County officials signed Rowan confidentiality terms; safety explanation draws differing accounts

Frederick County employees agreed to confidentiality terms with a data center developer in 2023, even though County Executive Jessica Fitzwater did not personally sign the agreement.

The Frederick News-Post reports that then-economic development director Lara Fritts signed a three-year nondisclosure agreement with Rowan Green Data, now Rowan Digital Infrastructure, in September 2023. Seven other employees signed an attachment acknowledging its restrictions at various times through February 2024.

The agreement concerned Project Bauxite, a name now used for three Rowan data centers built or under construction near Adamstown. Written by the county attorney’s office, it restricted the Office of Economic Development from disclosing information Rowan designated confidential.

Signers of the attachment included Patrick Murray, now Fitzwater’s chief of staff, and county Fire and Rescue Services Director Tom Coe. Murray was then a senior adviser and liaison to the administration’s data center work group.

County government relations director Victoria Venable told the newspaper that Murray and Coe signed to attend an October 2023 meeting about proprietary lithium-ion battery technology associated with a prospective tenant, since identified publicly as Amazon Web Services.

Venable said accepting the terms may have been the only way to obtain that fire-safety information. She distinguished the county’s authority to request compliance information from challenges involving unfamiliar technology.

Rowan offered a different explanation of what such agreements cover. Spokesperson Nathaniel Brown said NDAs protect proprietary business discussions, including design and investment considerations, and cannot govern required safety or code-compliance disclosures.

The report also distinguishes stages of development approval. Venable said the campus had already been approved when Fitzwater took office. Brown said Rowan’s first site-plan approval came in January 2024 and that he believed earlier adequate-public-facilities approval had been obtained under Quantum Maryland. Those statements concern different approvals and do not establish that every project detail was approved before the NDA.

Fitzwater told the newspaper that she had not signed and would not sign NDAs with data center developers. The record described in the report supports that distinction: she did not sign, but members of county staff did.

The other attachment signers worked in planning, building review and utilities. County spokesperson Hope Morris said employees were instructed to sign when brought into project conversations, but the administration did not provide individual explanations beyond those for Murray and Coe.

Brown said Rowan did not seek to extend the agreement. The unresolved transparency question is what information required confidentiality and how the county ensured access to information needed for public oversight.