SAND SPRINGS, Okla.— City Manager Mike Carter kicked off 2026 with news he promised would bring jobs, money and prosperity to the 20,000 residents of this Tulsa suburb: Google was interested in building its newest AI data center on 827 acres of farmland just outside town.
Two weeks later, a group of local residents marched into City Hall with paperwork for a ballot measure to recall the entire City Council, including Mayor Jim Spoon. They had also filed a lawsuit.
Carter had braced for a backlash. He knew well from his time as the city's police chief what was likeliest to stir up otherwise friendly, law-abiding folks. "The toughest thing you will do is property issues," he advised the City Council.
And this was a property issue. Opponents of Google's Project Spring argue that the public has been left in the dark throughout the process, starting with annexation of land along Highway 97 into the city limits, so it could be connected to power lines. Kyle Schmidt, president of the Protect Sands Springs Alliance, and a team of volunteers are knocking on doors and collecting signatures for the recall campaign. "We don't have any other recourse," he said.
Though most recalls don't succeed, more communities are taking this radical step to try to fend off the AI construction boom. As tech giantsprepare to spendan estimated $700 billion on new data centers this year alone, residents have been torn between the prospect of jobs and tax revenue versus the environmental andquality-of-life costsof the AI boom.
At least five recall efforts targeted officials over their support for data centers since 2022. Organizers in Augusta Township, Michigan, aretrying to recallseven officials, including the town clerk and trustees, after their board voted to rezone land from agricultural to industrial for a future data center site. Last month, a group trying to boot the mayor in Port Washington, Wisconsin, over a planned $15 billion data centerfell shortin gathering enough signatures.
While none of those five recalls have yet made it to ballot, organizers in Sand Springs hope to be an exception.
So far, the group says it has roughly 50% of the nearly 5,000 signatures it would need across the city's six wards by March 31 to get the recalls on the ballot. Some residents told NBC News they aren't opposed to AI or development but don't think an agricultural area should be rezoned for the project when the city has an industrial zone already. "You cannot just keep it a secret from the whole town and then drop it in their laps," Schmidt said.
The city held information sessions about the project in January, before the City Council approved the rezoning in a 6-1 vote in February.
Last year, about 12% of recall targets were removed from office nationwide, according to ananalysis by Ballotpedia. Shaun Bowler, a political science professor at the University of California, Riverside, said being able to rally voters around a common cause at the local level can work in recall organizers' favor.
"It's a lot easier to get people mad at politicians than support them," he said.
Google didn't respond to questions about the recall. On its site outlining its data center plan,Project Spring, the company says the buildings would occupy less than 10% of the land and provide tax revenue that would shore up municipal budgets, all without straining the electrical grid or the water supply.
Not everyone in Sand Springs opposes the data center. In recent weeks, residents have received mailers from a group called Sandites for a Strong Future, urging voters not to sign on to the recall petition, calling that a nuclear option that would bring "Washington-style politics right here in Sand Springs."
Debates over the data center have frayed bonds in the close-knit city. Carter says he has had to shake off rumors that Google paid for his truck, while Schmidt's group has started advising supporters to put signs in front of doorbell cameras, alleging that some signs have disappeared.
Michael Hicks, an economics professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, has studied the industry's impact on job creation. He compared the backlash to data centers to the revolt against Walmart in the 1990s, when opponents raised concerns over the retail giant's crowding out mom-and-pop businesses.
The fates of at least 20 data center projects worth an estimated $98 billion wereleft in doubtduring the second quarter of last year because of opposition and delays, according to Data Center Watch. "What I think has happened in a lot of places is that the data centers have come and overpromised all the good things to communities and really undersold the negative consequences," he said.
Rick Plummer moved to Sand Springs from California 23 years ago and raises quarter horses on his 165-acre ranch. The Google data center property is about 300 feet from his fence line.
"Hear that?" Plummer said after he parked his all-terrain vehicle near a creek on his land. "Nothing."
He said he is skeptical of planners' assurances that the Google development wouldn't be seen from the road and that its evening lighting would be limited. His wife, Missy Plummer, expects to hear a constant hum, even though Google has said the data center buildings will be set back far enough from the property's border to shield from industrial noise.
