A Data Center Revolt in Missouri

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Journal.

Episode: A Data Center Revolt in Missouri
Date: May 7, 2026
Hosts: Ryan Knutson & Jessica Mendoza
Guest/Reporter: Will Parker
Theme: Examining the fierce local backlash in Festus, Missouri, against a proposed $6 billion data center, and the trend of “Not In My Backyard” (NIMBY) resistance to tech infrastructure across the U.S.

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Episode Overview

This episode investigates an intense dispute in Festus, Missouri, where residents clashed with local leadership over the approval of a massive data center project. Through on-the-ground reporting and firsthand accounts, the podcast unpacks why local communities like Festus are increasingly fighting back against the data center boom, the concerns fueling this backlash, and the ripple effects for city government and tech developers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Festus, Missouri Uproar

• Heated City Council Meeting

  • The show opens with audio of angry Festus residents berating their elected officials as they vote on a data center proposal. The level of hostility is striking:
    • Quote: “Criminals.” – Angry Resident [00:08]
    • Quote: “I hope you have nightmares.” – Angry Resident [00:37]
  • The council passed the measure despite this opposition.
    • Quote: “Bill 4876 has passed uneducated hours.” – Mayor Sam Richards [01:17]

• National Context of Data Center Opposition

  • Data center construction is widespread but increasingly unwelcome.
  • Will Parker shares polling that indicates strong bipartisan opposition to data centers being built in residential communities.
    • Quote: “A pretty strong majority would oppose the construction of an AI data center in their community.” – Will Parker [01:35]
  • “There's a lot of ‘not in my backyard’ energy out there right now.” – Ryan Knutson [01:59]

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2. Data Centers: Why the Backlash?

• The Economic Case vs. Local Concerns
  • Developers seek sites with highway access and strong power infrastructure; city leaders see economic windfalls.
    • The proposed Festus data center promised $30M a year in local tax revenue, nearly equal to the city's entire annual budget. [06:12–06:30]
    • Quote: “The estimate is that this project could produce over $30 million a year in local tax revenue. And that's really an enormous amount of money for this town.” – Will Parker [06:12]
  • But residents worried about:
    • Home values: The proximity of the giant facility raised fears of declining property prices.
      • Quote: “What's it gonna do to the home value? And my life is on hold right now.” – Resident 2 [09:55]
      • Quote: “All of our money is in our home. We have to fight this.” – Resident 1 [10:05]
    • Water and environmental impact: Concerns over drought, water supply, and increased utility costs.
      • Quote: “How much water is this used? What does that mean for our water supply? Does it pollute the water supply?” – Will Parker [11:00]
    • Utility costs: Fear that the data center would drive up local prices for services.
      • Quote: “There's going to be more infrastructure that has to be built. So that's going to raise our utility prices.” – Resident 1 [11:33]

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3. The Opposition Organizes

• Facebook Groups & Public Records

  • Residents found evidence via public records that city officials tried to downplay the project and mocked the opposition.
    • Quote: “One message refers to them as a sideshow of uneducated people, and another is a joke that...if you gave the townspeople an Olive Garden, they would simply be satisfied.” – Will Parker [07:17]
  • The mockery galvanized opponents, making “sideshow of uneducated people” a rallying cry.

• Grassroots Protests & City Council Turmoil

  • Resident turnout at meetings soared, with pointed criticism and even boycotts called.
    • Memorable Rhetoric: “I will not set foot in the Olive Garden, and I vow to boycott any sellout where I can.” – Angry Resident [08:40]

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4. Political Consequences

• Elections and Council Turnover [13:13–14:31]

  • Data center opposition swept four pro-center incumbents off the city council in the next election, replaced by challengers promising to fight the project.
    • Quote: “After all four incumbents on the ballot were defeated in last night's election.” – Narrator/Announcer [13:48]

• Recall Efforts Target Mayor and Remaining Officials

  • Petition drives to recall Mayor Sam Richards and others who supported the project amassed thousands of signatures.
    • Quote: “More than 4,000 people have signed petitions to recall the mayor and three other council members who supported the project.” – Ryan Knutson [16:28]
  • The mayor, stoic but surprised by the vitriol, defends the project as a rare opportunity for prosperity.
    • Quote: “They think I've sold them out for the money, which I haven't.” – Mayor Sam Richards [15:39]

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5. Next Steps & National Implications

• Developers Press On—But Uncertainty Remains [16:51–17:22]

