GROVE CITY — Attorney Jeffrey E. Buskirk, whose practice sits on Broadway in Grove City, wrote to his neighbors on Aug. 14 about the charter amendment headed for the November ballot.
The letter has unsettled the measure's supporters. It is worth reading for a reason they may not expect - it never mentions data centers.
Buskirk's summary of the amendment is the part that should give local voters pause. The change would require voter approval for any development that occupies 50 or more contiguous acres, draws more than 20 megawatts at peak, or uses more than 500,000 gallons of water per day.
Those are thresholds, not categories. Nothing in that language limits itself to buildings full of servers.
His first concern follows directly, and the petition text confirms it. The amendment does not exempt Mount Carmel Hospital — there is no health care carve-out anywhere in the document, and one section expressly bars any city official from granting one. Nor are the penalties nominal.
Fines start at $25,000 a day and escalate to $500,000 a day past 90 days. The petition's own worked example puts a 95-day violation at $17.9 million.
A quarterly report deemed materially false or incomplete draws another $50,000, and a violation found willful multiplies every daily fine by three. Whatever one thinks about data centers, few residents set out to put a hospital expansion under that schedule.
His second concern is about geography and time. If every significant project must survive an election, developers will seek land contiguous to Columbus and the surrounding communities instead. Grove City would gradually become landlocked, absorbing the traffic and infrastructure demands of growth at its borders while collecting none of the tax revenue.
City Council has tabled its vote on whether to endorse the amendment. The Ohio Supreme Court has a related signature case pending and, as of this writing, has not ruled. The delay is real. The campaign against development is not.
Buskirk asks only that voters consider these questions carefully. That is the right frame, and it is not a question about data centers. It is a question about what Grove City becomes when it makes growth a ballot measure.
Questions and comments are welcome at [email protected].