A small city just voted on AI and the result could ripple nationwide
By Taylor Hatmaker
Published on April 9, 2026.
Voters in the Milwaukee suburb of Port Washington have voted to limit the construction of future data centers, unless the community has a say. The measure was passed through a grassroots effort that required collecting signatures across the 12,000-person town. The vote was prompted by a controversial project in the area, the Vantage Data Centers Lighthouse Campus, a $15 billion computing hub for OpenAI and Oracle, which is part of a $500 billion Trump-backed initiative known as "Stargate". The ordinance will require approval from voters for tax breaks for development projects over $10 million. However, it will not halt construction of an AI data center project that began in December.
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