Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/post/50438867
Furious residents packing city-council meetings have become a familiar scene as proposals for data centers spark backlash in towns across America. But in Gilroy, Calif., known as the world’s garlic capital, there’s a twist: The $2 billion facility that residents are railing against is already being built.
“Many if not most residents first learned about this project after construction had already begun,” Coleen Crew, an elementary-school teacher, told the council at a recent meeting.
There were no public meetings or votes before a lone city staffer gave Amazon the green light last July to build a 438,500-square-foot data center on 56 acres of farmland 30 miles south of San Jose.
Do those other warehouses suck shitloads of extra power and water in an already water-poor state that has rolling brownouts and sky-high power and water costs?
No.
So the people are right to know there’s a difference. Apparently mayors are too stupid to know.