KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County, including Independence. Share your story idea with Tod.
KSHB 41 real-time editor Steve Kaut contributed to this report.
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Opponents of a sprawling data center, which the Independence City Council approved a tax abatement for last week, filed a lawsuit Monday that aims to put the ordinance to a citywide vote.
The Stop the AI Data Center in Independence group, which counts Rachel Gonzalez among its leaders, gathered signatures and filed an intent to seek a referendum on March 3, one day after the city council voted to approve more than $150 billion in Chapter 100 bonds for the project.
Council members, union leaders and some residents hailed the data center, which would occupy nearly 400 acres in the Little Blue Valley in eastern Independence, as a transformative project that would solve the city's budget crunch with tax revenue.
READ | Full lawsuit
But opponents hoped to use the city charter to give voters a chance to override the 5-2 decision.
The city denied the petition on March 5, saying it violated the city charter.
"The ordinance approved by the City Council on March 2 authorized the execution of specific contracts related to the bond issuance referred to in the ordinance," the city said, in part, in a statement. "... This type of ordinance takes effect immediately upon passage. As a result, the Charter — adopted and repeatedly affirmed by the citizens of Independence — does not permit a referendum on this specific matter, and approving a petition for circulation would be in violation of the Charter."
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The city relied on Section 7.2 of its charter, which excludes referendums on ordinances that require immediate effort, as the Chapter 100 bond vote did.
The rest of Section 7.2 lays out the process for seeking a referendum, and Gonzalez and the other signature-gatherers named in the lawsuit believe it gives them legal standing to challenge the data center ordinance.
The lawsuit asks a Jackson County judge to force the city clerk to validate the petition to seek a referendum and to stay the 30-day requirement for gathering signatures to force a referendum.
The charter specifies that after citizens petition for a referendum within 10 days, which Gonzalez and her group did, they have 30 days to gather signatures to actually create a ballot referendum.
The group must gather 3,488 signatures from Independence voters based on the number of registered voters for the February primary.
Opponents want the judge to allow time beyond the 30 days "for the submission of referendum petition signed by the required number of registered qualified voters starting from the date of the Relator's Petition (opponent's) is certified by the Respondent (city)," according to the lawsuit.
The city is aware of the lawsuit, but it has no comment at this time.
If a judge allows the referendum effort to go forward, and they gather enough signatures, Gonzalez said they hope to put the data center ordinance to a citywide vote in August 2026.
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