Data Center Resistance Podcast

Data Center Resistance
  • 5.0 (4)
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A podcast featuring local community members discussing what's happening in their towns and the best practices they've found for fighting and organizing the resistance against out of control expansion of data centers across the country.

  1. Oct 17

    Episode 16: Alyssa Banner, Boise, ID

    Alyssa Banner is an Idaho-based activist involved in the growing grassroots resistance to large-scale data center development. Based in the Boise area, Banner is part of a broader conversation about the consequences of rapidly expanding AI infrastructure and what it means for the communities expected to accommodate it. Across Idaho, residents and advocates are raising questions about the demands these facilities place on water resources, electricity supplies, local infrastructure, public lands, and the environment. Those concerns have taken on new urgency with proposals for massive data center developments in the Treasure Valley, including a potential project on federal land southeast of Boise near Blacks Creek Reservoir. The proposal has sparked debate over the future of Idaho's public lands, regional energy needs, environmental impacts, and whether local communities have a meaningful voice in decisions that could reshape their surroundings. Banner joins the Data Center Resistance Podcast to discuss the fight against unchecked data center expansion in Idaho, the concerns motivating local opposition, and what other communities can learn as technology companies and developers pursue increasingly ambitious projects across the country. Her perspective offers an opportunity to explore a central question facing the national resistance movement: how can communities protect their land, water, resources, and local decision-making as the demand for AI infrastructure continues to grow?

  2. Oct 9

    Episode 15: Jared Gibbons, Commercial Point, OH

    Jared Gibbons is a community advocate from Commercial Point, Ohio, where residents have found themselves at the center of a growing debate over large-scale data-center development in Pickaway County. As plans for major data-center projects moved forward in and around the village, local residents began raising questions about transparency, land use, infrastructure demands, and the long-term consequences for their neighborhoods. Commercial Point has become a notable example of the tensions emerging nationwide as rural and suburban communities grapple with proposals to bring massive AI and cloud-computing facilities into their backyards. The fight in Commercial Point has involved the rezoning of nearly 267 acres for data-center development, concerns about electricity and water demands, and questions about whether residents had a meaningful opportunity to participate in decisions affecting their community. In May 2026, the village adopted an 18-month moratorium on new data-center applications, setting the stage for a legal dispute with developer K-Nova. Residents have also pursued legal challenges concerning the original rezoning process, making Commercial Point a case study in how local organizing, zoning law, public records, and community engagement can shape the future of major infrastructure projects. For the Data Center Resistance Podcast, Jared brings a local perspective to a fight that reflects a much larger national question: who gets to decide what happens to our communities in the age of artificial intelligence? This conversation explores the challenges residents face when confronting powerful developers, the importance of transparency and accountability in local government, and the potential consequences of data-center expansion for property owners, utility customers, and future generations. Commercial Point's experience offers an important look at how ordinary residents can organize, demand answers, and work to ensure that decisions about their communities are made in the public interest.

  3. Oct 2

    Episode 14: Kirk Lyman-Barner and Katie Minich

    In this episode of the Data Center Resistance Podcast, we head to Americus, Georgia, where residents are confronting plans for a massive new data-center campus in a community already dealing with questions about water, infrastructure, land use, and the future of Southwest Georgia. Kirk Lyman-Barner and Katie Minich bring two different but complementary perspectives to the conversation. Lyman-Barner is a longtime Americus resident, business owner, affordable-housing advocate, and community leader with deep roots in the work of Habitat for Humanity, the Fuller Center for Housing, and the legacy of Clarence Jordan and Koinonia Farm. He has spent decades working at the intersection of community development, economic opportunity, and social responsibility. Katie Minich is a Southwest Georgia native and longtime community leader in Americus. She has worked for the Georgia Student Finance Commission helping students and families navigate higher education and financial aid, and has served in local civic and educational leadership, including as vice chair of the Furlow Charter School governing board. Minich has also been deeply engaged in the civic life of Americus, bringing a perspective rooted in education, families, and the long-term future of the community. Together, Kirk and Katie offer a firsthand look at what happens when the promise of a major technology investment meets the realities of a small Southern community. The proposed Americus data-center campus is planned as a four-phase development of roughly 102 acres, with an eventual buildout of at least 400,000 square feet and an estimated investment of up to $5 billion. The development agreement calls for construction to begin by January 2027 and for the facility to operate for at least 30 years. In this conversation, we explore the questions facing Americus residents: Who benefits from the development? Who bears the costs? What does a project of this scale mean for water, electricity, land, and local infrastructure? And what happens when a community decides it needs to ask difficult questions before an irreversible decision is made?