  • The development firm still plans to build, asserting the city can't revoke their agreement, but acknowledges risk if communities won’t accept projects.
    • Quote: “...they won't build a project if they feel like not enough people support it.” – Will Parker [17:09]

• A Wave of Bans and Moratoriums

  • Other Midwest regions and states are introducing or considering bans and moratoriums on data center construction (e.g., St. Charles, Maine).
    • Quote: “The city of St. Charles may ban large data centers for good.” – Narrator/Announcer [17:30]
    • Quote: “Places in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and that's happening while there are also states where bills [for bans] are being introduced.” – Will Parker [17:48]

• Growing Industry Impact [19:05–20:13]

  • The data center boom continues, but opposition is influencing where companies decide to build.
    • Quote: “If we see organized opposition to data centers in some places, that's immediately moving that place down the list.” – Will Parker [19:39]
  • Even with ongoing construction, increased organized resistance is shaping the map of future data center sites.

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• Opening Salvos
  • “Criminals.” – Angry Resident [00:08]
  • “Do it. Get off your knees. Do it.” – Angry Resident [00:47]
• Breadstick Solution Humor
  • “Olive Garden is pretty good.” – Ryan Knutson [07:48]
  • “The breadstick solution here...” – Will Parker [07:50]
• Air of Defiance
  • “I will not set foot in the Olive Garden.” – Angry Resident [08:40]
• Mayor’s Perspective
  • “I've been caught off guard by the animus directed towards me... They think I've sold them out for the money, which I haven't.” – Mayor Sam Richards [15:39]
  • “I'm thick skinned. I was a police officer. I got spit on when I came home from Vietnam... it's not worse than that.” – Mayor Sam Richards [16:13]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:08–01:17: Angry resident audio and council vote
• 01:35: Polls on data center opposition
• 04:06–05:36: Data center real estate boom; Festus context
• 06:12–06:30: Economic rationale for the project
• 07:01–08:05: Local backlash, public records, city-official mockery
• 09:29–10:22: Homeowner distress about home value and being “on hold”
• 11:00–11:33: Water, utility, and environmental concerns
• 13:22–14:31: Council defeat in elections, recall momentum
• 14:45–16:13: Mayor’s background and defense
• 17:22–18:16: National trend of moratoriums/bans
• 19:11–20:13: Data center industry’s cautious response to opposition

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Conclusion

This episode provides a vivid, ground-level look at the modern tech infrastructure backlash, illustrating how economic promise can collide with local fears and distrust. As Festus’s saga shows, data centers—once “invisible” parts of the digital economy—are now the flashpoint for grassroots activism, reshaping local politics and forcing the tech industry to rethink its approach to community relations and site selection. The episode closes with Ryan and Will reflecting on the likelihood that future data centers will increasingly face such organized resistance, reshaping the industry and the communities in its crosshairs.

Transcript

[Angry Resident]

Criminals.

[Ryan Knudson]

In March, more than 100 residents of a small Missouri town gathered in a high school gymnasium to watch a city council vote. Things got heated.

[Angry Resident]

You got blood out, Madam Clerk. I hope your kids hate you for life.

[Will Parker]

People were there to do quite a bit of shouting.

[Ryan Knudson]

That's our colleague Will Parker.

[Angry Resident]

I hope you have nightmares.

[Will Parker]

And to make it clear how angry they are sometimes with, you know, a peppery, expletive laden language.

[Angry Resident]

Do it. Get off your knees. Do it.

[Ryan Knudson]

The city council vote and all the chaos that surrounded it was over a proposal to build a data center.

[Angry Resident]

No data center.

[Ryan Knudson]

Residents swore at the council members as they were called on to vote.

[Angry Resident]

Councilman Cook. Criminals.

[Ryan Knudson]

Councilman Tenant.

[Angry Resident]

Crocs. You're all Crocs.

[Ryan Knudson]

But despite the opposition, the data center proposal passed.

[Mayor Sam Richards]

Bill 4876 has passed uneducated hours.

[Ryan Knudson]

Nationwide. Data center construction has been largely unwelcome.

[Will Parker]

One of the most recent polls is from Quinnipiac, and it showed that a majority of people, a pretty strong majority, would oppose the construction of an AI data center in their community. So they're not necessarily opposed to the concept of artificial intelligence or to the concept of data centers, but they don't want them next door. And it was a majority of Democrats and Republicans in that poll that said that.

