Ohio's data center problem is the process, not the messaging: Jessica Western

Anyone with a television in Ohio knows how the state's data center conversation is going. One candidate for Senate has been branded the face of data centers in Ohio. His opponent answers with an ad of his own. Every candidate for governor now backs restrictions or a conditional moratorium. The ad war is the local zoning fight scaled up and set to scary music, and it leaves the root problem untouched. More than 200 data center projects are operating or announced across Ohio. More are coming. The only real question is whether they get built in a way residents can live with. Jessica Western is an adjunct professor at the University of Wyoming's Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and is director for collaborative public engagement at the Institute for Rural Collaboration. Institute for Rural Collaboration I have spent my career as a conflict resolution and public engagement professional working on natural resource issues. That work recently took me to a gathering of data center executives downright stumped by the backlash. They believed they had done everything possible for the communities they wanted to build in. They had tackled the energy questions and the water questions and whatever else the public threw at them. Above all, in their view, they had done a great deal of work to educate local residents. The first thing I told them was that I don't know any adult who will willingly sit in a meeting, boiling over with questions and concerns, and take kindly to being 'educated.' It feels patronizing and disrespectful. It is also emblematic of an approach so common it has a name in my field, DAD, or Decide, Announce, Defend. Their failure was never that they explained too little. It was that residents were brought into the conversation after the decision had already been made. No amount of explaining fixes that. Working out the alternative is why I partnered with Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs' Office of Resiliency on workshops that brought officials, Tribal representatives, utilities, developers and residents into the same room. Participants emphasized engaging communities early, before positions harden and mistrust takes root. They wanted transparent information sharing rather than one-way campaigns. They pointed out that residents hold knowledge about landscapes, economies and community priorities that improves project design. And they wanted a genuine role in shaping outcomes rather than an opportunity to react. In Ashville, a resident told a reporter he first learned about a project near his home from a notice on the back of his water bill. That is not an information problem a better brochure would have solved. It is an invitation problem. When residents raise questions about power consumption, land use or community impacts, they are not necessarily expressing opposition. They are asking to be heard, and developers too frequently hear rejection instead. The cost of that misread is predictable. Opposition organizes. Trust erodes. Rumors spread. Timelines extend and costs rise. Ohio is watching all of it as one community after another adopts a temporary ban. Developers who want predictability and long-term success should be the strongest supporters of getting the front end right. We have an adage in conflict resolution circles, go slow to go fast. Sharing information in multiple directions and building something together takes longer at the start, and it keeps a project out of a courtroom, off a ballot and out of a campaign ad. Ohio needs more than incentives and shovel-ready sites. Communities deserve a seat at the table. Developers deserve a process that reduces conflict, creates efficiency,, and builds trust. Policymakers deserve better tools for navigating difficult tradeoffs. Collaborative public engagement offers all three, and Ohio is running out of time to try it. Jessica Western is an adjunct professor at the University of Wyoming's Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and is director for collaborative public engagement at the Institute for Rural Collaboration. Have something to say about this topic? * Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. * Email general questions about our editorial board or comments or corrections on this opinion column to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com.