The Protect Montgomery County’s Future group held its first meeting on Oct. 12 at the Montgomery City Public Library, discussing several topics that included the lawsuit regarding the Amazon data center.

Protect Montgomery County’s Future was formed in late August with citizens who care about the future of Montgomery County and plan to keep residents informed on the agendas, meetings and development proposals that are happening in the county. It is separate from Preserve Montgomery County LLC, which brought a lawsuit against Montgomery County and the Department of Economic Development in February. The group will hold its meetings on the second Monday of each month at MCPL.

The lawsuit was the first topic that was discussed at the meeting, which had more than 30 people in attendance. Recently, Cole County Circuit Judge Cotton Walker ruled that Preserve Montgomery County is allowed to move forward with the lawsuit.

“He approved our motion to compel and he approved the state’s motion to dismiss them as a party, so they’re no longer involved in the lawsuit,” said Sabrina Cope, one of the members of Protect Montgomery County’s Future. “It’s just the county right now. Basically what’s going on is that we’re waiting to schedule another hearing and we don’t know when that’s going to be.”

Tom Westhoff, another member of the group, said he talked with Montgomery County attorney Travis Elliott and learned that future hearings may not be held until after the holidays.

“In the lawsuit, there’s probably nothing that’s going to happen because there were some requests filed that judges will probably take 30 days to look at,” Westhoff said. “Then, there will be another motion. There’s probably not going to be anything substantial for the lawsuit for a couple of months. It’s what they’re thinking anyway. It’s entirely up to the judge.”

The group also discussed attending future Montgomery County Planning and Zoning meetings. One of those meetings is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Oct. 27 at the Montgomery County Courthouse, regarding a request to re-zone a parcel of land in the county.

“There are going to be a couple of openings coming up and we’re just trying to maybe find somebody to run for those positions for a platform,” Westhoff said. “Then, we just talked about what meetings they have coming up. They’re going to have two planning and zoning meetings in October, discussing seven different topics or requests that they had. So we just wanted to make people aware of that and attend the meetings if they could.”

The group also plans to attend a Montgomery County Port Authority meeting at noon on Oct. 26 at Montgomery City Hall.

The group’s next meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 9 at MCPL.