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After a group of Monterey Park residents organized under the banner No Data Center Monterey Park and made their city the first in the nation to ban the facilities in April, “it put us on the maps of other small cities looking to ban data centers,” says Steven Kung, one of the lead organizers.

Or, as his fellow organizer Hrag Balian puts it: “We've kind of awakened the beast.”

As I found out working on this week’s story, they started getting messages from other communities from the San Gabriel Valley to Ohio. Nearly a dozen so far, asking the same question: How’d you do it?

In answer, the Monterey Park organizers are now putting together a playbook to share with other groups. Balian, who’s a software engineer, also created a toolkit that combines all the apps they found useful, for everything from sending newsletters to writing petitions.

Nationwide, polling shows that 70 percent of residents are against a data center in their communities. Locally, Montebello, Baldwin Park, and El Monte have passed moratoria. Alhambra made a zoning change that basically bans data centers. And in April, LA County launched a study into the impacts of data centers on health, environment, and grid.

All these groups that mobilized for their specific local concerns might have just stayed in their little bubbles. But now they’re part of a growing network — people who might not have ever found each other if not for the common cause of data centers, and what they’re powering: the looming specter of artificial intelligence.

Steven Kung and No Data Center activists turned out for a Monterey Park city council meeting.
Photo by Brandon R. Reynolds. 

Montana’s Alessandro Mitchell slid into the DMs of Monterey Park activists after their victory in the spring. He’s head of Missoula Neighbors United, a tenants-rights organization. When a developer proposed a data center in the next town over, Mitchell went looking for help.

“That's when the Monterey Park people come in, because I saw their victory, and I thought, ‘Well, these people are ahead of the pack,’” says Mitchell.

He sought out their advice, which included: Skip the ballot measure.

“Having a referendum means a lot of canvassing, it means starting a ballot measure committee,” says Kung. “It means fundraising. It's a lot of work.” Kung and Balian say an ordinance does just about everything organizers would want, and it’s a lot easier than trying to put a ban on the ballot.

But Kung says the real secret to success is “having weekly meetings really keeps everyone accountable, keeps the fight up, keeps everyone's spirits up.”

Closer to home, an organization in Coachella called Viva La Causa sought out the Monterey Park activists, too. Viva La Causa was formed years ago to fight against things like police brutality and luxury condo development. And now, data centers.

On August 10th, the Coachella council passed an ordinance banning data centers. But despite Monterey Park cautioning them about how much of a pain a ballot initiative can be, Viva La Causa still wants to push for a citywide vote. Organizer Cecilia Lemus says they just don’t trust their city council: “If the city council votes it in, they can also vote it out.”

In Missoula, the organizing paid off. The site owner for that data center project bailed out as a result of “the public’s feedback.” There’s also now a moratorium on data-center development, as the county considers energy use and impacts to health and environment.

Mitchell says the fear of artificial intelligence is highly motivating “because it is going to do so much to change society. So I think, yes, it is creating a huge outpouring around the country, and it's activating people in a way that I haven't seen in my lifetime.”