Missouri Incumbents Voted Out a Week After Ignoring Public Pressure on Data Center

Conservative News DailyApril 8, 2026

In Festus, Missouri, a broad voter backlash reshaped the city’s leadership after a heated debate over a proposed data center.Four incumbent city council members who were up for re-election were decisively defeated, replacing half of the eight-seat council. The election followed the council’s decision to move forward with CRG Clayco’s planned data center project despite notable resident opposition.

New voices emerged, including Dan Moore, who won the Ward 3 seat and said the community’s protest has awakened residents to demand better accountability. He and others criticized a lack of transparency in the project’s approval process. In ward 4, Rick Belleville also emerged as part of the changes, voicing concerns about governance and promising a more community-driven approach to challenges ahead.

Opposition to the data center persists, with residents arguing the project could affect property values, health, and local tax revenues, and noting secret meetings and insufficient facts. A petition to recall the mayor and several council members has circulated as part of ongoing efforts to challenge the leadership.

Media coverage and public reaction depicted a highly mobilized community, including protests and social media posts criticizing the decision to proceed with the data center despite widespread objection.

Democracy roared Tuesday in Festus, Missouri, as all four sitting city council members up for election were defeated.

The council last week ignored resident opposition and voted to move forward with a massive data center project, according to St. Louis Today.

Tuesday’s vote replaces four of the council’s eight members. Incumbents were walloped by margins of 30 percentage points and more.

“This data center fight has struck this community to the core and really, honestly ignited a community-driven effort here,” Dan Moore, who won the race for the Ward 3 council seat, according to STLPR.

“People are awake now, and we’re not going to let this continue on anymore,” he said.

CRG Clayco’s Festus project has drawn opposition, even though City Administrator Greg Camp has talked up the project as a chance for growth and increased tax revenue for multiple jurisdictions.

“’It’s unlike anything that any of these, certainly the city, or any of those institutions, have ever seen before,” Camp said last year.

But residents have clamored for a halt to the project and were infuriated when city officials called the group “uneducated.”

“We have been ignored for way too long,” Moore said. “It has been a problem in Festus for quite some time. I think this has just brought it to the surface.”

This is literally insane

So many people showed up to oppose a $6 billion dollar data center in Missouri they had to use bleachers

The whole crowd yells and chants they don’t want the data center

Festus City Council voted to approve the data center anyway right in their faces pic.twitter.com/I9xOyK9U4p

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 3, 2026

Rick Belleville, the new Ward 4 council member, said he and others opposed to the project were irked that the data center approval process was not transparent.

“We’re going to approach those challenges as a community and not as a group of people who don’t listen to us,” Belleville said.

Spectrum News said residents have dug in their heels against the center.

“We are voting anti-data center and those who support it are not supporting the people of this community,” resident Shari Hongsermeier-Baxter said.

“This election is important because of the mayor and council members that have been untruthful and having secret meetings,” resident Tyler Scott said.

“It’s going to affect my property value. It’s going to affect my family’s health,” he said. “There’s just not been enough research done by the council itself.”

The election is not the end of opposition to political leaders who backed the center. A petition to recall the mayor and sitting council members is being circulated.

“We were pushed away as saying that we were just a vocal minority of just 50 people, but a lot of folks are signing the petition for the recall,” resident Andrew Smreker said.