First Blood...

At 12:45 AM Monday morning, Indianapolis City-County Councilman Ron Gibson woke to the sound of gunfire.

Thirteen bullets struck his front door. His 8-year-old son was asleep down the hall. A handwritten note in a sealed plastic bag waited on the doorstep: "NO DATA CENTERS."

Five days earlier, Gibson had publicly supported a $500 million data center by developer Metrobloks in his district. The Metropolitan Development Commission approved the rezoning 6-2 on April 1.

The FBI is now investigating. The community group Protect Martindale-Brightwood condemned the attack and denied any involvement. Gibson, in a statement: "This will not deter me."

But the message landed. Not just in Indianapolis, everywhere a council member is weighing a data center vote.

This is the climate now.

At 8 PM Tuesday, polls closed in Port Washington, Wisconsin. By 10 PM, the results were in:

66% yes. First-in-the-nation anti-data center referendum passes.

The measure requires voter approval before the city can grant tax incentives exceeding $10 million to any future project. It doesn't stop the current $15 billion OpenAI-Oracle-Vantage campus from moving forward, that deal was already signed, but it fundamentally changes what comes next.

Over 1,000 residents signed the petition to get it on the ballot. Great Lakes Neighbors United, the grassroots group behind it, formed less than a year ago.

"Tonight, democracy worked the way it's supposed to," said spokesperson Christine Le Jeune after the results came in. "Port Washington voters spoke with one clear voice."

The vote totals: 2,710 yes. 1,371 no. Turnout exceeded 50% in a city of 8,257 registered voters.

Brad Tietz, state policy director for the Data Center Coalition, told Politico he's "not aware of another ballot referendum" like this "that has been taken directly to the voters yet."

Then he added the warning everyone in the industry is thinking: "If this trend continues and grows, it's going to have significant consequences for our economic competitiveness and our national security."

What this means:

Port Washington is a template. Other communities are watching. At least four more data center-related ballot measures are scheduled for 2026:

And an Ohio statewide initiative is in the signature-gathering phase that would prohibit data centers exceeding 25 megawatts.

The referendum era has begun.

Georgia's legislative session ended April 2. SB 410, the bill that would have repealed sales tax exemptions for new data centers, died in the House.

The Senate passed it 32-21 on Crossover Day. The House declined to include the data center exemption in its final tax package.

Georgia's data center tax break survives, for now.

What killed it:

The House was focused on income tax cuts and property tax relief. Data centers became a bargaining chip that got traded away. Governor Kemp, who vetoed a similar bill in 2024, never took a public position on SB 410. His silence spoke volumes.

What it cost:

Georgia estimates it's losing $625 million in tax revenue next fiscal year from data center exemptions, up from $10 million in 2020. A state audit found that 70% of data center construction would have happened anyway, even without the tax break.

The political pressure didn't disappear. It just moves to 2027.

Project Anthem Phase 2 (Tulsa) - Developer Atmoss LLC withdrew its rezoning application for the 375-acre second phase on March 31, one day before the Planning Commission was scheduled to vote.

Here's the twist: Phase 2 was exempt from Tulsa's 9-month moratorium. They could have proceeded. They chose not to.

City communications officer Carson Colvin: "The developer indicated it is exploring options."

Project Atlas (Coweta) - San Francisco-based Beale Infrastructure withdrew March 30 after months of community opposition. The Planning Commission had already voted 4-1 to deny the rezoning in January. Residents showed up at meeting after meeting. Some called for the city manager to be fired.

The company's statement: "We look forward to continuing to build meaningful community investments in other locations in Oklahoma."

Translation: We're not fighting this one anymore.

The Coweta city manager signed an NDA that kept project details confidential for 17 months. Residents are still furious. Calls for her removal continue.

The pattern: When the opposition gets organized early and stays loud, developers read the room. They don't wait for the "no" vote. They leave before it happens.

The Maine House passed LD 307 on Monday, 82 to 62.

The bill would ban construction of data centers with loads of 20 megawatts or more until November 2027. It also creates a Data Center Coordination Council to study impacts and recommend policy.

It now goes to the Senate.

If it passes, Maine becomes the first state to enact a statewide data center moratorium.

Rep. Melanie Sachs (D-Freeport): "This is not a bill against innovation, nor is it a rejection of economic development. Maine has always been a place that embraces new industries and new ideas, but we are also a state that understands the value of stewardship."

The Associated Builders and Contractors says Maine will be the first of several states to pass such legislation.

The wave continues:

Westport, WI - Town board approved a one-year moratorium restricting data centers to 10,000 square feet max. Vote was 4-1. One trustee wanted a complete ban.

Archbold, OH - Village council approved a six-month moratorium on "high-intensity industrial and infrastructure-dependent uses, including data centers." Vote was 5-0. Residents had been packing meetings after land transactions near the village raised suspicions of a data center project.

Massillon, OH - City council unanimously approved a 180-day moratorium. Ohio now has over 100 existing data centers and 80 more planned. Nearby Plain and Perry townships have their own moratoriums.

Bangor, ME - City council advanced a 180-day moratorium to a formal vote on April 13. The Bangor Water District supported the pause to understand water consumption needs.

Rowan County, NC - Commissioners introduced a moratorium; public hearing set for April 20.

Reuters reported this week that Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have each recently abandoned multibillion-dollar data center projects over community opposition.

Now shareholders are turning up the heat.

More than a dozen investors are demanding more data on water usage ahead of spring shareholder meetings. Trillium Asset Management filed a resolution with Alphabet seeking clarity on how it will meet climate goals given surging data center energy needs.

The numbers they're questioning:

The industry has been able to deflect local opposition. Deflecting institutional investors is harder.

The data center buildout isn't slowing. ConstructConnect is tracking 76 projects set to start in the next six months, valued at over $88 billion. That's a 13% increase over all of 2025.

But the where is shifting.

What works:

What doesn't work:

Markets getting harder:

Markets still open:

April 13 - Bangor, ME council votes on 180-day moratorium

April 20 - Rowan County, NC public hearing on moratorium

April 28 - Birmingham, AL public hearing on citywide ordinance

April 28 - New Orleans Planning Commission resumes zoning discussion

June 2 - Monterey Park, CA votes on Measure NDC (citywide ban)

November - Janesville, WI voter approval referendum

Port Washington proved the opposition can win at the ballot box. Indianapolis proved how high the stakes have become.

The Sanders-AOC federal moratorium won't pass. But it doesn't need to. The fight is happening city by city, county by county, state by state. And the opposition is learning faster than the developers.

The $2.3 trillion pipeline will get built. But it won't be built everywhere. And the communities that say no are getting better at making it stick.

Know which side of the line your market is on.

That's all for Issue #12.

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Edem

The DC Pipeline is published every Tuesday. Forward this to someone who needs to know where the money is going.