Some residents got unruly before a very close vote last night on a hot-button topic in northwest Iowa.
The Salix city council voted three-to-two against enacting a one-year moratorium on data center development.
Those who oppose data centers got vocal and Salix Mayor Kevin Nelson had to call for police officers to bring order. No arrests were made.
Council member Denise Burkhart supported the moratorium last month but changed her vote after Google was identified as the potential customer.
“We need to open conversations with Google to see what they want to bring here, what they’re capable of doing for our community,” Burkhart says, “and it may not be right for us, but we’re not going to know until we ask the questions.”
Just before the vote, council member Gene Monk said he believed the moratorium had already passed during last month’s meeting, and just the details needed approval.
“We ask for a cool-down period for a year to research, like the people want to research. Then we can make an educated decision,” Monk says. “We can let the people vote for it after that, do something different. It’s too big of a decision for us five people.”
Last week’s city council meeting was postponed by death threats via social media.
Salix leaders have already annexed 900 acres of farmland south of Sioux City for a potential project involving both Google and MidAmerican Energy. Salix is facing a legal challenge from Woodbury County over the annexation.
The land would still need to be rezoned before a data center could move forward.
(Sheila Brummer, Iowa Public Radio)