SHEBOYGAN — Sheboygan residents have been asking one pressing question for several months: Will there be a data center in their community?
The uncertainty stems from a business deal between the city of Sheboygan and Amazon for a project at Southpointe Business Park.
While the project is officially listed as a logistics facility, or more commonly referred to as a warehouse, some residents worry it could actually be a data center.
Lisa Salgado has been leading the charge against the deal.
"They're just going to keep moving up the lakeshore and looking for communities that are going to open the door to a data center," Salgado told me in November.
Watch: Sheboygan-Amazon warehouse deal approved, residents petition in opposition to any potential data centers
Her concerns were echoed by other residents, including Mark Goswitz and Mary Dotz, who attended the December Let's Talk Sheboygan County event at Paradigm Coffee and Music.
The opposition group has been vocal at city meetings, protesting the deal over concerns about transparency and the land sale price.
Despite the opposition, the Common Council voted last month to approve the deal for the logistics facility.
"We still don't believe the city," Goswitz said during our reunion at Paradigm this week.
Now, the group is taking its opposition a step further.
They're collecting 5,000 signatures, condemning any data center in the area, viewing the petition as a way to spread awareness and oppose potential data centers on the Amazon plot or other locations.
"We want the city to be doing what's best for the citizens, not best for a multi-trillion dollar company like Amazon," Goswitz said.
Dotz emphasized the need for clarity from city officials.
"We need you to be specific; we need guardrails here. We need to know that this is not going to be a data center," Dotz said.
The residents say they're not troublemakers but simply want transparency about what's happening in their community and how their tax dollars are being used.
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