An AI data center has created a new political force in Independence

Opinion An AI data center has created a new political force in Independence | Hudnall Constriction for the new Nebius data center is underway, and neighbors allege crews are breaking permitting rules. ecuriel@kcstar.com There are nearly as many people in the Facebook group Stop the AI Data Center in Independence — 115,000 — as there are in the entire city of Independence, population 120,000. The name of the group is somewhat misleading. It did not succeed in stopping the data center. The City Council approved the massive Nebius AI facility on the eastern edge of Independence earlier this year, and construction is already underway. But last week, the movement claimed its latest political victory. First District voters recalled longtime Independence Councilman John Perkins with about 68% of the vote. Perkins was one of five council members who voted in March to approve tax incentives for the project. Two others who supported the deal, Bridget McCandless and Jared Fears, have since lost elections of their own. Independence is no outlier here. Data centers are quickly becoming a potent political issue around the country as communities grapple with their enormous appetite for electricity and water, their impact on utility bills, the generous tax incentives often used to attract them and, perhaps most of all, a secret fourth thing: an abstract disgust at Big Tech's ever-expanding reach into our everyday lives. Recent polls suggest Americans have stumbled onto one of the few things they can agree on: They really don't want data centers built near them. Roughly three-quarters oppose such projects in their communities, including sizable majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents. Rachel Gonzalez has been near the center of the Independence fight. She helped start the Facebook group in January and is deputy treasurer of the Independence Community Action Committee, the group that helped organize the Perkins recall. I talked with Gonzalez Wednesday about how a fight over one data center turned into a political movement, what the vote says about Independence politics and whether Perkins will be the last council member the group tries to remove. The vote for the $6.2 billion tax incentive package for Nebius was back in March. What bothered you most about the way the city handled the data center deal in the first place? It was frustrating that the city made the deal seem like it was completely done, no question, before anyone ever got an opportunity to ask important questions about the power, the water consumption, what kind of chemicals are used in the water, all of that stuff. Instead, we were basically told not to ask questions. Our city officials were not holding real public town halls about it until we decided to host one ourselves and invite them. We had over 350 people at this big town hall who were upset. We had people speaking at the council meetings with an overflow room. More than 50 people spoke in opposition to the data center, and then the council just voted for it. What bothers you most about this project? My biggest issue the entire time has been the tax abatement. Our city gave a 90% tax abatement to a foreign AI data center for 20 years and an issuance of $150 billion in bonds. People are fighting to make ends meet in Independence, and to watch our city hand over so much to an AI data center that could have damaging impacts on our community was my biggest gripe with it the whole time. Of course, I'm also worried about things like water, power and potential pollution. We have people in our group who are concerned about AI or what the AI is going to be used for. There are people concerned about the data center's proximity to the Lake City ammunition plant. Our group is very broad in its concerns about this AI data center, but I'm really proud that we've all been able to come together across different political parties and backgrounds and work together to fight against this project and hold our elected officials accountable. We really have felt like this has gone on behind our backs. Your Facebook group has grown to nearly the size of Independence itself. Obviously, they're not all Independence residents. Who are all these people? We've connected with a lot of people involved in different data center fights around Missouri and Kansas, but also around the country. There is a group in Birmingham that is currently fighting a Nebius data center in Alabama, and we connected with them and shared ideas. We all try to support each other. How much do you think TikTok and social media had to do with your success Tuesday? I saw a lot of this stuff circulating online. I think there were definitely a couple of people we motivated from TikTok, but the majority of people we motivated to vote came directly from the doors. I don't think people understand, because we weren't posting about it every single day, but we were knocking on doors every single day for the last two months. I would get off work at 5 o'clock, head over to my friend's house, and we would be out from 5:15 to 8 p.m. every weekday. Every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, we were knocking on doors from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. On the morning of Election Day, I was driving around Independence looking to see if people were outside or if their screen doors were open, knocking and