE's written feedback before permits move.
State agencies cannot sign nondisclosure agreements with data center developers. The code-name era is over. The town will know, so tell it first.
Developers procure new clean generation to match consumption or pay into the Ratepayer Protection Fund. Residents will ask who pays for the grid upgrade.
The Statement of Expectations covers water use, air quality, noise and grid impacts, which are the same four questions residents ask at the first meeting.
The host community effectively holds the first veto. Winning the room is no longer optional, and it cannot be delegated to the lawyers.
That is what the order requires. Getting there is a community relations job, and it is the one PR Bunker does.
Yes. Data centers are drawing the sharpest opposition in the state, including moratoriums and outright bans, and most of it is a process failure rather than a substance one. PR Bunker handles the community side: the risk assessment, the community benefits agreement conversation, plain-language materials, the hearing room and the local press, with Don Martelli in every room.
Before site control is public. The window between the land-record filing and the first public session is where most projects lose the town, and under Executive Order 658 the community benefits agreement has to be done before state permits move. Starting at the hearing is starting late.
Water, power bills, noise, jobs and who benefits, roughly in that order. Then the one that decides the vote: why did we hear about this from the newspaper. The first five have answers in numbers. The last one is what this practice exists to prevent.
Lobbyists work the statehouse. Lawyers work the regulations. PR Bunker works the community: the residents, the local media, the select board room. When you hire PR Bunker you get Don Martelli in every room. No junior handoffs.
The PR Bunker does, led directly by Don Martelli: community risk assessment before site control is public, community benefits agreement strategy, plain-language materials on water, power and noise, hearing preparation, and local media for data center projects in Massachusetts. Under Executive Order 658 that work is now a permit condition for any facility over 25 megawatts. Start with What Data Center Developers Get Wrong About Local Opposition in Massachusetts, which covers the pattern behind most failed projects.
Signed September 8, 2026: a community benefits agreement with the host municipality, meeting state standards and reviewed by the Office of Environmental Justice and Equity, before any state agency can issue a permit for a data center over 25 megawatts. No NDAs between state agencies and developers. New clean energy to match consumption, or payments into the Ratepayer Protection Fund. And compliance with the Statement of Expectations on water, air, noise and grid impacts. The plain-English version is What Does Executive Order 658 Require of Data Center Developers in Massachusetts?
Start before site control is public, not after. Map who carries the room, learn what the town actually needs (it is rarely a check), bring OEJE's standards into the first conversation instead of the last, and negotiate in the open, because the order bars NDAs anyway. The step-by-step version is How Do You Get a Community Benefits Agreement Done Before OEJE Reviews It?, and the reasoning behind it is in the practitioner take on the order.
By getting there first, and if that window has closed, by taking the opposition seriously instead of managing it. Most data center opposition is a process failure: residents learned about the project from a headline. Brief the fire chief, the water superintendent and the select board before the first public session, answer the water and noise questions in numbers, and give the community wins it can point to. If the project has already been voted down, Your Project Got Banned. Now What? is the rebuild playbook, and the wider practice is at Community Relations & Public Affairs.
Not to the building itself. The 2026 consolidated siting framework and the Energy Facilities Siting Board cover generation, storage and transmission, so the substation or transmission line serving a large data center can land in that process, with its own pre-filing community engagement requirement. The data center is governed by Executive Order 658 and local zoning. If your project has an EFSB piece, the EFSB pre-filing process in plain English covers what the engagement has to look like.
Community risk assessment, the community benefits agreement, public meetings, local media. You get me in every room. No junior handoffs.
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