Ever since Monterey Park’s months-long fight against a data center culminated with a successful anti-data center ballot initiative in June, more populist, anti-technology development waves have sprung up across Los Angeles County.
As November’s election draws closer, the anti-data center wave has transformed community organizers into political candidates, catalyzed by themes that spurred them during months of intense activism focused on local government transparency.
Grassroots anti-data center organizers Steven Kung, from Monterey Park, and Amy J. Wong, from Alhambra, are running for office on the November ballot, challenging the status quo.
In Monterey Park, Kung co-led efforts as a co-founder of No Data Center Monterey Park to pass a historic data center ban that made the city the first in California to ban data centers citywide through public vote, after developer HMC StratCap proposed a hyper-scale center in Saturn Park, just a five-minute walk from his house.
Now, Kung’s riding the anti-data center wave – in effect, leading it.
He’s running against District 5 incumbent Vinh Ngo in November, in what he calls a challenge to the status quo that “has been very complacent and friendly to big tech and industry.”
“Throughout the data center fight, people didn’t feel represented by the city council,” Kung said. “The more we spoke, the more we felt like we had to pull teeth from some of the council members, and so I started getting pressured early on from neighbors to consider a run for city council.”
Kung and Wong’s anti-data center stances follow nationwide angst over data centers that has sparked discussion from rural American towns to the White House.
The massive structures house computer systems that store and move data. In the age of artificial intelligence, they have become vital to the nation’s AI tech boom.
But they have emerged, like AI itself, as a flashpoint in the November midterm elections.
That’s resulted in candidates across the aisle pledging anti-data center stances, like Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy calling for a data center moratorium until eventual legislation, and former Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial nominee Francesca Hong calling for a “full moratorium … to protect our energy costs, our economy, our environment.”
According to a May Gallup poll, seven in 10 Americans opposed constructing data centers in their local area, with nearly half of total participants being strongly opposed.
While some leaders say such centers are part of a modern economy, communities are pushing back on the environmental costs of such centers – including the power and water they consume, and who ultimately pays those costs.
Kung and Wong, at the leading edge of opposition in L.A. County, tapped into the need for transparency in local government as developers sought to build such centers in local towns.
Even as their battle was playing itself out, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to study the potential strain on public utilities and possible health effects with a report expected soon.
El Monte passed a 45-day data center moratorium prohibiting processing, approval and acceptance of new data center land-use applications.
A developer recently withdrew a proposal to build a massive data center in El Segundo after hearing droves of residents oppose the project.
Part of Kung’s campaign for city council — centered around “real two-way community engagement” — was created in part with the four other NDCMPK organizers.
For Kung, transparency for projects through increased communication lines is a necessity in Monterey Park – a lesson drawn from the battle over the Monterey Park plan.
Across multiple meetings earlier this year, residents turned out in swaths to Monterey Park’s City Council chambers for the first time to speak before the council. Many cited not having known about a data center project, despite living within proximity to Saturn Park.
Common project concerns from residents included air and water pollution, increased utility rates from strain on the electrical grid and potential fire hazards.
And while developer HMC StrapCap complied with state law during outreach efforts – for public hearings regarding land use and zoning, a project applicant must mail notices to any tax-paying property owner within 300 feet of the site ten days prior – concerns extended far beyond the notification radius.
According to Kung’s website, transparency looks like increasing mailing notices to a 2-mile radius, from 300 feet; emailing newsletters and publishing notices in local news sites.
According to environmental law attorney Douglas Carstens, cities notifying residents is an attainable feat for cities who could “charge the applicant a fee for providing notice.”
“How much does it really cost to send notice to 500 people, compared to the cost of surprising constituents with a project that they knew nothing about,” Carstens said. “The city knew about it for a long time and never told anybody more than the applicant. That backlash would be more costly to relations with the public, with the applicants, with the city councils, than imposing a rather negligible cost of giving notice early on in the process.”
Had community organizers not known and informed the community about there being a data center presented before Council late last year, Kung said the project could have passed unbeknownst to residents.
“If our city council had shut down the data center without us knowing, if they had communicated to us that a data center was coming, we wouldn’t have had the movement,” Kung said. “As empowering as it was, it was really exhausting. We shouldn’t have to go through that again.”
