How to Stop A Data Center in Your Backyard

When the people of Monterey Park found that their local government was going to approve a 250,000-square-foot data center just 500 feet from their homes, they organized. And within a few months, the developer withdrew their application.Andrew Yip, an organizer with SGV Progressive Action, tells L.A. TACO that the organization’s success started with their “existing network of volunteers,” noting that “the community was able to jump in at a moment's notice.” SGV Progressive Action was founded in 2020 to “address the Black Lives Matter uprisings," Yip says. "To support our Black community." Then it organized local resolutions advocating for a ceasefire in Palestine, and built a lending library in El Monte called Matilija Collective, where they trained volunteers in community defense against ICE, hosted organizers, and stored 20 canopies and a speaker system. "So that existed," Yip says.In November, a community member who had come to a council meeting for other business saw the data center on the agenda and called on SGV Progressive Action. "They asked if we can take a look at this," Yip says. "And see if that's something that communities should be concerned about."All that was needed was one last council vote. But the developer requested a delay to the next meeting. "Had they voted that day, it would have been done, right? It would have been done," Yip says. “But we found out about it, and we turned out hundreds of people to the next meeting.”CA PUBLIC RECORDS ACTUnder California's Sunshine Laws, local governments are required to turn over agendas, meeting minutes, attendance records, and emails. SGV Progressive Action immediately filed public records requests. "That's really how we found out," Yip says.The records showed city planners had given their blessings to the data center, saying it would not result in any “significant environmental impacts.” They had used the developer's own impact assessment in place of a more thorough state environmental review. The records also showed the city had held a series of community meetings to ask residents what should be built at 1977 Saturn Street, but only notified people living within 500 feet. Each meeting drew between 20 and 60 people.

Residents who were there told Yip and other organizers that the city clerk brought in people who backed the data center. It won with roughly 20 votes.“Twenty-something votes determined [that] residents here wanted a data center,” Yip says. ”That just seemed like a weird recommendation coming out of a community town hall.”Council Member Thomas Wong, who would vote for having the data center, also works at the power company that would sell its electricity.The developer also bought a larger property at 1980 Saturn Street across the street. The data center trade magazines reported that these were part of a 13-parcel assembly, all meant for data centers. Yip asked the developers what they planned to do with 1980 Saturn; they said they were not authorized to discuss it.NO DATA CENTER MPK & THE INFORMATION CAMPAIGNThe residents of Monterey Park bought the domain No Data Center MPK. “And we had a ton of people come out to support, whether it's walking the neighborhoods, distributing fliers, calling folks, creating artwork,” Yip says. “It was a big showing.”They went door-to-door to tell their neighbors what the city had not told them: The data center would use twice as much electricity as all of Monterey Park. The 14 “backup” generators would burn 200,000 gallons of diesel every year, without a blackout. And more when the grid price was high.They held a teach-in. 150 people came. “We have a lot of very smart residents who were able to do a lot of this research and fact-finding. Many of the residents we work with are researchers or hold PhDs, and they work in universities. So they know how to find this information,” Yip says. One resident 3D-printed a model of the data center to show just how much of the neighborhood’s space it would take up. Another resident mixed noise recordings from data centers and played them over a loudspeaker. You couldn't hear the birds. Two dozen people in Virginia who lived near a data center were ready to fly out to testify on their own dime. “Virginia became ground zero for data center proliferation,” says Yip. “The people didn't know enough about data centers at the time.”The vibrations and noise never stop, the people from Virginia warned.

The reported sound levels of 60db and higher are far from the data center. They have taken to sleeping in their basements. Neither a decibel meter nor the law measures vibration.Yip and the organizers found that almost nobody in Monterey Park that they spoke to had heard of the data center. The city’s notification had only reached 40 people living within 500 feet of its proposed location, in English. The neighborhood is 65 percent Asian and 27 percent Latino. The community’s outreach was done in at least three languages, five when necessary. It extended to all the surrounding neighborhoods.“Data centers, their pollution, and their effects don't just stop at the border,” Yip says.They started a petition in English, Chinese, and Spanish. It grew to 4,500 signatures.THE DEVELOPERS & THE DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGNThe developers retained a law firm with 1,000 attorneys on four continents. They hired Actum, the lobbying firm that represents Amazon and Clorox. Actum lists Trump’s former chief of staff as a partner and another who exploited a loophole so large that California had to legislate to close it."The applicant sent a letter to the city council talking about misinformation being spread, and that was exactly what the council members said," Yip tells us. "They just parroted the same talking points."The political lobbyists canvassed neighborhoods and local shops. "One of the public benefits of the project they were touting was a pocket park ... The pocket park is basically just leftover land on their property that they didn't really need for the data center," Yip says.They promised 200 jobs and, in the same conversation, no traffic. “Our people would poke holes in it,” Yip says. “Why wouldn't there be cars in that facility if you're going to have a lot of employees?”No Data Center MPK retained an environmental and land use attorney. They recommended an ordinance banning data centers immediately, then to reinforce it with a ballot measure.They set up a one-click email so residents could send comments to City Council demanding both.Hundreds showed up to the next three council meetings. “We played mahjong on the City Hall lawn while we waited.

