Oklahoma city council members welcomed a Google data center. Now they face a recall.

Sand Springs is one of a growing number of communities taking the radical step of tying to recall elected officials to fend off the AI construction boom.

SAND SPRINGS, Okla.— City Manager Mike Carter kicked off 2026 with news he promised would bring jobs, money and prosperity to the 20,000 residents of this Tulsa suburb: Google was interested in building its newest AI data center on 827 acres of farmland just outside town.

Two weeks later, a group of local residents marched into City Hall with paperwork for a ballot measure to recall the entire City Council, including Mayor Jim Spoon. They had also filed a lawsuit.

Mike Carter, city manager of Sand Springs, Okla., said the proposed data center is a potential economic engine for the area. September Dawn Bottoms for NBC NewsCarter had braced for a backlash. He knew well from his time as the city’s police chief what was likeliest to stir up otherwise friendly, law-abiding folks. “The toughest thing you will do is property issues,” he advised the City Council.

And this was a property issue. Opponents of Google’s Project Spring argue that the public has been left in the dark throughout the process, starting with annexation of land along Highway 97 into the city limits, so it could be connected to power lines. Kyle Schmidt, president of the Protect Sands Springs Alliance, and a team of volunteers are knocking on doors and collecting signatures for the recall campaign. “We don’t have any other recourse,” he said.

Though most recalls don't succeed, more communities are taking this radical step to try to fend off the AI construction boom. As tech giants prepare to spend an estimated $700 billion on new data centers this year alone, residents have been torn between the prospect of jobs and tax revenue versus the environmental and quality-of-life costs of the AI boom.