‘They want to silence me’: Kansas residents sued by town over petition drive to ban data centers

A small town in Kansas is suing several petition organizers who say the city’s lawsuit is largely an attempt to muzzle them and intimidate future citizen activists.

Edgerton, a town of some 2,000 southwest of Kansas City, admits in its lawsuit that under state law the successful petition drive to ban high-impact data centers there forces the city to either adopt the ban or put it to a vote of the people.

But city officials have gone to court to block the requirement, saying the ban would harm the city, and arguing the proposed ban is an administrative matter that isn’t subject to forced elections under the initiative-and-referendum process.

One of the petition organizers, Carrie Schmidt of nearby Gardner, says there’s another reason she was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

“I think that they definitely want to silence me,” she told Heartlander News, adding that perhaps another desired effect of the lawsuit is to discourage future petition organizers – and even signers.

“You know, the citizens of Edgerton, why would they want to put their name on a petition again if they have a chance where they could just be randomly chosen by a city attorney and city staff to be a defendant [in a lawsuit].”

The city argues it named Schmidt and another petition organizer in the lawsuit because someone with an interest in the case had to be named, and because the petition organizers “have an obvious interest in what happens in court and we wanted to make sure they were notified and involved in that process.”

Moreover, the city’s attorney invited “anyone who signed the petition” to “request that they be added [as a defendant] if they would like to be heard in court.”

Attorney Linus L. Baker of Stilwell, who is defending the lawsuit on behalf of Schmidt, fellow petitioner Kimberly Twente, and their nonprofit Public Trust Collective Inc., says suing Schmidt and Twente wasn’t necessary at all. He says if the city wanted the court to rule on the sufficiency of the petition it could’ve merely named a city official as a defendant.

In a statement to Heartlander News, Baker facetiously writes of the city’s tactics:

“In a breakthrough for civic engagement, Edgerton has apparently pioneered a participatory litigation model of democracy, where signing a petition is merely the onboarding step and the real ‘involvement’ begins when City Hall sues you. …

“It’s grassroots democracy, except the grass is on fire and the roots have been served with a summons.”

Baker argues that, as did Twente, Schmidt “circulated a petition and delivered it. Her role was essentially over at that point.” Further, he notes Schmidt can’t take any of the governmental actions required of the city under petition law. So, he asks, what can a judge tell Schmidt to do or not do at this point?

For Schmidt, the citizen petition is simply about good, old-fashioned civic involvement.

“It’s to give the citizens their voice back so that they can decide whether or not they want a hyperscale data center within their city limits,” she says.

Schmidt notes that, while the city seeks to block the public vote on a data center ban, it last year administratively greenlit a data center proposal for Dubai-based company DAMAC Digital Solutions.

The proposal was denied by the city’s planning commission, but that decision was overturned last month by a unanimous vote of the city council. “Public comment was not permitted” at that city council meeting, KSHB-TV reports.

As a result of the council’s action, it appears that Schmidt’s petition, and the public vote it requires, is the only standing in the way of the data center.

Though technically a Gardner resident, Schmidt has something of a personal stake in the issue: she lives just six minutes from the proposed data center, she says.

Schmidt’s past activism in Gardner, and the national attention it has attracted, inarguably makes her a higher-profile figure for a local government to take note of: Last year, through dogged pursuit of school district officials, Schmidt managed to unearth the fact that Gardner Edgerton High School had been quietly allowing a biological male into the girls’ locker room.

In addition, Schmidt was banned indefinitely early last year from all Gardner Edgerton Unified School District 231 property and events – and even those at other school districts’ facilities involving Gardner Edgerton. That ban was quickly overturned by a judge.

Her crime: having taken a photo of a sex-related poster at the school, the image of which went viral on the popular X account Libs of TikTok. Schmidt is currently suing the district over her ban.

Schmidt also has drawn the ire of the school board for her tenacious efforts to weed out library books with inappropriate sexual references and themes.

In the current case, Baker says some of the city’s positions toward the petition organizers could be considered menacing – and unnecessary.

“Carrie did not enact the ordinance,” he says, “and does not control what the governing body or election officials do with the petition. The lawsuit takes what is basically a dispute over the city’s legal obligations after receipt of an initiative petition and attempts to turn the petition circulator into the defendant.”

Baker has filed a “motion to strike” Schmidt from the lawsuit under the state’s Public Speech Protection Act. Baker says the legislation – known as an anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law, is designed to quickly dispose of “claims that are based on a person’s exercise of speech, petition, or association rights unless the plaintiff can show that it is actually likely to obtain the relief it is seeking.”

Baker’s motion to strike also asks the court to award Schmidt costs and attorney fees from the city for its lawsuit against her.

Although the Kansas Legislature last year enacted financial incentives for new data centers, Edgerton isn’t the only place local citizens are rising up to ban them. Residents of El Dorado east of Wichita produced a petition similar to Edgerton’s – and, as Edgerton, El Dorado has gone to court to stop a public vote on the ban.