Challenging the Backroom Data Center Tax Deals

 

On June 22, 2026, Kipperlyn Sinclair joined local farmers, teachers, and taxpayer advocates in filing a formal legal challenge against the City of Hillsboro and Washington County (Read the Full Legal Complaint (PDF) over hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax exemptions handed out to data center corporations.

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"I am formally challenging the EZ Program for subverting its goal of alleviating economic hardship."

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Kipperlyn Sinclair, June 2026 Statement

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The Numbers at a Glance

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• $90 Million: Property tax breaks given to tech companies in Washington County in 2025 alone, according to court filings.

• $300,000 Per Job: The annual cost in lost tax revenue for every permanent data center job created.

• 17 Rushed Approvals: Tax break applications pushed through by the city just days before a state moratorium took effect, as reported by the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

• 2040s & 2050s: How far into the future these agreements lock in property tax exemptions for tech companies.

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What Happened

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• Rushing to Beat the State Pause: During the March 2026 session, the Oregon Legislature passed a one-year moratorium pausing Standard Enterprise Zone tax breaks for data centers, taking effect on June 6, 2026. Between the bill's passage in March and the June 6 deadline, city and county approved 17 separate Enterprise Zone applications, with the largest batch signed off on May 27, just days before the law took effect.

• Decades of Tax Breaks for Major Tech Corporations: According to the legal complaint and reporting in the Hillsboro News Times, these agreements lock in property tax exemptions stretching into the 2040s and 2050s for some of the wealthiest companies in the world, including NVIDIA Corporation, Adobe Inc., CoreWeave, Inc., NTT Global Data Centers, QTS Investment Properties, Dropbox, and Stack Infrastructure.

• Draining Money from Schools and Public Services: Oregon's Enterprise Zone law (ORS 285C.140(6)) was written to relieve economic hardship and bring good-paying jobs to local communities. Data centers, however, require massive amounts of land, water, and electricity while employing very few permanent workers once construction ends. At nearly $300,000 in annual tax breaks per job, the lawsuit argues that staff approved these deals without required evidence in the record and violated the purpose of the law.

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Who Filed the Lawsuit

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• 1000 Friends of Oregon: Oregon’s longtime farmland and land-use watchdog organization.

• Local Leaders: Hillsboro City Councilor Kipperlyn Sinclair and Beaverton School Board member Tammy Carpenter (Democratic nominee for Oregon House District 27).

• Local Farmers: Aaron Nichols of Stoneboat Farm and Helvetia farmer Jacob Roloff, whose fight to protect local farmland was recently profiled in Courthouse News.

• Oregon Education Association (OEA): The statewide teachers' union representing Hillsboro educators working to protect school funding.

• Tax Fairness Oregon: A nonpartisan group advocating for an equitable tax code.

 

Court Filings & News Coverage

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• Case Information: 1000 Friends of Oregon, Kipperlyn Sinclair, Jacob Roloff, Tammy Carpenter, Aaron Nichols, et al. v. Dan Dias, Robby Hammond, City of Hillsboro, Eric Olson, and Washington County. Filed June 22, 2026, in Washington County Circuit Court (Judge Andrew R. Erwin) by attorney Jesse A. Buss of Willamette Law Group, PC.

• Read the Full Legal Complaint (PDF)

• Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB): Hillsboro data center fight heads to court

• Hillsboro News Times: Hillsboro’s data center tax breaks spark lawsuit against city, Washington County

• Oregon Capital Chronicle / Banks Post: Politicians, teachers union sue Hillsboro, Washington County over tax breaks to data centers

• Courthouse News: 'Paradise paved' in Oregon suburb: Data center boom spurs protests, lawsuit

• 1000 Friends of Oregon: Press Release on the Filing