  4. Sep 15

    Episode 13: Mikey Hess, Indianapolis, Indiana

    Mikey Hess is a lifelong resident of Indianapolis’ east side and a community organizer who has become one of the most visible local voices opposing the proposed DC BLOX data center campus near Irvington. Hess has spent more than a decade working in the restaurant industry and describes himself as deeply committed to his local community and to development that is sustainable and beneficial to the people who already live there. In 2026, his neighborhood became the center of a major debate over the proposed data center, and Hess emerged as a coordinator with Eastside Community Action, helping organize residents, public meetings, petitions, protests, and opposition to the project. Hess lives roughly two miles from the proposed site, a former Ford plant property near South Kitley Avenue and the Pennsy Trail. His concerns include the project's potential effects on pollution, utility costs, water and energy use, noise, and the environmental implications of developing a brownfield immediately across the trail from Irvington Community Elementary School. When DC BLOX reduced the size of its proposal and announced a series of community commitments, Hess continued to question why those changes and commitments were coming only after months of community opposition. He has argued that residents deserve enforceable protections and meaningful consideration of alternative uses for the property rather than simply accepting promises from the developer. The Metropolitan Development Commission ultimately approved the DC BLOX project in July 2026, but the fight did not end there. Eastside Community Action, along with community members and Irvington Community Schools, subsequently filed a petition for judicial review of the approval and sought to prevent construction while the case proceeds. Hess continues to organize residents and advocate for development decisions that he believes provide tangible benefits to the surrounding community. For the Data Center Resistance Podcast, he brings the perspective of someone who isn't looking at the data-center debate from a distance—he lives just minutes from the proposed facility and has experienced firsthand what happens when a major technology project collides with an established neighborhood.

  5. Sep 10

    Episode 12: Danica Dickson, Protect the Heartland, El Dorado, Kansas

    Danica Dickson is a grassroots community organizer from El Dorado, Kansas, who has emerged as a leading voice in the fight against large-scale data center development in her community. In 2026, Dickson became involved in the growing local opposition after residents learned that El Dorado officials had been pursuing a potential data center project while conducting discussions behind closed doors. Public-record requests later revealed communications between city officials and economic development leaders regarding efforts to position El Dorado as a potential data center location, including discussions involving nondisclosure agreements and plans to shape the public narrative surrounding the project. Working with other concerned residents through the grassroots group Protect the Heartland, Dickson helped organize a citizen petition seeking to prohibit large-scale data centers and certain utility-scale battery energy storage systems in El Dorado. What began as a local effort quickly gained significant momentum, with hundreds of residents signing the petition and the campaign eventually collecting more than 700 signatures. Dickson has been outspoken about what she describes as a breakdown of public trust between El Dorado residents and their local government. She argues that the issue is about more than data centers themselves—it is about transparency, property rights, local control, environmental impacts, water and energy demands, and the right of communities to have a meaningful voice in decisions that could permanently change their communities. The fight eventually moved into the courts. In August 2026, a Kansas judge ruled that the citizen petition represented a legislative function of municipal government, meaning El Dorado must either adopt the proposed ban or allow voters to decide the issue at the ballot box. Dickson called the ruling an important victory for grassroots democracy and credited the community's persistence for bringing the issue this far. Danica Dickson joins the Data Center Resistance Podcast to talk about how the fight began in El Dorado, what residents discovered about the proposed development, the importance of public-records requests and grassroots organizing, and what her community's experience can teach residents across the country who are facing the prospect of hyperscale data centers in their own backyards.