Plummer is concerned the operations will disturb his horses, while his real estate agent has warned him to be prepared for a seven-figure loss in property values. The data center site is several miles outside town. Neighbors of the property like the Plummers are residents of Osage County, not the city that annexed the land, and therefore can't vote in city elections.
Until February, the land was zoned for agriculture. Rezoning it as industrial felt like a betrayal, Plummer said: "Nobody protected the poor ag guy."
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Plummer is part of a lawsuit challenging annexation. Plaintiffs argue that the official basis for expanding the city limits for the project relied on the property's touching a previous strip of land annexed in 1966. They allege an ordinance from the 1970s did away with that annexation decades ago. Lawyers for Sand Springs argued in filings that the plaintiffs don't have legal standing. No court date has been set.
On Monday, Land Legacy, a Tulsa-based conservation organization, filed another lawsuit that argues the project violates an agreement that landowners made not to use the property for industrial purposes.
Council member Mike Burdge, one of the targets of the recall, said that while it's true that county residents have no representation in city matters, it was within the property owner's rights to petition for it to be annexed for the data center project. (Alan and Susan Ringle, the owners, didn't respond to requests for comment.)
Burdge supports the data center because it will bring more industry and jobs back into the city. "We just keep getting retail and restaurants," he said. "I keep telling everybody we've got to have jobs."
Spoon, the mayor, said in a statement that the reasoning behind the recall campaign was false and misleading. Council members "have always acted in the best interest of the voters and the community that elected them," he wrote. The five other council members didn't respond to requests to comment.
At least 1,000 jobs are expected during the construction stage, city officials said, along with 200 permanent jobs. Google didn't respond to a request to confirm figures.
Some Sand Springs residents have sided with their more rural counterparts and have put up yard signs opposing the data center.
After having signed the recall petition, Sarah Nichols carried two signs she said she would put in her front yard. Nichols, 45, a stay-at-home mom, said she disapproved of the secrecy around the project.
She questioned how many of the outcomes officials were banking on were guaranteed.
"There needs to be a lot more serious questions asked," Nichols said. "And answered," her mother, Penny Thorngate, added.
At a veterans' breakfast across town, Nick Kallas, 78, who moved to Sand Springs four years ago to be closer to family, said he disagreed with the recall.
"That's going a little bit too far," he said. The prospect of more jobs and tax money for the community seems like a win for the town's future, he said.
Charley Pearson, 65, a Baptist deacon and cattle rancher in the community near the data center site, is also chief of the area's volunteer fire department. When Google made a $250,000 donation to the department, Pearson said, the board felt it had to decline — even though the sum was more than its annual budget.
The community's position was clear, he said. "For us to turn around and not to listen to them back, we would have been no better than Sand Springs," he said. His family owns 2,300 acres, including the house his grandparents built. They will never sell its land, he said.
"I just wish they would have handled it differently," Pearson said of the city's approach to the project. "I just wish they would have come and said something."
In a statement to NBC News,Google said it had "tremendous gratitude for the work" of volunteer fire departments, hospitals and schools. The company said its data centers support tools like maps that might be used by such organizations.
Back at City Hall, Carter said he is optimistic the data center project will proceed. The last recall attempt in 2010, spurred by an affordable housing complex, failed. Some of the opposition comes down to NIMBYism, people opposed to any project put on the table, he said. Complaints about nondisclosure agreements are misguided, he said, since they are standard practice — and were required to bring an Olive Garden to town. Still, the opposition and the negative attention are concerns.
Last fall, Google withdrew its application for a $1 billion data center in Indianapolis. A rezoning vote for the project was expected to fail. As with Project Spring, it had drawn local pushback.
In his time as city manager, Carter said, he has made an effort to address several concerns while shaking off those he finds baseless.
"You can't go and defend yourself against every insane comment you get on Facebook," he said.
At a recent recall petition drive, Christa Putnam, 53, a county resident and day care cook, spent the afternoon vigilant for any misprints that could disqualify or challenge a signature. She made sure signees spelled out Sand Springs, alongside their addresses, instead of abbreviating.
"I don't want them for neighbors," she said of Project Spring. "I'm sure they're nice people. But I'd rather them be in town."