The Ohio Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Ashville Fiscal Officer April Grube could not refuse to certify a petition submitted by opponents of a data center project.
Ashville residents collected signatures to put a referendum on the November ballot to repeal the Pickaway County village's preliminary agreement with EdgeConneX.
The company plans to build two data centers and a natural gas power plant on about 195 acres of village property.
The agreement lays out EdgeConneX's financial obligations to the village and exempts it from Ashville's data center moratorium. Council passed the resolution as an emergency, making it effective immediately.
Village clerks have limited authority to decide the validity of a referendum petition and can typically refuse to submit a petition to the local board of elections if it deals with an emergency measure.
The state Supreme Court opinion, however, says that because council didn't give specific reasons for the emergency, citizens have the right to call for a referendum.
Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann represents the opposition group Data Center Resistance, which filed in support of the residents.
“I think it's really terrific that the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously stood up and enforced the constitutional right that citizens have to a referendum, particularly when there's no emergency associated with the legislation," Dann said.
Dann said he thinks this could be the first citizen vote on data centers.
Despite the court's ruling, the referendum is not guaranteed to make the ballot. The Pickaway County Board of Elections can still block the repeal effort, if it decides the resolution was an administrative action, which voters cannot overturn.
"I guess it's up to them what they want to do and what they can do," said Ashville Mayor Roger Clark.
Clark added that it had been up to the court to decide if Ashville was "right or wrong" in blocking the referendum effort.
"I'm not an attorney and I don't understand other than the judgment was ruled in favor of the plaintiffs here," Clark told WOSU.
The deadline to submit a petition to the board of elections was Aug. 5, but the Ohio Supreme Court ordered the Pickaway County board to consider the petition to have been filed on time, despite the delay.
