Jennifer-Ryan Barker holds up a sign expressing her opposition to a proposed data center being discussed during a special meeting of the Pacific Board of Aldermen at Pacific City Hall on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. Also pictured is Keith Ketcherside, seated to the right with a beard, whose property abuts Crooked Creek Farm, the suggested site for a 500-acre data center near Pacific.
David Carson, Post-Dispatch
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The letters were hand-delivered in the January cold, slid into mailboxes along Sugar Lake Road by an unknown person who had signed them, 鈥淎 Concerned Citizen.鈥
Jeannine Crider, center, of Washington, Mo., discusses a data center proposal with Eric Reichert and Jessica Nicodemo, both of Pacific, at a pizza party celeberating Pacific's decision to enact a 12-month moratorium on data center projects.
People line up to sign recall petitions for the Festus mayor and three City Council members after a council meeting at Festus High School on Monday, March 23, 2026.
Musician and entertainer Joyce Huston poses in her Ferguson home music studio on Friday July 10, 2026. Huston, whose stage name is Lady J, describes herself as the 鈥渕usic of the (no data center) movement鈥 and cofounded a group called Ferguson Advocates for Civic Transparency, or FACT.
Christian Gooden, Post-Dispatch
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Keith Ketcherside,聽photographed on Thursday, July 9, 2026, has a posterboard map of the site of a proposed data center near Pacific, Mo. Questions he has about the project are written on yellow Post-it notes. Ketcherside's 10-acre property abuts the site of the proposed project.
Franklin County Commission members Dave Schatz, left, Paul Overschmidt, center, and Ken Cox listen as data center developer Ryan Sanders, with Beltline Energy, addresses them during a public meeting at East Central College on Monday, May 18, 2026.
A view of Crooked Creek Farm in Pacific, Mo., on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. The farm is the proposed site for a 500-acre data center that Atlanta-based developer Beltline Energy is seeking approval for.
About 850 people attended the Franklin County Planning and Zoning Commission meeting at Union High School on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Speakers were overwhelmingly against two proposed data centers in the county.
The rules say where data centers could be built, how much noise and heat they can emit, and how much of their power will need to come from ren…
Jennifer-Ryan Barker holds up a sign expressing her opposition to a proposed data center being discussed during a special meeting of the Pacific Board of Aldermen at Pacific City Hall on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. Also pictured is Keith Ketcherside, seated to the right with a beard, whose property abuts Crooked Creek Farm, the suggested site for a 500-acre data center near Pacific.
Keith Ketcherside,聽photographed on Thursday, July 9, 2026, has a posterboard map of the site of a proposed data center near Pacific, Mo. Questions he has about the project are written on yellow Post-it notes. Ketcherside's 10-acre property abuts the site of the proposed project.
Musician and entertainer Joyce Huston poses in her Ferguson home music studio on Friday July 10, 2026. Huston, whose stage name is Lady J, describes herself as the 鈥渕usic of the (no data center) movement鈥 and cofounded a group called Ferguson Advocates for Civic Transparency, or FACT.
A view of Crooked Creek Farm in Pacific, Mo., on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. The farm is the proposed site for a 500-acre data center that Atlanta-based developer Beltline Energy is seeking approval for.
Franklin County Commission members Dave Schatz, left, Paul Overschmidt, center, and Ken Cox listen as data center developer Ryan Sanders, with Beltline Energy, addresses them during a public meeting at East Central College on Monday, May 18, 2026.
About 850 people attended the Franklin County Planning and Zoning Commission meeting at Union High School on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. Speakers were overwhelmingly against two proposed data centers in the county.
Jeannine Crider, center, of Washington, Mo., discusses a data center proposal with Eric Reichert and Jessica Nicodemo, both of Pacific, at a pizza party celeberating Pacific's decision to enact a 12-month moratorium on data center projects.
People line up to sign recall petitions for the Festus mayor and three City Council members after a council meeting at Festus High School on Monday, March 23, 2026.
