Voters in Independence, Mo., on Tuesday appeared to have recalled a City Council member who had backed billions of dollars in tax breaks for a data center, one of the first such removals amid a growing national backlash against the giant warehouses that power artificial intelligence.
In the First District of Independence, 1,118 residents cast votes to recall John Perkins, while 525 people voted against the recall, according to the Jackson County Board of Elections website. Only a handful of ballots were still outstanding, according to the county board.
Mr. Perkins, who was years away from re-election, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He previously told The New York Times that the argument for the recall had “no merit” and that a “single vote” should not outweigh years of work for his constituents.
McKenna Cobb, 31, one of the recall’s organizers, said she had spent Tuesday knocking on doors and driving community members to the polls. The vote showed that “our voices matter and these smaller elections really matter,” she added.
Public concern has mounted in recent months about data centers, which are full of computers that require immense amounts of power. Voters are increasingly worried about higher electricity prices, harm to the environment and disruption to their communities.
The backlash has already affected other elections. Last year, two Republican members of the Georgia Public Service Commission lost their seats over worries about the rising cost of power, which many attributed to data centers in the state. And many expect that sentiment could affect November’s midterm elections.
In Independence, a city of 121,000 next to Kansas City, residents didn’t wait and instead forced Tuesday’s recall vote. The Dutch company Nebius bought land on the outskirts of the city last year and then asked for billions of dollars in tax breaks for the project. City officials said they believed it would be a boon for a place that had struggled financially, filling the city’s coffers with money for education and infrastructure.
In March, Mr. Perkins joined four other members of the City Council to grant more than $6 billion in tax breaks to the $150 billion Nebius project. At the time of the vote, he said that the city had spent years trying to develop the land and that it had negotiated protections for residents against utility price spikes.
But organizers of the recall said Mr. Perkins had failed to engage the public while the city negotiated with Nebius. They viewed it as part of a longer history of failed economic development projects in the city.
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