Anger over AI data center drives Missouri city’s voters to recall council member

Voters in Independence, Missouri, voted to recall a city council member over his decision in March to back billions of dollars in tax breaks for an AI data center.

Voters in Independence, Missouri, on Tuesday night voted to recall a city council member who has served for over a decade, rebuking his decision in March to back billions of dollars in tax breaks for a proposed artificial intelligence data center.

The recall effort comes amid escalating backlash nationwide against the rapid proliferation of data centers that is influencing federal and local races ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Independence City Councilmember John Perkins was recalled on Tuesday, with nearly 70 percent of his city council district voting to remove him from the council, according to unofficial election results from Jackson County.

The anger in Independence, a Kansas City suburb with 121,000 residents, over the construction of a data center on the city’s eastern flank has been mounting for months.

In March, Perkins was one of five council members who voted to issue tax breaks totaling more than $6 billion to the Dutch company Nebius for the construction of the planned $150 billion AI data center.