<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0rbhlT_1GuY9xw700" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0rbhlT_1GuY9xw700" width="1200" height="675" ><figcaption>City Hall is pictured in Yukon, Okla., on Friday, May 24, 2024. NATHAN J. FISH/THE OKLAHOMAN USA TODAY Network, Reuters</figcaption></figure>YUKON - Joe Phillips was caring for his toddler grandson on a weekday afternoon, still processing the results of a recall election that saw him win in a landslide against the mayor of his town.The 65-year-old retired college baseball coach has been living for only a few years in Yukon, a suburban city of about 27,000 residents just west of Oklahoma City, but has fallen in love with the community. Phillips said he was approached by organizers of a recall petition to run against incumbent Yukon Mayor and Ward 3 Councilman Brian Pillmore.The recall supporters had already criticized Pillmore for how he and a City Council majority had abruptly fired a former city manager in 2024, months before a lengthy audit uncovered long-term financial mismanagement and misconduct issues with the city. A failed amphitheater proposal also did not endear Pillmore to citizens.But local outrage reached a fever pitch after Pillmore and the new city manager, as well as other officials, openly backed a hyperscale data center proposal by Georgia-based Beltline Energy along Route 66 and Frisco Road.Phillips lives just across the road from where the massive facility has been proposed. Now, after voters elected him Ward 3 councilmember in the Nov. 3 election, his main objective is to stop the data center project from moving forward."When you talk about 82% of the vote went to me, it's because they don't want a data center," Phillips said. "I mean, some of these people who live on the far west side of our neighborhood could hit a golf ball from their backyard to where that data center's going to be."Phillips' overwhelming win against Pillmore is the latest example of growing opposition to data centers and artificial intelligence throughout Oklahoma and the U.S.Yukon residents have previously accused Pillmore of signing nondisclosure agreements with Beltline Energy, which the former mayor has denied. He did not respond to The Oklahoman's request for comment after losing the election. Phillips will serve out the rest of Pillmore's Ward 3 term, but the councilmembers themselves will decide the next mayor.Yukon tensions brew alongside OKC, nationwide data center backlashAbout 40 cities and towns across the nation have weighed measures to restrict data center development. At least 33 voted in favor of reining in the industry, supporting moratoriums, new regulations and outright bans, according to Data Centers on the Ballot, a website tracking the legislation. Only one town in North Dakota voted against restrictions.NBC News exit polls found that for 56% of voters, AI and data centers were a "crucial or major factor" in their votes for Congress. And about 76% of voters said they would oppose the construction of new data centers in their communities.Data centers are the facilities that house the servers, storage and networking equipment powering the internet and AI. Protesters nationwide have objected to how much natural resources could be affected by the data centers, which some worry could drain the local water supply for cooling systems to keep the servers from overheating.Critics have also expressed concerns about issues of noise and ground pollution, as well as what opponents have described as a rush to ram through development of the centers without more rigorous review or regulatory guardrails.A City Council majority in neighboring Oklahoma City, just east of Yukon, approved parcel rezoning for the data center project with Beltline Energy. The company was allowed to seek zoning approval without waiting for a year-long emergency moratorium to expire because it had submitted applications prior to the freeze. OKC Mayor David Holt said that approval of the zoning would not establish precedent for other data centers. At the same time, he also requested that the temporary moratorium be extended another six months.Phillips said he campaigned on bringing transparency and honesty back to Yukon's Ward 3 council seat. People living in the 280 homes across the road from the proposed data center site aren't too happy with how little information they've been getting from officials, Phillips said."I know that they have gone through and they have said, ‘Well, we're only going to be 55 decibels,' and ‘We're not going to use this much water,' or ‘The electricity's going to be fine,' and all those things. But seriously, how much can you really believe all of that?"Phillips also questions whether $1,000 fines from violating noise regulations would be a sufficient deterrent for a data center estimated to cost $1 billion."If they continue to be over 60 decibels, does the place get shut down? Now, those are things that we need to talk about, you know?" Phillips said.On the state and national levels, officials who support placing guardrails on data centers won races in Texas, Michigan, Arizona, South Carolina and Ohio. Those who had expressed blanket support for the large hubs ― even if they later reversed their stance ― were often defeated.Enid residents form grassroots group opposing data centersSimilar concerns over data centers are playing out in other parts of Oklahoma.Dissenters in Enid are trying to recall local elected officials who support a massive $35 billion data center development called Project Thunderbird. The project, backed by four Enid natives who own Plainsmen Holdings, would include a power plant and four total campuses encompassing more than 1,700 acres around Enid, which is located in north-central Oklahoma and is home to 50,000 residents.While the project has the support of the Enid Regional Development Alliance, it does not have the support of all of the people living there.The opposition group, No Data Centers in Enid, is led by 31-year-old Jacob McNew, who said the organization has launched efforts to recall Enid Mayor David Mason and most city commissioners. He also said the group is mounting petition drives in hopes of forcing a referendum that could overturn the rezoning of two properties where the data center project would be located. McNew aims to have the petitions reach the necessary threshold for signatures and be submitted by Christmas Eve, targeting the recalls and referendum for an April 2027 