A township of 7,000 people forced a 522-acre data center onto the ballot — and in six days, they get to vote it dead. It's the sharpest example yet of a fight playing out in courtrooms, county councils, and half-trillion-dollar boardrooms across America.
📣 **COMMUNITY** — Augusta Township, Michigan residents gathered nearly 1,000 signatures to force an August 4 referendum on Thor Equities' 522.2-acre rezoning for a data center campus. The township board approved it unanimously — so opponents also launched recalls against the entire board, plus the clerk, treasurer, and supervisor. (Source: Planet Detroit / Ballotpedia / Grist)
⚖️ **LEGAL** — The developer of California's largest planned data center — a nearly 1M sq ft Imperial Valley complex — argued in Superior Court Tuesday that Imperial County's data center freeze is unlawful. Attorney Sebastian Rucci said an emergency moratorium requires an actual emergency; the judge pressed the county on exactly that. (Source: Courthouse News Service)
📜 **POLICY** — Montgomery County, Maryland's council voted unanimously on July 28 to ban new data center permits for 18 months and passed zoning amendments blocking any facility over 25 MW. The measure merged bills from Councilmembers Evan Glass and Will Jawando and follows a June executive order already being challenged by Atmosphere Data Centers. (Source: Bethesda Magazine / The Baltimore Banner)
🤖 **AI/TECH** — Nvidia is in talks to guarantee up to $250B so OpenAI can lease compute from the SoftBank-led, 10 GW hub planned at a former uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio — a project that could top $500B and become the world's largest data center by power capacity. Japan has pledged $33B; OpenAI is separately discussing up to $350B in Nvidia chip purchases. (Source: Bloomberg / WSJ / Crain's Cleveland)
⚡ **POWER** — An NRDC analysis projects the average Ohio family will pay ~$70 more per month on electric bills by 2028 due to data center growth. A capacity auction clea
