Meta's Ohio data center faces Tuesday's vote with 90.5% of 10,202 hearing comments against

A recall vote rides on Meta's data center

In Piqua, Ohio, a city of about 20,000, Tuesday's ballot asks two questions at once: should Meta▼−1.03% — Meta, down 1.03 percent today build its data center here, and should the mayor and two city commissioners who backed it keep their jobs? ¹ The recall is the sharp edge of a revolt that now has a ledger. A site called American Sentiment↗, run by Prophecy Gov, a San Francisco startup whose day job is selling AI assistants to city staff, has counted 10,202 public comments from 417 local government meetings across the country this year. ²³⁴

The cost of the mood is already booked. Forty-five projects worth $68 billion were delayed or blocked by local opposition in the second quarter alone, according to the researcher Data Center Watch↗, and more than 40 data-center measures sit on November 3 ballots, from bans in about a dozen Ohio communities to a rezoning vote on a proposed Amazon▲+2.75% — Amazon, up 2.75 percent today site in Wilmington, Ohio. ¹

The complaints are water, secrecy and quality of life

The record is blunt. Of the 10,202 comments, 90.5% were negative and 7% positive; 73% of the meetings heard no supporter at all, and the supporters who came were outnumbered six to one. ² Water use led the complaints, followed by quality of life and a lack of transparency about the projects. Just 21% of commenters mentioned AI in any way. ²

One group held the line. Some 79% of self-described union workers spoke in favor of data centers, against 3% of property owners and 3% of residents; even among people who work in data centers, only 40% did. ²

The ad market flipped against the buildings

Campaign money matches the hearing room. Pew Research Center coded 20,751 Facebook and Instagram political ads↗ that mentioned data centers: in January, supportive ads outnumbered critical ones, 42% to 31%; by October, 57% opposed and 3% supported. ⁵

The spending is one-sided in cash as well as tone. AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm, counts $173 million spent on almost entirely negative data-center commercials this general election, $140 million of it from Democrats, and when Axios asked it to name one overtly positive spot, it could not find one. ⁶

Builders answer with a billion dollars

The industry's case is on the table. Amazon Web Services chief Matt Garman, in a 3,000-word post on October 2↗, called the water fears a myth, pledged more than $1 billion of community investment over five years, and warned that the roughly 100 moratoriums then pending could cost the United States the AI race. ⁸

Hearing comments also self-select for the angry. Yet a September Quinnipiac poll found 72% of voters opposed to a data center in their own community, up from 65% in March, and local vetoes bend only so far: after Boulder City, Nevada residents stopped a $3 billion project on a city-owned tortoise preserve, the developer won approval on neighboring federal land. ¹

So far, opponents are four for four

Tuesday counts the rooms anyway, and the pattern so far is four-for-four: every data-center measure decided earlier this year went for tighter controls. ⁷ December brings a $55 billion bond vote on a ServerFarm project in Clarksville, Arkansas, and January could bring a referendum in Coweta County, Georgia, forced by 14,000 signatures against a $17 billion campus, if a judge allows it. ¹

The scarcest input in the AI buildout is no longer power or water; it is a room willing to say yes.