Do you oppose data centers being built in your town? Well then you’re a lowly “unkempt” rube, in the eyes of Shelbyville, Indiana mayor and aspiring aristocrat Scott Furgeson.
In a video seemingly recorded without his knowledge, Furgeson, a Republican, fumes against the “No Data Centers” signs popping up across town, before making a cartoonishly villainous observation about his own constituents.
“I’ve seen a lot of these all over the town, but I only see them in sh*tty houses,” the mayor sneered.
A woman interjects to correct him.
“Working class,” she emphasized, after yelping in disbelief. “You see them at working class houses.”
“Most of them are rentals, so,” Furgeson continued, as if it strengthened his case.
“Exactly. Working class, man,” the woman replied.
“It doesn’t matter whether they’re rentals or not, they’re still human beings,” another woman offers.
“Yeah, I know,” Furgeson said, before defaulting back to the supercilious demeanor of an out of touch nobility. “They’re unkempt. Unkempt properties.”
Many of Furgeson’s subjects were displeased by his haughty musings, which would seem less out of place if he was garbed in a royal mantle and wielding a golden scepter.
“This is what the mayor thinks of us?” one commented under the original video.
“I’d rather live in a sh*tty house than be a sh*tty person,” another rejoined in the Indiana subreddit.
Furgeson’s official response to the backlash, notably bereft of the words “sorry” or “apologize,” left much to be desired.
“The mayor regrets that his choice of words may have caused offense,” a statement from his office reads. “His comments were intended to reference property maintenance and not the character, value, or importance of any resident, homeowner, or renter in the community.”
Indiana is emerging as a midwest hub for data centers, with Amazon alone planning to build 30 of them on a huge stretch of farmland that will consume 2.2 gigawatts of electricity each year.
But many of these projects are facing overwhelming opposition from locals, who voice concerns over water scarcity and surging energy prices. That includes Shelbyville, where the developer Prologis has proposed turning hundreds of acres of farmland into an 11-building data center facility.
In a town of around 20,000 people, over 2,000 of them signed a petition to halt the project, per FOX59. But despite the public outcry, the Shelbyville city council voted to approve it in April.
It’s a story playing out across the country. Data centers remain deeply unpopular among the public, with a new survey suggesting that at least seven in ten Americans would now oppose one being built near their home. Furgeson’s comments will only fuel the perception that the leaders pushing for their construction are completely out of touch.
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