saying, 'Did you know today's Election Day?' I probably looked like a lunatic, but that is just what it took. I knocked on one woman's door and she said, 'I really wanted to vote to kick him out, but my car's in the shop.' And I said, 'Get in! I'll take you. Where's your polling place?' We figured it out together, and we took her over to the library to vote. So I think it really was the ground game, but I'm happy social media was able to play a role as well. Even with the incentives Nebius is getting, this is projected to be a huge windfall for Independence. The empty property was generating less than $3,000 a year in taxes, but once the Nebius project is up and running, it's projected to pay about $463 million to the Independence School District over 20 years, and its electricity purchases from the city-owned utility are expected to generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the city. Thoughts on that? My biggest problem is that a lot of the stuff they talk about is just projections. We've been told this before here in Independence with other projects, like the Bass Pro TIF. We've lost millions of dollars on that project. We've been told things like that with the Rockwood solar farm; we lost almost $20 million on that project. For me personally, even if we were to get every single one of those dollars they're claiming we would get, I'm not sure that it's worth giving this foreign billion-dollar AI data center company these tax abatements. I'm also not sure it's worth it because of the potential health impacts. The people on Bly Road (where the data center is being built) that I've become close with are dealing with the consequences of this decision every single day. They say the construction crews are breaking all kinds of permitting rules. Construction is happening 24 hours a day when it's only supposed to be sunup to sundown. It really is impacting these people's lives. I'm sad that our city didn't fight for those people on Bly Road. I'm sad that those people were not offered any compensation during this project. I think the least they could have done was go in and offer to buy out all of the residents of that road. I don't think our city was looking out for those people. You've talked about wanting to build something that lasts beyond this particular data center fight. What does that look like? We hear John Perkins' supporters and others saying, 'Well, you should have known. You should have known this was coming because this land was rezoned for this in 2022.' But the average Independence resident cannot go to every single council meeting and every single Planning Commission meeting and watch these things. We're trying to build something bigger where we can have a team of people. One person goes to the Planning Commission. One person goes to this council meeting, one person goes to that council meeting. Then we have a monthly group where we say, 'Here's what happened in our city government this month.' Do you think this ends with Perkins? Are you planning to go after the other two remaining council members who supported the data center? It's definitely something people are thinking about. I hope the rest of our council is on alert that we are organized, and we're ready to hold our elected officials accountable if we need to. There are going to be a lot more organizing meetings with our team to figure out what we want to do next, because a recall is very, very hard work. This was the culmination of months and months of work. It requires a lot of volunteers. In the First District, there were 23 petitioners who went out every day to get those signatures because it requires 8% of registered voters in that district, and you have to be from that district to run the petition. If we were to target Heather Wiley or Jennie Vaught in the 3rd or 4th District, it's up to the people in those districts to figure out what they want to do and how we can support them. The other important caveat is that one reason a lot of people wanted to start with John Perkins is that he's had years and years of bad decisions, we feel — 18 years' worth — but also he's the smallest district. We needed to do this quickly because the city charter says that if you recall someone with less than a year and a half left in their term, then the City Council gets to appoint the replacement. That's not something I want, or I think the voters want. Doing the recall on John Perkins now means there will be a special election where the people can fill that seat. But if we do another one involving Heather or Jennie, that would need to come very, very quickly, or else we're looking at a council-appointed replacement. I think that has to be considered when we make that decision moving forward. Does your group have any thoughts about who you'd like to see replace Perkins? There are several people who have indicated that they would like to run. I think we will certainly be having some sort of town hall or informational sessions where we ask questions of any candidate who would like to put their name in the ring, and decide later who we would like to support. But I would encourage anyone to consider it at this point. David Hudnall Opinion Contributor, The Kansas City Star Email this person 816-234-4172 David Hudnall is a columnist for The Star's Opinion section. He is a Kansas City native and a graduate of the University of Missouri. He was previously the editor of The Pitch and Phoenix New Times.