INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Two members of Indiana’s best political team on Friday said the debate over a now-canceled data center in Franklin Township shows the power of citizen engagement.
At a Monday night Indianapolis City-County Council meeting, Google announced it was withdrawing its proposal to build a data center just off I-74 in southeastern Marion County. The move followed an outcry from people in and around Franklin Township and public statements opposing the project by a majority of the council. On this weekend’s episode of All INdiana Politics, Dana Black, former deputy chair of engagement for the Indiana Democratic Party, said that outcome shows what citizen government is all about.
“I’ve been saying this forever, especially to my Democrats who feel like they have no hope in this state,” Black said. “If you show up and you lock hands on an issue, you can have an impact.”
Republican strategist Ali Bartlett said it was encouraging to bipartisan agreement on the issue. Seventeen of the 25 councilors publicly opposed the data center by the time Google withdrew the project, including all six Republicans. Bartlett said it will be interesting to see how the outcome of the Franklin Township data center debate impacts another data center proposed for the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood.
“There obviously are some parts of this proposal that are appealing, right? It’s the money that comes with it. The potential funding, the potential jobs, although 50 jobs were less than impressive in a lot of ways,” Bartlett said. “But I think that this is an opportunity to see what the people of that area really think, and it could be unique and from place to place.”
Black said tech companies should rethink how and where they build data centers, pointing to a recent underwater data center built in China. Bartlett said policymakers will have to carefully weigh the potential impacts of data centers against where people already live and what quality-of-place initiatives, and priorities people in those areas want to pursue.
All INdiana Politics airs at 9:30 a.m. Sunday on WISH-TV.
