Data Center Resistance Podcast

Data Center Resistance
  • 5.0 (4)
  • News Commentary
  • Updated Weekly

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.

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    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.

  2. 6d ago

    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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. Aug 14

    DCR Episode 8: Barrett Dash, Irrigon, Oregon

    Barrett Dash lives in Irrigon, Oregon, in the heart of one of the Pacific Northwest’s fastest-growing data center regions. In Morrow County and throughout Eastern Oregon, the arrival of massive data center developments has brought promises of economic growth and investment—but it has also raised increasingly urgent questions about water, electricity, land use, infrastructure, public costs, transparency, and who ultimately benefits from this unprecedented industrial expansion. Barrett has emerged as a grassroots voice challenging the idea that communities should simply accept these projects without asking hard questions about their long-term consequences. Barrett has taken his concerns directly into the public process, participating in county planning proceedings and pushing officials to examine the cumulative impacts of data centers and the infrastructure being constructed to accommodate them. His advocacy reflects a growing realization among rural Oregonians that the data center boom isn't simply about buildings filled with computers—it can mean new transmission lines, roads, water infrastructure, industrial development and enormous demands on resources that communities will have to live with for decades. In a region increasingly described as ground zero for Oregon's data center expansion, Barrett is helping give residents a voice in a debate that reaches far beyond any single project. On this episode of Data Center Resistance, we talk with Barrett about what is happening on the ground in Eastern Oregon, what residents are seeing that doesn't always make it into the headlines, and why communities need to look beyond the promises attached to massive data center investments. This is a conversation about what happens when the world's demand for AI collides with rural communities—and what it means when the people who live there decide they're going to ask questions.

  7. Aug 11

    DCR Episode 7: Dally Holloway

    Dally Holloway has become one of the most recognizable grassroots voices in the growing national movement against unchecked data center development. Based in De Soto, Kansas, Dally became involved in the fight over data centers as she watched proposals emerge that raised fundamental questions about water, energy, land use, tax incentives, infrastructure, transparency, and the ability of local residents to have a meaningful say in decisions that could permanently change their communities. What began as a local fight grew into a national movement. Dally is the founder of Say NO to Data Centers, a grassroots community that has grown to more than 175,000 members and connects residents across the country who are confronting data center proposals in their own backyards. Through organizing, education, public demonstrations, research, and practical resources for local activists, Dally has helped communities understand how these projects work and, perhaps more importantly, how citizens can organize before decisions are made for them. On this episode of Data Center Resistance, we talk with Dally about what she has learned on the front lines of the data center fight in Kansas, how a local Facebook group became a national movement, and what communities across America need to know before welcoming billions of dollars in data center investment. This is a conversation about development, democracy, and who gets to decide what the future of our communities looks like.

  8. Aug 7

    DCR Episode 6: Darren Blanchard

    Darren Blanchard is an Oklahoma farmer, rancher, and citizen activist who has become one of the state's most recognizable advocates for government transparency and local control. He has spent years attending public meetings, filing open records requests, and challenging elected officials over major development projects, particularly large data center proposals that he believes could place enormous demands on Oklahoma's water and electrical infrastructure. Rather than accepting official assurances at face value, Blanchard has built a reputation for asking difficult questions and encouraging ordinary residents to become more involved in local government. His activism gained national attention after a Claremore City Council meeting in February 2026, where he spoke during the public comment period about a controversial proposed data center project. After slightly exceeding the council's speaking time—by just a few seconds, much of which followed audience applause—he was ordered away from the podium. When he attempted to finish his remarks and provide documents to city officials, police arrested him inside the council chambers and charged him with misdemeanor criminal trespass. The arrest was wildly disproportionate to the circumstances, transforming what should have been a routine public meeting into a troubling example of a citizen being taken into custody for attempting to address his own government. Critics of the arrest argue that the city used a minor procedural rule as a pretext to silence one of its most persistent critics. Body-camera footage released afterward fueled those concerns, with supporters contending that Blanchard was punished not because he posed a threat or created a genuine disturbance, but because he refused to abandon his criticism of public officials and a politically connected development project. Civil liberties advocates have pointed to the incident as an example of how local governments can chill public participation when police power is used to remove outspoken citizens from public meetings. Blanchard has pleaded not guilty, and the criminal case remains pending. His attorneys argue that his arrest violated the First Amendment and represented unconstitutional retaliation against protected political speech. Regardless of how the courts ultimately rule, the case has become a rallying point for supporters of free speech, open government, and the principle that citizens should be able to question their elected officials without fearing arrest for speaking a few seconds too long at a public meeting.

  9. Aug 3

    DCR Episode 5: Marc Dann, Founding Partner, Dann Law

    Attorney Marc Dann has devoted his entire legal career to fighting for homeowners, consumers and small businesses beginning with his tenure as the Antitrust Director in the office of the West Virginia Attorney General and continuing today at DannLaw, the consumer protection law firm he founded and manages. The firm, which maintains offices in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Westwood, New Jersey, and New York, New York, is a national leader in utilizing the provisions of the Real Estate Settlement Act (RESPA) and the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) to bring legal claims against and secure monetary damages from banks and mortgage loan servicers that abuse, cheat, and or defraud borrowers. Marc represented Data Center Resistance in filing an amicus brief in the Ohio Supreme Court support of the residents of Ashville, Ohio in their fight against a data center construction project.

  10. Jul 30

    DCR Episode 4: Sam Diaz

    Sam is 1000 Friends of Oregon’s Executive Director. His work steers 1000 Friends of Oregon’s efforts toward meeting our fiscal, policy, and strategic goals while advancing our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.  He received his B.A. in Geography, Sociology, and Anthropology from Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, and his J.D. with a certificate in Environmental, Natural Resources, and Energy Law from Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. He brings extensive experience from working in political administrations at the state and local levels as well as conservation philanthropy serving the American West.  Sam is well acquainted with Oregon’s land use planning system. In 2014 and in 2018, Sam successfully expanded our community education programs, coalition-building, and policy advocacy. Most recently, Sam served as the Senior Policy Advisor at the City of Portland in the Mayor’s Office.  Sam grew up in Redding and Red Bluff, California on the northern edge of the Sacramento Valley. Sam is proud of his family’s story: he grew up there because of his family’s hard work in the fields, orchards, and dams as part of the Bracero Program — an agreement between the U.S. and Mexican governments that permitted Mexican citizens to take agricultural work in the United States. He looks forward to listening and working with all Oregonians who call rural parts of our state home.  Governor Tom McCall famously said that "Oregon is an inspiration." Sam is inspired in spaces that unite people together: From hiking trails and viewpoints to county fairs and the Oregon State Fair to 1000 Friends of Oregon’s gala.     During his time off work, Sam likes to spend time with his family and friends backpacking, stand-up paddleboarding, playing tennis (or anything with a net, really), cooking (so many great cookbooks written by local chefs), and enjoying movies and music. He calls Portland home with his partner, dog, and cat.

  • 10 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

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About

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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