A bid to recall Sand Springs city councilors over how they handled a controversial data center proposal has failed, according to the city clerk’s office.
Grassroots organization Protect Sand Springs Alliance submitted more than 1,600 signatures on a recall petition in protest of council actions to approve a Google-backed data center campus in February The petition did not have the necessary amount of verified signatures, according to a city media release.
“I am very appreciative of the many calls and signs of support from our community,” Sand Springs Mayor Jim Spoon, who was not among the officials targeted in the recall, said in a Tuesday statement. “I am equally thankful that the vast majority of our community politely declined to sign the petition as a show of support to the City Council who faithfully serves this community.”
The recall effort started just a day before council was scheduled to consider a zoning application for Project Spring, a proposed hyperscale data center backed by Google. Last month, Sand Spring residents gathered outside of City Hall as Sand Springs resident Kyle Schmidt sought to submit the signatures to the county clerk’s office desk.
Schmidt said there were only enough signatures to recall three councilors: Cody Worrell of Ward 1, Matt Barnett of Ward 2 and Mike Burdge of Ward 3. The Sand Springs city charter requires a recall petition to obtain at least 20% of registered voters in the ward before a recall election is set.
But the city determined that while there were enough initial submitted signatures to exceed the requirements in Wards 2 and 3, many were invalid because they were not registered voters, not registered in the right ward or lived outside Sand Springs, amid other issues.
“In the interest of bringing clarity to the situation, the City Clerk’s office examined the petitions and found that even if the argument had been accepted as valid, the result would have still fallen well short of the number required for recall,” the city press release states.
City Council paved the way for Project Spring in February with a 6-1 vote approving the rezoning of 827 acres for the facility. Wilson was the only councilor to vote against the data center that evening. Controversy grew among Sand Spring residents due to the city annexing land outside of the city limits located along Highway 97.
Other residents who lived outside of city limits were told they had no voice in determining whether the city could approve the facility or not. Protect Sand Springs Alliance has filed a lawsuit against the city in an effort to stop data center construction from moving forward.
A Tulsa-based nonprofit group focused on land conservation followed up with another lawsuit alleging the owner of the land violated a land agreement by allowing the city to use the land for the purpose of building the facility. Those lawsuits remain pending.
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