JANESVILLE — After more than two hours of public comment, the Janesville City Council on Monday evening voted 7-0 to put a direct-legislation ordinance to referendum on the November ballot.
If passed, the ordinance would require a referendum for any development project at the publicly-owned GM/JATCO site with project costs exceeding $450 million.
That means any possible referendum on the data center proposed for the site won’t happen until next year.
Watch the public hearing on the JATV YouTube channel HERE.
As in previous meetings, opponents of the data center turned out in large numbers to speak. Others supported sending the measure to referendum to give the community more time to understand the impact of a data center.
Ultimately, that’s what council members said they wanted when they voted to approve putting the direct-legislation ordinance to referendum.
The council also could have approved the ordinance outright, which would put a vote on the data center project on the November ballot, but the council declined to take up that option.
Last November, a grassroots No Janesville Data Center launched the direct legislation petition drive for the ordinance, collecting more than 4,000 signatures from Janesville residents.
In the meantime, the council last November approved a non-binding letter of intent with a developer who proposes bringing a data center to the city.
The letter of intent lays out what developer Veridian Partners needs to learn before entering into a more formal developers agreement. (Read the letter of intent here)