A group of petitioners in the Trenton area has elevated a battle to ban data centers to the Ohio Supreme Court after city council members voted to reject their initiative to put a vote on the November ballot.
In response, the Supreme Court opened an expedited election case and issued a summons to the City of Trenton, Mayor Ryan Perry and every council member Thursday.
We reached out to Barry Blankenship, who has led the signature-gathering effort, after they filed the lawsuit and asked what he thought when council voted 4-3 in a special meeting Tuesday to reject their initiative.
"What that tells me is, they are afraid to let the people of Trenton decide," Blankenship said.
WATCH: We break down the lawsuit before the Ohio Supreme Court
City Attorney Nick Ziepfel laid out the options before council at the special meeting:
- Decide that the term "electors" in the city charter referred to all registered voters active during the previous election cycle, requiring the petitioners to gather 820 valid signatures to get the initiative before voters.
- Decide that the term "electors" in the city charter referred to all voters who cast a ballot in the previous election, requiring petitioners to gather 128 valid signatures to get the initiative before voters.
The council decided the former tally of 820 was appropriate, making the 336 valid signatures gathered by petitioners well short of the goal.
The Butler County Board of Elections determined 128 signatures were sufficient to get the measure on the ballot, based on advice from the Butler County Prosecutor's Office.
Prosecutor Mike Gmoser said he did not do the math for the Board of Elections and instead provided the legal basis for determining the number of signatures required.
"I did it only on the basis of the question that was posed to me by the Board of Elections, and I answered it. I am satisfied that I have answered correctly," Gmoser said.
He did not comment further due to the pending case before the Supreme Court.
Blankenship said he immediately contacted the group's attorney when the petition was rejected.
"If Trenton doesn't want to hear us, and Trenton doesn't want to feel like we have a right, we'll take them to the Supreme Court, as we did," Blankenship said.
Blankenship and others have been fighting the already-under-construction Prologis data center south of Kennel Road and the newly announced Amazon Web Services project on what is now land controlled by Madison and St. Clair townships, but eyed for annexation by Trenton.
The Supreme Court gave the city and council members three days to file a response to the summons.
READ THE FULL LAWSUIT HERE:
TRENTON, Ohio — Supreme Court Petition by