We had a lion dance right outside to cheer people on as they entered the council chambers,” Yip says. The chambers filled, overflowing into the aisles and hallways.The first meeting produced a 45-day ban on data centers, the second brought a ballot measure that would ban them forever. During the third meeting, opponents of the data center called for a rally at 5:30 p.m. before the 6:30 p.m. meeting. Steven Kung, the Monterey Park resident who purchased the No Data Center MPK domain, addressed the developers, their lawyers, and the lobby firm directly.“You’re fighting an uphill battle against an entire city that doesn’t want you here and yet you continue to bully your way into this community of color, to pollute the air we breathe, to make electricity more expensive, to devalue our homes, to drain our energy and resources like a parasite,” Kung says. “You think you can take us on? You’ve messed with the wrong city. ”On March 31, the developer withdrew its application.“They underestimated the community's passion. And we never underestimated them. And I think that was a good strategy,” says Yip.The FPPC, California’s political ethics commission, saw the data center would have a “material financial effect” on councilmember Wong. His power to vote on them was stripped.Yip says the people who joined for the fight over 1977 Saturn Street have overwhelmingly stayed active with SGV Progressive Action."They recognize it's not just about data centers. It's about building community and protecting your community," he says.The volunteers who organized against the data center are now working to strengthen sanctuary ordinances to protect their communities from ICE.“And now we have a coalition of all these community members coming from La Puente, Avocado Heights, Rowland Heights, and Hacienda Heights coming together to fight this common enemy. And I'm just going to name it the City of Industry,” Yip says.NO DATA CENTERS SGV COALITIONSamuel Brown Vazquez rode ten miles horseback from Avocado Heights to the Monterey Park council meeting. Vazquez is a community organizer and founding member of the Avocado Heights Vaqueros.

The City of Industry is in the process of approving zoning changes that would clear the way for three data centers and battery energy storage that would affect the residents of Hacienda Heights, La Puente, Walnut, Diamond Bar, West Covina and others.The Avocado Heights Vaqueros, SGV Progressive Action, and others organized across city and county lines. “We created an infographic and started mobilizing folks,” Vazquez says. They are No Data Centers SGV Coalition.Like Monterey Park, they canvassed door-to-door, showed up to every City of Industry meeting, started a petition, and filed public records requests.The record requests showed the City of Industry had been discussing zoning changes with developers at Puente Hills Mall, Madrid Middle School, and two battery storage facilities near Hacienda Heights. All just feet from homes and schools.In February, the city unanimously rezoned Puente Hills Mall for battery storage. Months earlier, the city manager, Joshua Nelson, emailed the developers that they were working to allow data centers anywhere in the city.Again, organizers found that people had no idea what the city was planning to put next to their homes. Battery centers burned for days when they caught fire. One at Moss Landing had spilled 55,000 tons of nickel, cobalt, and lithium.“Maybe only one or two people had heard," said Sophia Ramirez, an organizer and the daughter of Zacatecan immigrants. “That was pretty shocking.”' Ramirez, a Cal Poly biology grad, explained in the outreach, in plain language, how PM2.5 and PM10 particles could slip past the body's filters into the lungs, then the blood. The No Data Center SGV petition grew to 18,000 signatures.In Monterey Park, the people who organized were also the people who vote. In the City of Industry, there hasn’t been a competitive election in 10 years, and only four since 1957. State law says when fewer people run than there are open seats for, a city doesn't have to hold an election. The City of Industry council appoints its council members and some of its members are descendents of the original founders.