[Ryan Knudson]

So it sounds like there's a lot of not in my backyard energy out there right now.

[Will Parker]

There's a lot of that which is not unique to data centers. Right? I mean, housing is, I think, the area where most people are familiar with, you know, strong organized opposition to construction. But it feels different. This feels more intense.

[Ryan Knudson]

And Will says that probably nowhere in the US has the backlash been more intense than in this one Missouri town called Festus.

[Will Parker]

And the opposition there has been especially hot.

[Ryan Knudson]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Thursday, May 7th. Coming up on the show, small town versus big data center.

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[Ryan Knudson]

You cover real estate. So how did data centers become such a big part of your beat?

[Will Parker]

Because data centers are hot property. There's a lot of construction of them all over the country. We're building more data centers than we are office buildings at this point. Huh. So it's becoming one of the biggest property sectors in the country.

[Ryan Knudson]

What is behind this data center boom?

[Will Parker]

Well, first is the Internet. We still need data centers to host all of the things that we do that we stream, that we swipe. Right. But we have an even bigger demand for data centers now for artificial intelligence platforms. And that's what's really driving the construction boom.

[Ryan Knudson]

Developers usually secure the location of a data center first and then strike a deal with a tech company that would use it.

[Will Parker]

So the intention is that one of the major AI companies, so there's like, you know, half a dozen, Amazon, Meta, Google, Oracle, et cetera. The idea is that one of them would be the tenant.

[Ryan Knudson]

While there's been a boom in construction, there's also been a boom in backlash, which is what brought Will to Festus.

[Will Parker]

So Festus, this is a town of about 14,000 people near the Mississippi River. It's a town in the hills about 35 miles south of St. Louis. It's forested hilltops and limestone, and it's somewhat rural, but it's also somewhat suburban. It has a bit of an industrial past. It has a sister city next to it that used to have a big glass factory that employed a lot of people. But, you know, big industry is mostly a thing of the past in this particular part of Missouri.

[Ryan Knudson]

Will says A developer called CRG had originally been looking to build in another St. Louis suburb, but that project faced local opposition and fell apart. So they tried a different area nearby.

[Will Parker]

So they also are checking out Festus, where they found a bunch of land near an interstate with power lines. Those are kind of the main qualifications.

[Ryan Knudson]

The developers saw potential on a 300 acre plot of land outside of Festus and approached the city with a proposal for a $6 billion data center. And city leadership was interested. And why did the elected officials support it?

[Will Parker]

I mean, I think the economic benefits are the major draw here. The estimate is that this project could produce over $30 million a year in local tax revenue. And that's really an enormous amount of money for this town and county.

[Ryan Knudson]

The proposed Data center is projected to generate about as much tax revenue as the city's entire budget, money that could potentially be used on stuff like schools and roads. But before they could break ground, the city and the developer needed to take some steps.

[Will Parker]

They needed a zoning designation for data centers, like something on paper that says you can build a data center, and it has these specifications and rules that you have to follow. So that was the first thing. And that was really when the town found out that there was this developer and this potential project.

[Ryan Knudson]

Some residents were against it from the start. They created a Facebook group to organize opposition, and they also filed public records requests to try and learn more about the city's plans. And the documents they got back made the residents furious.

[Will Parker]

There were messages that not only potentially indicated that they wanted to keep certain information from the public, but then also ones that referred to data center opponents in kind of disparaging terms. One message refers to them as a sideshow of uneducated people, and another is a joke that appears to suggest that if you gave the townspeople an olive garden, they would simply be satisfied and they wouldn't care about the data center anymore.

[Ryan Knudson]

Olive Garden is pretty good.

[Will Parker]

Yeah, yeah. The breadstick solution here, but. And those things got memed and shared on Facebook and became kind of like rallying cries for people, kind of ironically embracing the sideshow of uneducated people line.

[Ryan Knudson]

It reminds me of Hillary Clinton's infamous line. Basket of deplorables.

[Will Parker]

It is kind of similar to that.

[Ryan Knudson]

Or in this case, I guess it'd be a breadbasket of deplorables.

[Will Parker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ryan Knudson]

So it sounds like they started out on a pretty bad foot.

[Will Parker]

Yeah, I mean, once that opposition did present itself, I think it caught some of the elected government officials off guard, including the mayor, who told me that he had, you know, seen nothing like this in the past.

[Ryan Knudson]

The outrage was profound. Residents took to city council meetings.

