Less than a week out from its second and final scheduled public hearing on draft data center regulations, one resident is pointing to recent election results as a mandate to city leaders to ban data center development.
Adam Heenan was one of two speakers during public comment at the city council's meeting on Monday. He said the results of an advisory question on the 2026 midterm ballot indicated a large majority of Bloomington residents want a permanent moratorium on data centers.
About 78% of voters said they would like the city to implement a permanent moratorium.
“It is a mandate to act,” Heenan said. “We don’t want them.”
Advisory questions are not binding, but allow voters to express their views and intent.
The city is currently under a six-month moratorium that was put in place in May. The city released a set of draft regulations in October and will be releasing a revised set of regulations this week.
The proposed regulations include some restrictions on where data centers would go based on their size, and require a lot of reporting and surveys from a data center developer or operator.
Heenan was suspicious that regulations implemented by the city would even be followed by data center developers.
“This body has heard ample evidence and appeals, but it is clear no agreement will be made in good faith. Every manner of regulation we seek to impose will be met with big tech’s tort budget that dwarfs our own,” Heenan said. “They will break the laws we seek to impose and bankrupt us trying to enforce them.”
The first public hearing on the proposed regulations was held Oct. 16, when many speakers called for stronger restrictions, or an all-out ban.
The next hearing will be at 4 p.m. on Nov. 16 at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.
City Manager Jeff Jurgens said the council will likely extend the moratorium during its final November meeting, in part to allow more time to develop the regulations and to see if state lawmakers move any legislation forward during their veto session this month.
