FESTUS, Missouri — Voters in a small Missouri town, unhappy with the city council’s approval of a $6 billion data center, struck back at the polls last week, ousting all four incumbent council members running for reelection.
Tuesday’s election in Festus, Missouri — a city of 12,000 people along the Mississippi River a half-hour south of St. Louis — is the latest example of growing public backlash against cities agreeing to host hyperscale data centers over the objections of residents concerned about their local impacts.
On the same day as the Festus election, voters in Port Washington, Wisconsin, a Milwaukee suburb, where tech giants Oracle and OpenAI are building a $15 billion data center campus, also registered their disapproval by overwhelmingly passing a first-of-a-kind referendum to restrict future projects. At least three other cities across the country will vote on similar measures this year.
The rout of half the Festus City Council was fueled by a surge in voter turnout and widespread frustration with the data center approval process.
