Opponents of a potential Festus data center development project presented a petition Monday night to the City Council, calling for a vote to ban such projects for 10 years.
CRG of St. Louis has said it plans to develop a data center on property north of Hwy. 67 and west of Hwy. CC in Festus.
As those plans became public, opposition rose quickly.
Erica Carter of Festus presented a petition and what she described as a “demand letter” to city officials during a visitor comment section of Monday night’s meeting. She said she and other data center opponents had little trouble gathering signatures on their petition.
“In the course of just a few hours each, walking the streets of Festus and speaking directly to our neighbors, we collected more than 1,400 signatures, more signatures than the 1,066 votes cast in the last mayoral election,” Carter said. “These are not online clicks. These are your constituents at their front doors and kitchen tables, telling us they no longer trust this process. They no longer trust you.”
She said the matter should be put to a public vote.
“We are asking you not to speculate about what the people of Festus want,” Carter said. “We are asking you to ask us. We are asking you to let the people decide whether a hyperscale data center belongs in our backyard, in our community. We urge you to call a special election and to use the ballot language attached to the demand letter and put this question directly before the people.”
The proposed ballot language states, “Shall the city of Festus adopt an ordinance prohibiting hyperscale data centers in the city limits, requiring voter approval for any proposed hyperscale data center project, and providing that the policy may not be changed without a vote of the people for 10 years?”
On Tuesday morning, Mayor Sam Richards declined to comment about the petition and letter calling for a public vote.
City Administrator Greg Camp, who missed the meeting due to illness, said Tuesday morning he had not seen the document and therefore could not comment on it.
At a previous council meeting, Camp said the city has no legal obligation to react to petitions since Festus council members never adopted framework in the city’s codes regarding initiative and referendum powers.
In the letter, the City Council is told to take heed of the petition, nevertheless.
“Although the city of Festus operates as a third-class city and may not have an explicit ‘local initiative’ provision codified in Chapter 105 of the Festus code, the City Council retains the inherent and statutory power to refer questions to the voters by ordinance or resolution,” it said.
The letter calls for a special election on the proposed referendum to be announced within 30 days of receipt of the letter and the election to be held at the earliest date permitted by state law.
If city officials do not comply with the special election request, recall elections of the city officials will be sought by the data center opponents, the letter said.
Carter on Tuesday said she expects recall efforts to occur.
“I feel (Richards) is not listening,” she said. “There are already people working to get recalls. I’m not part of that team.”
She said the recall efforts would be toward Richards and City Council members whose seats are not up for election in April.
The letter accuses Festus council members and other officials of skirting the state Sunshine Law by gathering in groups below a quorum and doing so for more than two years.
Camp on Tuesday said the allegations on when data center discussions began are not true.
“The first time I met with CRG was Aug. 7 (2025). Period,” he said.
The presentation of the petition Monday night followed publication of a recent story by St. Louis NPR in which it alleged St. Louis metro government officials, including some from Festus and Jefferson County, went on partially funded, fact-finding trips to data centers in other states.
Greater St. Louis Inc., a nonprofit regional economic group that promotes economic development in the metro area, helped pay at least part of the expenses of the trips, the NPR story said.
The NPR report does not assert there has been any wrongdoing by anyone involved, but it pointed out the trips occurred, “as public pushback against data center proposals raged.”
The report said Greater St. Louis Inc. contributed to the expenses of public officials and Ameren officials for “multiple” trips, specifically listing Festus Ward 4 Councilman Jim Tinnin and Jefferson County Executive Dennis Gannon going on one trip to a Papillon, Neb., data center. Camp was invited but did not go.
Gannon said he felt obligated to gather information firsthand through visits to data centers including going on the Nebraska trip, and he acknowledged Greater St. Louis Inc. paid for his hotel stay and bus rides in the Omaha area.
“I am very open about it,” Gannon said. “I went to (a data center) in Phoenix when I was visiting my dad. I paid for that trip.
“On the trip to Nebraska, (Greater St. Louis Inc.) paid for a hotel overnight and bus transportation between Omaha and Papillon. I paid by credit card for my airfare. I’ll be reimbursed by Jefferson County.”
He said it is important for him to learn about data centers.
“I would rather be informed on the decisions I’m making than (not),” Gannon said. “It was a worthwhile trip. If I had not gone, shame on me.”
Tinnin did not respond to requests for comment prior to the Leader deadline. Camp declined to comment since he did not go on the Nebraska trip.
Ward 4 Councilman Mike Cook, at Monday’s meeting and during a phone interview, said he has gone on similar fact-finding trips to data centers in Iowa and Virginia. But he said he has paid all of his own expenses on the trips.
He said he took his trips in late summer and in the fall.
“All of my trips have been me, individually,” Cook said. “They’re out of my pocket. Nobody’s paid for me to go.
“I’ve been to Iowa – Altoona. Council Bluffs and Des Moines (data centers). They were different users. I also went to one in Virginia, but that was later on. I paid for all my trips.”
Cook said he came away with different views of the various data centers he visited.
“I just did my own thing,” he said. “I talked to individuals. I talked to a couple of city people.
“It was exactly as I’d thought. There are good ones, and there are bad ones.”
Cook, who has voted along with the rest of the council in motions to approve data center regulations as well as for the annexation and rezoning of the property linked to the CRG development project, said he will only support future motions concerning the project if he agrees with what he sees.
“I can’t tell you what the message is going to be like until we see the development plans,” he said. “If it’s a bad one, I won’t support it. I can’t comment on Festus, because we haven’t seen plans. If there’s not a good site development plan, I won’t vote for it.”
CRG President Chris McKee has said CRG, which is the data center development arm for Clayco, would develop property north of Hwy. 67 and west of Hwy. CC in Festus, and then a data center company would operate it, although no operator has yet been identified.
Clayco is the same company that in August 2025 withdrew its plans to develop a 440-acre data center in St. Charles following a public outcry against it.
The Festus City Council on Oct. 27 approved regulations that would govern any potential data centers developed in the city. On Nov. 10, the City Council voted to annex some land where the data center project is now proposed, and then on Nov. 24, council members voted to rezone parts of the annexed land, as well as neighboring tracts that already were inside the city limits.
Opponents have criticized Festus officials by saying they have not been transparent in the data center development process, with the critics pointing to emails among officials, as well as emails between city officials dating back to August 2025, and CRG representatives as proof that the officials have, at best, skirted state Sunshine Law requirements.
Critics also have repeatedly said they are concerned about the amount of electricity and water a data center would use, as well as pollution and health concerns over a data center.
Vaughn Hogan of Festus said data center opponents like her will not let the issue drop.
“We’re not stopping,” she said. “The site is wrong. It’s a residential area.”
A CRG spokesman on Feb. 4 said he had nothing new to report from the company in regard to the project.