Pataskala voters will get to decide this November whether to ban certain data centers in their town after city council voted Aug. 3 to place a measure on the ballot that could restrict them.
The ordinance, which targets data centers using at least 25 megawatts of power each month, easily passed with a 4-0 vote as an emergency. That amount of energy is enough to power around 20,000 homes, according to a congressional report on data centers.
City Administrator Tim Hickin said at the start of the meeting that the fast-tracked voting format, which is rare in Pataskala, was needed to meet filing deadlines for the question to end up on November ballots.
Organizers collected 401 valid signatures for the ballot question to ban data centers amid concerns about a data center planned in the city at the intersection of Broad and Mink streets. The city's planning and zoning commission recommended rejecting the plans, which council is holding a public hearing for Aug. 25 at 5:30 p.m.
There are no existing data centers in the city, Hickin said in an interview after the meeting.
Lee Guttentag, one of the organizers of the petition, said after the meeting that the process was "a little stressful, but luckily everything was resolved."
Organizers and Licking County Board of Elections Director Tess Wigginton previously disagreed on the number of signatures needed for the initiated charter amendment.
Petitioners thought that they needed to collect at least 310 signatures, which would be 10% of the voters in the last general municipal election in November 2025. On the other hand, Wigginton said in a July 23 letter to the City of Pataskala that the petitioners would have needed 10% of the registered voters in the city, or 1,345 signatures.
The Ohio Secretary of State's election handbook states that citizen-initiated changes to municipal charters requires 10% of the electors from the last general municipal election.
Wigginton said in a July 23 letter to the city that the organizers did not collect enough valid signatures to make the ballot but later said that it was up to cities to decide whether to send something to the ballot.
Guttentag said that the petition-gathering process has brought together people from all political persuasions.
Miller Road is the line of separation between long-standing residential and the data center boom taking over the New Albany community. At left is the Bermuda Drive development and at right is a data center being built so quickly that it does not have real walls, just a tent-like structure surrounding the computer servers. There are no signs denoting which company will be using these servers, but a similar set of buildings in the area has been identified as a Facebook facility. Photographed Friday, April 24, 2026. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)On Miller Rd. in New Albany, a huge data center is being built so quickly that it does not have real walls, just a tent-like structure surrounding the computer servers. There are no signs denoting which company will be using these servers, but a similar set of buildings in the area has been identified as a Facebook facility. Photographed Friday, April 24, 2026. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)Five tents holding Meta AI data centers for Facebook are under construction on the northeast corner of Beech and Morse roads in New Albany photographed Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)A green wooden fence somewhat shields five "tents" holding Meta AI data centers for Facebook that are under construction on the northeast corner of Beech and Morse roads in New Albany photographed Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)Five tents holding Meta AI data centers for Facebook are under construction on the northeast corner of Beech and Morse roads in New Albany photographed Friday, Nov. 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)One of the original New Albany Meta Data Centers on the east side of Beech Road in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)The Amazon Fulfillment Center CMH7, 1245 Beech Rd SW, along the west side of Beech Road in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)An unmarked data center along the west side of Beech Road in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)An unmarked data center along the west side of Beech Road in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)An unmarked data center along the west side of Beech Road in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)The Google Data Center, 1101 Beech Rd SW, in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)The Google Data Center, 1101 Beech Rd SW, in New Albany, Ohio, photographed Friday, November 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)An unmarked data center at the southeast corner of Jug St. and Beech Rd. NW in New Albany, Ohio photographed July 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)A data center identified on maps as CMH - Newton Campus, 2575 Newton Ct, in New Albany. The complex is at the southeast corner of Jug St. and Harrison Road photographed July 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)Vantage Data Center, 3475 Horizon Ct., near Jug St. and Beech Rd. NW in New Albany, Ohio photographed July 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)A data center identified on maps as CMH - Newton Campus, 2575 Newton Ct, in New Albany. The complex is at the southeast corner of Jug St. and Harrison Road photographed July 28, 2025. (Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch)Jan 18 2023; Plain City, Ohio, USA; The Amazon Web Services data farm on Houchard Road just south of Post Road. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth-The Columbus Dispatch (Doral Chenoweth, Doral Chenoweth/The Columbus Dispatch)Jun 13, 2022; Columbus, Ohio, USA; Seeminlgly surrounded by electric lines, an electric substation and the new Google data center, a farmhouse sits across Parsons Avenue from the construction of the Google data center. The center is on land that was once the Hartman Stock Farm. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth-The Columbus Dispatch (Doral Chenoweth/The Columbus Dispatch)A new report is out that shows a boom in data center construction in central Ohio over the past 10 years. Facebook, Amazon, Google and other companies have been building them throughout the region. This is the new Google facility between Scioto Downs and I-270 on the South Side. (Doral Chenoweth/The Columbus Dispatch)Google's $600 million data center in New Albany, joining fellow tech giants Amazon and Facebook with centers in the Columbus suburb. (Doral Chenoweth, Doral Chenoweth)July 11, 2023; Columbus, Ohio, USA; The new Google data center on the far Southside of Columbus. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth-The Columbus Dispatch (Doral Chenoweth/The Columbus Dispatch)An unmarked data center and electric substation are under construction April 20, 2024. The reconstruction of Jug Street is visible at right. (Doral Chenoweth/The Columbus Dispatch)Jan 18 2023; Plain City, Ohio, USA; The Amazon Web Services data farm on Houchard Road just south of Post Road. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth-The Columbus Dispatch (Doral Chenoweth, Doral Chenoweth/The Columbus Dispatch)
"We think we deserve the right to speak and vote for ourselves and let the outcome be driven by us," Guttentag said. "That's the beautiful part of it being the 250th anniversary of the country: Let the people make the choice, that's what our country was based on."
Guttentag is also working with a coalition of people gathering signatures for a statewide ballot question on data centers, which could go to voters as soon as spring 2027. Groups around Licking County and in other municipalities in central Ohio are also working on similar local ballot questions – but the statewide effort would cover residents living outside of a city or town, she added.