A group of Mandan residents gathered more than 700 signatures on a petition to limit any data centers to be 25 megawatts or less, in terms of power use.
The group wants to put the proposed city ordinance on the ballot. And the petitions were turned in Tuesday at the Mandan City Hall.
"The reasoning for that was — we were looking at what other communities have done across the country, and had their petitions stand without a big legal challenge," said organizer Susan Beehler.
Beehler said her group is up against big money.
"Hopefully, they won't challenge it, and move on to another area," Beehler told reporters.
Beehler says a big data center is planned for an area that includes Mandan Middle School and Mandan High School.
"We hope they let our students go to school, and not have a hyper-scale data center right outside their classrooms," Beehler said.
The group hopes this will be on the ballot in November's election.