Looking to November, Kung hopes residents maintain the same level of civic engagement that passed the data center ban with 88% of the vote in June. He hoped voters would remember him as a pivotal to the milestone.
But incumbent City Councilmember Vinh Ngo, will have something to say about that.
Ngo said the record he’s running on “delivered on improving the City.”
“When HMC StratCap’s proposal surfaced, residents spoke up … and our council listened,” Ngo said, taking issue with Kung’s claim that he was once supportive of the data center. “Let’s be clear about the calendar: the moratorium took weeks, not months … . Data centers were stopped in January and our council never let up.”
Ngo said that residents he talked to were appreciative of his efforts, including proposing the moratorium, proposing the city attorney draft the citywide ordinance and proposing putting Measure NDC on the ballot.
He also added that his record includes past work, such as delivering three consecutive balanced budgets with more than $6.6 million in surpluses, resurfaced tennis and pickleball courts, upgraded senior facilities and expanded police and fire services.
“I hope the organizers stay involved and work with us at City Hall to improve our city,” Ngo said. “We have opportunities for commission seats and engagement hearings where decisions about our future are being made. We can deliver better when we know what the community needs are.”
In Alhambra, Amy J. Wong said she has done exactly that. She said her priority is listening to the community.
She’s a commissioner for Alhambra’s historic preservation committee. Before that, she served as an El Monte planning commissioner for five years, where she worked with El Monte High School students to update Housing and Public Health and Safety Elements.
Now, after she “championed” Monterey Park’s data center fight – which includes hosting community teach-ins, informational tabling, creating flyers for canvassing residents and campaigning in other cities like Alhambra to place citywide data center ballot initiatives – Wong is running for Alhambra District 1’s open seat to “improve on responsiveness” within the city.
“Who gets to protect our most vulnerable and working-class families?” Wong said. “Right now, state and local leadership are figuring out moratoriums,” adding that local governments are unique in their ability to “urgently respond.”
Notwithstanding her history of community organizing, according to Wong, Monterey Park’s data center fight prompted both her and Kung to run, albeit independent from one another.“I’ve spent the last 12 years working alongside San Gabriel Valley residents – advancing public health, protecting our San Gabriel Mountains, and now protecting our communities from data centers,” Wong said. “I’ve listened to community members, turned their concerns into action, and built coalitions to get things done. I’ll bring that same collaborative, solutions-oriented approach to Alhambra City Council.”
Alhambra could be the second city in California to pass a citywide data center ban by ballot initiative, if Measure DB passes.
Wong said she plans to continue until November canvassing residents with both the anti-data center momentum and her own platform: an accessible, responsive government, housing access for all given Alhambra’s “unique character” and revitalizing downtown’s vacancies and public spaces.
Ron Sahu, who will face off against Wong in November, plans to, too.
He has served on Alhambra’s planning and environmental sustainability commissions; fought for “transparency and accountability” with Grassroots Alhambra since 2018; and while he wasn’t involved in Monterey Park’s data center fight, he’s “opposing a data center as a technical expert by Elon Musk in Mississippi.”“I’m running as a citizen who has a long and deep record in this district, so we’ll see if that resonates with the voters here,” Sahu said.According to Sahu, while data centers and Measure DB are important topics, residents he’s spoken to say neither are “top-of-mind” for the November ballot. He said traffic congestion, the scale, density and compatibility of developments and sustainably balancing housing needs with existing developments are common.
“Data centers wouldn’t be on the top 10 of issues in District 1,” Sahu said. “I’m sure somebody like Amy will want to make it an issue, and that’s her prerogative.”
Jack Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, said the topic of data centers could still turn out voters in Alhambra this November – and it might impact who gets the open seat.
“The whole issue of data centers has become a high, high-profile matter, both in California and throughout the country, so it’s very possible that this could be a top-of-mind issue for a lot of voters,” Pitney said. “Barack Obama came out of the community organizing tradition in Chicago, and he foregrounded that during the 2008 campaign, and it was very successful for him.”
The election is Nov. 3.
“We want change,” Wong said. “This is us meeting the moment for change.”
Joshua Silla is a correspondent with the Southern California News Group.