Attorney Challenges Oracle/OpenAI $43B Saline Township Tax Break, Arguing Township Skipped Required Public Hearing

Resident Kathryn Haushalter and attorney Ellis Boal filed a challenge with the Michigan State Tax Commission on August 13-14, 2026 arguing that Saline Township’s property-tax abatement for Oracle’s $43 billion data center campus must be voided because the township skipped a legally required public hearing before establishing the site as an Industrial Development District — a statutory prerequisite under Michigan’s Plant Rehabilitation and Industrial Development Districts Act. Without a validly created IDD, Oracle cannot legally hold the Industrial Facilities Exemption Certificate the abatement depends on. The township had already rejected Oracle’s request to value the abatement against the full $43 billion project (worth roughly $147 million/year in relief), capping it instead at a $4.8 billion valuation (~$20 million/year) — but this procedural challenge, if the Tax Commission upholds it, would void the abatement chain entirely regardless of the valuation cap.

This is the latest chapter in the Saline Township fight the timeline has tracked since the township first denied, then was sued into settling, the underlying rezoning (2025-09-01–saline-township-denies-then-sued-into-settlement-datacenter-rezoning), followed by the board capping and then reversing the abatement under a “shall approve” legal threat (2026-07-15–saline-township-oracle-openai-caps-then-reverses-tax-abatement). A successful procedural challenge would be the first time a resident-led legal filing — rather than a board vote — unwound a major hyperscaler tax abatement in the 2025-2026 buildout wave, testing whether local due-process requirements can outlast the industry and legal pressure that has repeatedly overridden board votes in this same jurisdiction.