Data Center Moratorium Petition Drive Will Continue Despite Council Vote

The organizer of a petition drive to put a 12-18 month moratorium on new data centers says she's going to continue despite a Cheyenne City Council vote this week against a city moratorium.

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The Cheyenne City Council on Tuesday night voted 8-1 against a proposed 12-month moratorium on new data centers in the city.

Heather Madrid: No One Seems To Have An Answer To Concerns

But petition drive organizer Heather Madrid says that doesn't mean her petition drive is over. She gave Townsquare Media the following statement on Thursday, May 28:

"The petition will continue

The reasons cited for voting no on the ordinance were that the council thinks the questions about water and the grid have already been answered and because the city staff lacks the capacity and the expertise to study the impacts of data centers. 

The petition focuses on transparency, the scale/scope/speed of projects without proper regulation, and the risk of project abandonment/failure and becoming obsolete very quickly. The petition also calls for a working group or task force that is comprised of stakeholders including citizens and independent experts, not city staff, to address these concerns. 

I have been saying for weeks that the water issue has become a distraction from the multitude of issues. I think this has been intentional and used as a way to dismiss the other very valid concerns that no one of authority seems to have an answer for. "