ballot.He said that residents supporting the recalls represent a range of dissenting viewpoints, with some questioning why the data center can't be built in an already-established industrial area and wondering about the potential conflicts of interest with city leadership."There was already a sense of a lost trust in local government, where people just don't trust the mayor and don't trust the commissioners," McNew said. "After they all voted 'yes' on rezoning, it kind of cemented for a lot of people that it was time to replace these people." Mason, the Enid mayor, did not return a request for comment. McNew said he felt he had a responsibility to stand up for his community and hear the anxieties of the farmers living near the proposed sites, who he believes would lose value or be compelled to sell the land they'd owned in their families for generations."I think it's really important for everyone to be engaged, because it's just a very big change that would happen and a very specific direction we would be going that doesn't necessarily have an easy way to come out of," McNew said. "If the AI bubble bursts, and we're mid-production of these things, then what does that look like?" Okmulgee County data center proposal developing with civilian oversightOfficials in east-central Oklahoma's Okmulgee County also recently approved a floodplain development permit for a data center proposal from the Texas-based AI cloud firm Fluidstack. The developer pledges that the Three Rivers Manufacturing project will not seek local property tax incentives and will comply with Oklahoma laws on water and electricity use.The data center is being planned about a mile from where four men were found murdered and dismembered in the shallow waters of the Deep Fork River.Project backers have been approved to begin some work on the data center, but not without restrictions.Okmulgee County commissioners launched a citizens advisory committee to serve as liaisons between the data center developer and county officials as meetings convene and progress unfolds. Doy Shipman, a local IT expert and small business owner, was appointed to the committee in July.Shipman said the project is still "in the dirtwork phase" and actual construction has not yet begun. The facility's first operational phase is targeted for late 2027 but is not likely to be complete until late 2028.Some Okmulgee residents previously raised issues with the data center's potential adverse effects on the environment and local wildlife. Shipman said he believed that some of the apprehension, while valid, might also have been "far-fetched" or "overexaggerated.""From what I've seen, a lot of the concerns have been based off of worst-case scenarios from other data centers that are maybe using different technology than what this one is," Shipman said. "I've not seen anything that they've done so far that actually has caused me to have those same concerns, but there's things in the future that I would definitely like answers for."While McNew expressed some widely shared skepticism about the potential economic benefit of the data centers in Enid, Shipman said he was hopeful that the projects could be a boost to Okmulgee. "I'm hoping that this is a great thing for our county and for our citizens," Shipman said. "I'm optimistic that it will bring new jobs to our area, and that the increase in property tax revenue will make improvements to the school systems as well as the Vo-Tech. I'm hoping for the best." But for the new Ward 3 representative in Yukon, putting the data center on pause remains his primary goal. As part of the greater OKC metro, the suburb continues to grow, at a rate that Phillips said feels inevitable. "I think a lot of people in our town would like for us to be a small town, a small city, but it's nearly going to be impossible to stay that way," Phillips said. "But I absolutely love this town, and I'm going to try to do everything I can to help the people."This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC suburb mayor ousted over data center support. Many US cities do the same.Reporting by Jessie Christopher Smith, The Oklahoman / OklahomanUSA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1VrLl7_1GuY9xw700" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1VrLl7_1GuY9xw700" width="1200" height="1600" ><figcaption>Joe Phillips, new Ward 3 councilmember for Yukon, ousted sitting Ward 3 Councilmember (and current Yukon mayor) Brian Pillmore during a recall election Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. *IMAGE PROVIDED *Provided/Joe Kevin Phillips USA TODAY Network, Reuters</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4GksDj_1GuY9xw700" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4GksDj_1GuY9xw700" width="1200" height="800" ><figcaption>Yukon Mills is pictured in Yukon, Okla., on Friday, May 24, 2024. NATHAN J. FISH/THE OKLAHOMAN USA TODAY Network, Reuters</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1ED0lh_1GuY9xw700" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1ED0lh_1GuY9xw700" width="1200" height="1600" ><figcaption>Jacob McNew, 31, was born and raised in Enid and is leading the charge to reverse decision-making on a local data center project and to recall the elected officials supporting it. *IMAGE PROVIDED *Provided/Jacob McNew USA TODAY Network, Reuters</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2OdcTI_1GuY9xw700" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2OdcTI_1GuY9xw700" width="1200" height="800" ><figcaption>City Hall is pictured in Yukon, Okla., on Friday, May 24, 2024. NATHAN J. FISH/THE OKLAHOMAN USA TODAY Network, Reuters</figcaption></figure>Copyright Reuters or USA Today via Reuters Connect</div></body>

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YUKON - Joe Phillips was caring for his toddler grandson on a weekday afternoon, still processing the results of a recall election that saw him win in a landslide against the mayor of his town. The 65-year-old retired college baseball coach has been living for only a few years in...

OKC suburb mayor ousted over data center support. Many US cities do the same.

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YUKON - Joe Phillips was caring for his toddler grandson on a weekday afternoon, still processing the results of a recall election that saw him win in a la

OKC suburb mayor ousted over data center support. Many US cities do the same.

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