[Angry Resident]

The city has for months tried to

[Ryan Knudson]

stifle public engagement and knowledge about this deal.

[Angry Resident]

That's why they line on not having a Remember who sold you out. I will not set foot in the Olive Garden, and I vow to boycott any sellout where I can.

[Resident 1]

This is a dishonorable way to serve the public that you were elected to serve in a violation of all imperialists.

[Will Parker]

You know, at city council hearings, you have a guy with a megaphone and then some people with some banners draped over their vehicles and some pretty motivated folks out there regularly.

[Ryan Knudson]

What are they so concerned about with this data center?

[Will Parker]

The ones that came up the most in this particular case were Concerns about homes and home values will met with

[Ryan Knudson]

a handful of Festus residents to talk through their worries about the data center.

[Resident 2]

So I live approximately 300 yards as the crow flies from the entrance to where this will happen.

[Resident 1]

Okay.

[Ryan Knudson]

And this is the property outline.

[Will Parker]

Okay.

[Ryan Knudson]

Gathered around a kitchen table, one of the residents laid out satellite images.

[Resident 1]

Everybody put a dot on the map

[Angry Resident]

where your house is.

[Ryan Knudson]

They showed Will just how close some of their homes are to the proposed site.

[Resident 2]

What's it gonna do to the home value? And my life is on hold right now as is. Everybody's at this table, for the most part, trying to know what's going to happen.

[Resident 1]

We don't have a lot in savings. All of our money is in our home. We have to fight this.

[Will Parker]

We can't decide if we're going to sell our house.

[Angry Resident]

We don't know if we should build.

[Resident 2]

We can't. We can't do anything like any kind of decision. And in good conscience, how do you sell your house to someone knowing what's

[Will Parker]

coming in and who's going to want

[Commercial Voice]

to necessarily buy it?

[Ryan Knudson]

I mean, Will says there's no definitive research about how data centers impact home prices.

[Will Parker]

Still, the idea that a construction project of this size and magnitude, you're dragging on and on for years would just make it a less attractive place to live and that the value of their homes would go down, and they're really scared about that.

[Ryan Knudson]

The developer is offering to buy out a dozen Festus homeowners whose houses are near the proposed site. Some residents say the amount they're being offered isn't enough. But for many of the homeowners Will spoke to, it's not just about the money.

[Will Parker]

How much water is this used? What does that mean for our water supply? Does it pollute the water supply?

[Ryan Knudson]

Missouri has a history of droughts. We're very drought prone. And I know from your research these things guzzle water.

[Resident 2]

Not knowing what the water situation was going to be, not knowing what this monstrosity is going to do to the environment.

[Ryan Knudson]

They're also worried that the data center could increase utility costs for locals, something that's happened near other data centers.

[Resident 1]

There's going to be more infrastructure than has to be built. So that's going to raise our utility prices. The amount of electricity that this is going to need, that's going to be reflected on our utility bills.

[Ryan Knudson]

The chairman of the development company said the project won't pollute the water and that the state has taken steps to protect residents from rising utility bills. All of these resident concerns were brewing in the lead up to that explosive city council vote where the story began.

[Will Parker]

A lot of people were there screaming and shouting at the council members and mayor to not do it, and most of them did vote for it.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Festives made a major step toward the possibility of bringing a data center to their community.

[Ryan Knudson]

The decision was met with a Opponents of the data center had been defeated, but they weren't done fighting. After the city Council vote, they declared a new vote out every city council member who supported the data center and recall the mayor. That's next.

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[Ryan Knudson]

Not long after that data center vote in March, four out of eight city council seats in Festus were up for re election.

[Will Parker]

And those four members had, at least at some point in the process, been supportive of the data center. And they had backing from construction unions who obviously want the labor and are supportive of the project. So everyone said they were inundated with television ads and mailers to reelect these four city council members. But each of them faced an anti data center challenger.

[Ryan Knudson]

When the votes came in last month, it was a blowout.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Some big changes are coming to the Festus City Council after all four incumbents on the ballot were defeated in last night's election.

[Will Parker]

Now that election, it came not too long after the Festus City Council approved

[Resident 2]

that controversial data center project.

[Will Parker]

Since getting elected, they feel pretty emboldened to try to stop this project.

[Ryan Knudson]

One of the newly elected city council members told a local TV station that he'll do everything he legally can to stand in the way of the data center. I'm not against data centers as a whole. It's the process that unfolded and where they're putting it is the problem. After taking out four council members, residents are now looking to recall Festus Mayor Sam Richards.