  6. Aug 29

    Episode 11, Nichole Keway Biber, Clean Water Action

    Nichole Keway Biber is a Michigan environmental and community activist who has emerged as an important voice in the growing resistance to the rapid expansion of massive data centers across the state. An organizer with Clean Water Action, Biber has been involved in environmental advocacy and grassroots organizing for years, and has brought that experience to the fight over the enormous demands that hyperscale data centers could place on Michigan communities, natural resources, and the electrical grid. As data-center proposals began appearing across Michigan, Biber became increasingly active in organizing residents and bringing public attention to projects that many communities felt were being rushed forward without sufficient transparency or public input. She has participated in protests and public meetings, spoken before state officials, and joined other Michigan residents in raising concerns about the potential impacts of data centers on electricity rates, water, land use, pollution, and the state's broader environmental future. Her activism has taken her from local fights over individual projects to the state Capitol, where she has helped ensure that the voices of ordinary Michigan residents are heard in the growing debate over who should control the future of AI infrastructure. For the Data Center Resistance Podcast, Nichole brings the perspective of an experienced grassroots organizer who sees the fight over data centers as part of a larger struggle over environmental justice, corporate accountability, and democratic control over the decisions that shape our communities. Her experience in Michigan demonstrates how quickly data-center development has become a statewide issue—and why building connections between local communities may be essential to challenging some of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world.

  7. Aug 24

    DCR Episode 10: Pepper Wimer, Pensacola, Florida

    Pepper Wimer is a Pensacola-area journalist, public-records researcher, and community activist who has become one of the leading voices in Florida’s growing resistance to large-scale AI data centers. Through her work with OpenGov.News and as a spokesperson for Gulf Coast Against Data Centers, Wimer has focused on government transparency, land-use decisions, and the potential impacts of data-center development on communities. She first became involved in local advocacy through efforts opposing Flock surveillance cameras, and when she learned that large AI data centers were being considered in the Pensacola and Escambia County area, she recognized the importance of organizing before projects were built. Wimer’s concerns about data centers center on the enormous demands they can place on local resources—including electricity and water—and the question of who ultimately pays for the infrastructure required to support them. She has pushed local officials for transparency about proposed projects, scrutinized public records surrounding economic-development efforts, and challenged government officials to put enforceable protections into local land-use codes rather than relying on promises or temporary resolutions. Her advocacy helped build an unusually broad coalition in Pensacola, bringing together Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, environmental advocates, and residents who might disagree on almost everything else but share concerns about the scale and consequences of AI infrastructure. For the Data Center Resistance Podcast, Pepper brings a firsthand account of what it looks like when an emerging data-center proposal collides with an organized local community—and how residents can use public records, local government, zoning, and grassroots organizing to fight back. Her work in Escambia County offers an important case study in how communities can move from simply opposing a proposed project to demanding lasting changes to the rules governing data-center development.

  8. Aug 19

    DCR Episode 9: Nick Tsergas - Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    Nick Tsergas is a Hamilton-based journalist, researcher, and public-interest technologist whose work has focused on health policy, civic engagement, and accountability. He is the former founding editor of Canada Healthwatch and has written for publications including the BMJ, Toronto Star, and Canadian Affairs. His background in journalism and public-interest technology has given him a particular interest in how large-scale infrastructure and emerging technologies affect communities and public policy. In 2026, that interest became intensely local when proposed AI data centers came to Hamilton. After learning about plans for major data-centre development in his city, Nick became an organizer and one of the most prominent voices in Hamilton's opposition movement. He launched a website to provide residents with information about the proposals and helped organize a campaign that brought significant public attention to the issue. His concerns extend beyond opposition to AI itself, focusing on questions of electricity demand, water, noise, pollution, affordability, land use, and—most importantly—the need for meaningful public participation before communities make potentially irreversible infrastructure decisions. Nick has since become part of a growing national conversation about data-centre development in Canada, sharing the Hamilton experience with communities facing similar proposals across the country. For the Data Center Resistance Podcast, Nick brings both the perspective of a journalist accustomed to examining complex policy issues and that of a Hamilton resident who found himself directly involved in a grassroots fight over the future of his community.

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A podcast featuring local community members discussing what's happening in their towns and the best practices they've found for fighting and organizing the resistance against out of control expansion of data centers across the country.

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