Residents were left in the dark for five years.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
By Victor Tangermann<\/p>\n\n\n\n A quiet war is playing out in rural communities across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n City council meetings are bursting into conflict<\/a> as local residents try to keep AI data centers out of their backyards. Americans are starting to see through the promises of tech companies and the local politicians they\u2019ve wooed [bribed], realizing<\/a> that the advantages of hosting a resource-hogging data center in the neighborhood are slim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet tech giants are finding creative \u2014 and sometimes startlingly dirty \u2014 new ways to circumvent local opposition in their quest to build out these sprawling facilities. As the Wall Street Journal<\/em> reports<\/a>, Amazon exploited 45-year-old zoning laws in Gilroy, California, to start construction on a data center without any residents knowing for five entire years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMany if not most residents first learned about this project after construction had already begun,\u201d local elementary-school teacher Coleen Crew told the town\u2019s recent council meeting, as quoted by the WSJ<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A single city staffer, the community\u2019s development director, greenlit Amazon\u2019s 438,500-square-foot data center, which spans 56 acres of former farmland. The ancient zoning criteria allowed industrial development along the location on a local freeway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gilroy\u2019s mayor was surprised his constituents suddenly wanted a say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt didn\u2019t bother them that a food-distribution center came to Gilroy without their engagement, but now it bothers them that a data center is coming to Gilroy without them having the possibility of engagement,\u201d he told the WSJ<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are plenty of reasons why residents would be against Amazon\u2019s latest project. Data centers are a massive resource hog and have been known to raise electricity prices<\/a>, spike local greenhouse gas emissions<\/a>, generate ear-splitting noise<\/a>, and taint water supplies<\/a>. They are not typically major job creators<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, likening it to a \u201cfood-distribution center\u201d isn\u2019t exactly a fair comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amazon Web Services president of economic development Roger Wehner told the WSJ<\/em> that the company \u201cfollowed standard approval processes for an industrially zoned parcel,\u201d but acknowledged that it should\u2019ve recognized the community\u2019s desire for \u201cmore engagement sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve since met directly with residents and hosted an open house to hear feedback and answer questions,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n City officials are now wondering whether to change the approval process in ways that would force developers to hold community meetings and engage with residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When resident Rosa Rodriguez found out about the project, she asked city staff in February to publicly comment on an environmental review report, citing concerns over the drought the region is facing. But planners shut her down, telling her the comment period had closed back in September 2024, long before she knew about the project\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amazon has since tried to win over the public, touting a new wastewater pipeline, tax revenue, construction jobs, and even the sponsorship of the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival. However, frustrated residents weren\u2019t mollified, demanding to at least be made aware of big unfolding projects like the data center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Even here in Cheyenne, our local city council and mayor are not looking out for the best interests of the community, and you have to wonder what is incentivizing them to approve all these data centers? Beyond bribes of some fashion, it could also be blackmail, as the megacorps and government that spy on us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":7}},"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18411,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18410\/revisions\/18411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/amazon-dirty-trick-build-data-center.jpg?quality=85&w=1152\")