Local approval: what candidates said
We sent every candidate on your ballot the same questions, whatever office they are running for. We wrote the options, so each one appears below once, with everyone who chose it. Candidates who wrote their own answer instead are shown in their own words, exactly as submitted.
Local approval
Should local governments be able to reject a proposed data center after the state has approved it?
- Yes. Local governments should hold final say over siting, with authority to reject a project outright regardless of state approval, and no state preemption of local zoning. The people who live with the noise and the substation should decide.
- Local governments should have a formal role in review and the ability to impose binding conditions on hours, noise, water and decommissioning, but not a unilateral veto once a project has cleared state environmental review.
- Siting belongs at the state level, where grid capacity, water availability and economic impact can be assessed together. A patchwork of local vetoes would make long-term planning impossible and push facilities toward the jurisdictions least able to negotiate.