[Will Parker]

The mayor is kind of a cool customer. He is 81 years old and when did you become mayor?

[Ryan Knudson]

Will sat down with the mayor during his trip to Festus 2019.

[Will Parker]

Oh okay.

[Mayor Sam Richards]

And mayor for seven years.

[Will Parker]

He does not wear his emotions on his sleeve at all and he says that he has been caught off guard by the animus directed towards him that he. He thinks it's a good project. He thinks that the economics of it are good for the city in the area. The revenue it will produce, the construction jobs it will produce.

[Mayor Sam Richards]

What would money like that mean to the residents? It would mean better streets. It might mean a rec center, Fixing our main street here, fixing the sidewalks,

[Will Parker]

and

[Mayor Sam Richards]

making Festus a better place to live.

[Will Parker]

Why do you feel like that hasn't been convincing enough?

[Mayor Sam Richards]

Because. Because they're all worried about the other things. You know, they think I've sold them out for the money, which I haven't.

[Will Parker]

So you had four members of your council that were replaced, but now there are petitions to recall the four other members of the council and myself and yourself? Yes.

[Mayor Sam Richards]

You know, I'm thick skinned. I was a police officer. I got spit on when I came home from Vietnam in the 60s, in the late 60s. So it's not worse than that. So it doesn't bother me.

[Ryan Knudson]

More than 4,000 people have signed petitions to recall the mayor and three other council members who supported the project but have yet to face reelection. Well, it sounds like in Festus, the people that live in that community have made up their mind, yes, they do not want this.

[Will Parker]

I think so. They just don't want it there. They just. They're not. They don't want it.

[Ryan Knudson]

So what's going to happen to the data center then? Is it going to get built?

[Will Parker]

The company plans to build the $6 billion data center. They don't believe that the city, even with new leadership, would have the right to revoke their development agreement. But the founder of the company said that they have a lot more work to do to convince more people to support it. They think they can, but if they don't, I mean, ultimately, they said they won't build a project if they feel like not enough people support it.

[Ryan Knudson]

Around the country, other communities are looking to head off these fights before they begin by passing moratoriums on new data center construction.

[Narrator/Announcer]

The city of St. Charles may ban large data centers for good. Steady staff say that big facilities could strain water and electricity.

[Will Parker]

Get a data center ban on the ballot.

[Commercial Voice]

And now it's been verified by the Ohio attorney general.

[Resident 2]

The pause on any future data center projects in Fulton county is now effective immediately.

[Will Parker]

It's often in more rural small towns and counties, suburban areas, a lot in the Midwest, places in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and that's happening while there are also states where there's bills being introduced that would do something similar, although none of those have been successful. The closest that we've seen to a state level ban was in Maine, but the governor chose to veto that bill.

[Ryan Knudson]

The Maine governor said she vetoed the temporary ban because she wanted to carve out for a data center project that was already in the works. Will says that one result of these types of protests is that data centers could wind up clustered in parts of the country where there's just less opposition. One of the concerns that people have is that there could be an AI bubble. And so if there's an AI bubble and it bursts, what might that mean for this giant data center that could be midstream?

[Will Parker]

There's really not a good answer to this. But the issue of will we need so much space? I mean, even if the AI boom doesn't bust, there's also the question of, well, as the technology develops, will we need these cavernous warehouses that are the size of several football fields? Will we be able to do all of this activity in a much smaller space? That's another possibility that the people are talking about as well.

[Ryan Knudson]

Do you see data centers becoming any less central to your, your real estate beat?

[Will Parker]

No, not now. I mean, the pipeline of projects is still really strong. So, you know, we're looking at just a ton of activity and more building. So I don't know. It's not clear that opposition movements are dinging the AI build out so badly that it's having financial repercussions at this point. But the backlash seems to be growing rather than abating.

[Ryan Knudson]

And even though the industry is powering forward, it's still feeling that heat.

[Will Parker]

I've talked to a lot of people in the site selection business who work with data center companies on like, finding the right place to build. And what they're telling me is that like, well, if we see organized opposition to data centers in some places, that's immediately moving that place down the list, you know, so it is having an impact on whether companies pitch a project at all.

[Ryan Knudson]

That's all for today. Thursday, May 7th. The Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. If you like our show, follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're out every weekday afternoon. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.