City must allow voters to vote on whether to bar data centers
Artist Andrew Scott's stainless steel, 30-foot-long gavel was installed in 2008 outside the the Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center, home of the Ohio Supreme Court in Columbus, Ohio, designed by architect Harry Hake. (Highsmith, Carol M., 1946- Carol M. Highsmith Archive via the Library of Congress)
The City Council in Trenton must allow voters to decide whether to amend the city’s charter and bar data center construction, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled.
The ruling comes as residents in a growing number of communities across the Buckeye State are opposing data centers. Ohio has an estimated 200 to 240 data centers, making it the fifth- or sixth-most of any state.
In the case involving Trenton, a city of roughly 13,000 residents located between Cincinnati and Dayton, a group of residents submitted 336 valid signatures in support of a proposed charter amendment. However, the city council denied the request to submit the proposal to the Butler County Board of Elections, saying that under the city charter, residents needed to file 820 valid signatures.
Residents argued that under the Ohio Constitution, they only needed to submit 128. Within days of the rejection, the residents looked to the Supreme Court to order the city to place the proposed charter amendment on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.
The city council and the Trenton Data Center Campus, a company constructing a data center, opposed the lawsuit. The state’s Supreme Court permitted Trenton Data Center to intervene in the case.
The Supreme Court ruled that the city council improperly denied certification of the proposed amendment to the city charter.
“In sum, relators have shown by clear and convincing evidence that
the council disregarded applicable law,” the state’s highest court ruled.
While the residents sought to force the city to place the proposed charter amendment on the November ballot, the justices ruled that the Ohio Constitution does not require it to do so. Rather, they ruled that city officials may hold a special election within 60 to 120 days, as the constitution provides.
The state’s highest court previously ruled that, under the state constitution, 10% of voters in the last general election must place an amendment on the ballot, not 10% of registered voters.
