I would expect big money coming into a small town to face serious static from local authorities unless and until you're cozied up to its political scene.
If you think about this from the perspective of the city council, there was this big warehouse that they thought was perfect for a company like Amazon, which would have given them hundreds of jobs. Instead, a random rich guy buys it and employs nobody.
I see nothing wrong with the fact that he's having trouble doing what he wants, he probably isn't coming close to remotely following proper procedure and clearly lacks experience, as he stated that he could barely even afford the first property - a 220k square foot warehouse he bought with apparently no business and no experience owning warehouses.
Given it's a town of 40k people, I doubt there's rampant corruption and more OP just doesn't have any idea how anything works at all. If any of his statements are true, this guy needs to stop what he's doing and learn how to adult.
If you're going to refurb a giant warehouse to be a fireworks storage facility, that's different from building a daycare, which is different from "run an internet company and makerspace", etc.
Given his history includes free-energy crap (his own fusion reactor design) and running for Mayor of Provo, UT on a platform of disincorporating the city, I would guess the problem is that this guy is a libertarian and thus thinks rules don't apply to him.