Three members of the Festus City Council are proposing a bill that would impose a yearlong moratorium on the proposed data center development project in town.
Councilmen Karl Weekley of Ward 1, Dan Moore of Ward 3 and Rick Bellevile of Ward 4 proposed the moratorium during the council’s Monday night work session, which was held before the regular meeting.
Belleville, who presented the idea to the other council members and Mayor Sam Richards, said the three council members want the matter placed on the agenda of the council’s next meeting, which will be July 27.
CRG of St. Louis announced in late 2025 its plan to develop a hyperscale data center on 361 acres north of Hwy. 67 and west of Hwy. CC. CRG, which is the St. Louis-based data center development arm for Clayco, has estimated the cost of developing the facility at $6 billion.
In the Festus project, CRG would develop the property, and then a data center company would operate it, although no operator has yet been identified.
In his presentation at Monday’s work session, Belleville showed the results of an online survey compiled by Festus residents in which concerns about a data center were raised.
“Someone from that survey sent the data to me, and then I distilled that down to six categories,” Belleville said.
He said the main topics of concern from the survey are: water; electricity; community health risks; residential property values; impact on the environment; and wildlife and farm animal concerns.
In light of those concerns, he said, the city should slow down the data center development process in order to investigate.
“So, I’m asking that we pause on the data center, not cancel it. With a 12-month moratorium, the council members would have time to discuss this fully,” Belleville said. “If we discuss all the concerns before the one-year moratorium is up, then we can move forward.”
Richards asked Belleville how many residents responded to the survey. Belleville said he did not have that information but would seek it for the mayor.
On Tuesday, Belleville released the contents of the bill he, Weekley and Moore are sponsoring. It states: “An ordinance of the City Council of the city of Festus, Missouri, declaring a one-year moratorium on the acceptance, processing and issuance of permits for data centers, hyperscale data centers and battery energy storage systems to allow review of municipal zoning, fire, building, water, wastewater, electrical and development standards.”
On Tuesday, Richards said the moratorium proposal needs to be reviewed before being placed on an agenda. So, it is yet to be determined if and when it will be included on a meeting agenda, he said.
“It’s a recommendation by him,” Richards said. “The whole council will have to make a decision. Myself and the city administrator will have to make a decision on that. We have to review it before it goes on the agenda.”
Chris McKee, CRG president, issued a written statement Tuesday in response to the councilmen’s moratorium proposal.
“We’re aware of Councilman Belleville’s stated intention to bring forward a moratorium proposal, and we respect the council’s role in reviewing this project. Since June, we’ve put forward a substantially smaller plan shaped by community feedback, and we’ve been answering residents’ questions directly through FestusForward.com. We look forward to continuing that conversation with the council and the community through the city’s established process. Because the proposal hasn’t been formally introduced, we’re not going to speculate on specifics – but our commitment to getting this project right for Festus is unchanged,” McKee said.
Near the end of Monday’s work session, City Administrator Benjamin DeClue said CRG has scheduled a community webinar.
“I received just this evening information about a community webinar that (CRG) is hosting July 23 from 6-7 p.m.,” DeClue said. “We will have that information on our website and our social media tomorrow.”
He said the information about the webinar through WebEx is also on festusforward.com, a website established by CRG to present information about the data center development project to the public.
According to information on festusforward.com on Tuesday, the webinar is intended to answer questions from the community.
“This webinar is an opportunity to hear directly from the project team, learn more about the current conceptual plan, and have your questions addressed. We encourage residents to attend, bring their questions, and continue engaging with us as the project moves forward,” the website stated.
It further stated, “Registration coming soon.” A CRG spokesman said it will be a simple online registration and should “accommodate any residents looking to attend the virtual session.”
DeClue’s announcement did not sit well with crowd members, who immediately began ridiculing CRG for not holding the meeting in person.
Moore agreed with the commenters from the crowd, saying, “I think it’s in our best interest to have these meetings in person down here in our community.”
DeClue said he did not know if the webinar counts as one of the public meetings that CRG is required to have under a city ordinance governing data center projects.
Moore asked Brian Malone of Lashly and Baer, the city’s law firm, if he would ask CRG to “speed up” the process to hold the public meetings they are required to hold.
Malone said he would convey that request to CRG officials.
Nearly three-hour council meeting
After the work session, about 30 speakers who were angry about the data center development project vented against the mayor and council members (Dave Boyer of Ward 1, Kevin Dennis of Ward 3 and Mike Cook of Ward 4) who have supported the project.
Several criticized efforts of the mayor, Boyer, Dennis and Cook to shoot down recall efforts against them.
Many, complaining about a lack of transparency on the project, pointed to the June 29 council closed session during which CRG officials presented to city officials what they called “a refined conceptual design” of the project.
Others, such as Kevin Gardner, agreed with the councilmen proposing the moratorium that the process to move along the data center development project has been too hasty.
“That this project and scale and impact, a hyperscale data center is no small development,” he said. “It’s a massive, long-term industrial installation that will shape Festus for decades. Because of that, the community deserves careful, transparent and inclusive processes, and right now that’s not what we’re seeing.”
Gwen Mercer asked the mayor why the open Ward 2 seat has not been filled.
In April, Ward 2 Councilwoman Staci Templeton resigned.
“Today I am questioning why that Ward 2 seat is vacant,” she said. “It belonged to a woman. It’s still vacant. It was an emergency two months ago when you wanted another man to fill it, but today it’s nothing. I don’t really know which of these possibilities is worse. Is it sexism, incompetence, malice?”
Find links to stories that provide further background on the proposed data center project at the end of this article:
