Small Town, Big Tech: How One Community Organized to Ban Data Centers

EMPORIA, Kan.—Neighbors in a small Midwestern city with more “No Data Center” lawn signs than stoplights have advanced efforts to ban server factories in their area.

Now they are organizing to oust the city leaders who considered supporting the tech expansion.

The District Court of Lyon County, Kansas, ruled on Aug. 20 that it will allow a community-organized petition that bans the building and operation of data centers in Emporia to be on the November ballot after the neighborhood group, Emporia Neighbors United, collected enough signatures from locals.

“We, the voters, have the right to decide our future when it comes to water, when it comes to electricity, when it comes to the future of the Tallgrass Prairie and the Flint Hills,” Jay Vehige, executive director of Emporia Neighbors United, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 14.

The court made the ruling just weeks after a local physics teacher went viral for being carried out of a public hearing and arrested after he repeatedly clapped in support of speakers opposing data centers, despite warnings to stop or leave.

As the local and nationwide controversy intensified, Emporia Neighbors United started circulating petitions to reform the entire local government.

“We intend on taking our city government back,” Vehige said.

The neighborhood group launched a series of petitions to “clap back” at lawmakers in a government reform series that would abandon the current form of government—a city commissioners system—and replace it with a city council structure that would represent four equal parts of the city.

For this part, the group is still collecting signatures.

How It All Began

The initial tensions began in June when the city of Emporia issued notices for public hearings and a 37-point plan to rezone rural land on the west side of the community for the Flint Hills Digital Campus, a 1,000-acre digital infrastructure project announced by Kanza Park Place LLC.

Frustrations hit a boiling point when footage of high school physics teacher Lux Claridge being arrested during an Emporia City Commission meeting on July 22 went viral.

Despite strong community pushback, the Emporia City Commission unanimously voted to establish a Digital Infrastructure Overlay District, providing a pathway for the city to set up a system of rules to review future data center projects, and pivoted to online-only hearings on Aug. 5 and Aug. 19, alleging safety concerns.

“We were locked out of city hall,” Vehige said.

The city of Emporia told The Epoch Times that “no construction project has been approved.” However, locals said they felt like city leaders went too far down the path of embracing Big Tech and feel ignored, silenced, and shut out of decisions.

The teacher who was removed from the public hearing told The Epoch Times on Aug. 3 that he was considering filing a civil lawsuit against the commissioners and police department for violating his First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights.

“There’s no way I’m gonna let them just get off the hook like that,” Claridge said.

Claridge and his wife, Jessica Danford, have attended a handful of meetings about a proposed data center, which they said were often rowdy and full of clapping after speeches.

During the July 22 meeting, officials told the audience that clapping, snapping, and rude comments would not be allowed. Several locals continued to clap after several speeches before one of the commissioners asked the police chief, “Will you take the next person out that claps?”

Viral Episode

Claridge, who clapped before the commissioner made the request, said that instead of waiting until someone clapped again, he was targeted by the police chief as his wife walked to the podium to speak.

“My understanding is that, yeah, the police chief was given the instruction to make an announcement, and he didn’t,” Claridge said. “Instead, he went after me and took me out when the exact instruction was the next person to clap, and this was well after my applause, and so I was definitely not the next person, and so I feel like they definitely violated something there.”

As law enforcement officers approached the teacher, he said, “Drag me out,” which is exactly what ended up happening.

“I just assumed that I was about to get arrested,” Claridge said.

He said that while he was on the ground, he “went limp” and made them carry him.

The incident resulted in a few scrapes and bruises on his body, and he was charged with disorderly conduct and interfering with a law enforcement officer.

Emporia Neighbors United said on Aug. 24 that the charges against the teacher were dropped.

The Epoch Times contacted Claridge and the Lyon County Attorney to confirm the current status of the case and did not receive a response.

Data Center, AI Debate

Despite the dramatic clips of Claridge being removed that went viral, he said he’s not against data centers; he’s just against rezoning an open part of the community for proposed facilities as opposed to using one of the abandoned buildings in the area, such as the Tyson Beef plant, which closed in early 2025, sparking layoffs across the community.

Claridge also expressed concerns about the future of AI.

“I don’t want them to spend, you know, five to 10 years building a data center only for the AI bubble to finally burst and crash,” Claridge said. “I don’t know if you remember the dot-com crash.”

His arrest and what he calls the lawmakers’ disregard for community input have led him and several others The Epoch Times spoke to in the community to want to shut down the project.

Some locals told The Epoch Times they initially were impartial but now fully support the ban and proposed new government structure because they feel like city leaders aren’t listening to them.

Others worry that the decision could surge energy bills, increase water usage for cooling, affect their health, raise surveillance concerns, and change the country scenery they love for the worse.

The Digital Infrastructure Overlay District, which the city approved on July 22, established new policies “intended to protect existing customers from bearing costs associated with large-scale water service requests.”

The city stated that it will study electric services, roads, stormwater management, emergency access, and environmental considerations before development approvals are granted.

The city of Emporia told The Epoch Times in a statement that it “considered both support for and opposition to the proposal” before approving the Digital Infrastructure Overlay District and suggested it was “not aware of any financial interest involving commissioners, City employees, or their family members,” after allegations by community members.