The anger emboldened the activists. Belt circulated a petition calling for the city council to reject any upcoming data-center applications. The group posted negative information about the facilities on their personal social media pages, as well as in popular Facebook groups, and put up no data centers signs near the proposed site.

The following month, Grove City councilman Mohamed Omar, 26, announced he was working on legislation to impose a 12-month moratorium on local data centers. Headwaters responded by sending a letter to city council members, arguing that such a moratorium could violate its due process rights. (Lebow says the company has no plans to sue.)

Yet the implied legal threat intensified the community pushback against the project on the eve of the moratorium vote. In June, the moratorium passed 6-1. Emboldened, the anti-data-center advocates with Protect Grove City decided the one-year moratorium wasn’t enough, and wrote a proposed amendment to the city’s charter, which functions like a governing constitution. It would prohibit the city from approving zoning applications for developments that occupy at least 50 acres, use more than 20 megawatts of power at peak capacity, or consume more than 500,000 gallons of water per day unless a majority of voters have backed the project in a public referendum. To drum up support, they canvassed local farmers’ markets, parks, and sporting events to ask people to sign a petition to put the measure on the ballot in November. Within a few weeks, they secured enough signatures.